Thursday, March 02, 2006

The lost art of customer service

Ever wonder why we put up with so much bad manners from people who are getting paid to provide us with service? It's their JOB to help us, acknowledge us when we enter the business, be polite and nice and generally kiss our butts so that we become repeat customers.
Went grocery shopping today. At the till, gave the checkout girl a cheery "Hello" and received a grunt in return. I kid you not. A grunt. I believe it was in the key of G. Now I know she doesn't get paid that much more than minimum wage, and I know she stands for long hours in a day, and probably has a lot of heavy lifting to do - and I know these things because I used to do that job. And unless the person who came in was someone that I personally despised, I gave them a friggin' cheery "Hello" back and said "Thank you" while making eye contact and handing them their change. I did NOT mumble it while staring at my ripped cuticles, sigh then look at my watch.
Shoppers of the world, unite! The next time you get less service than you expect, nay, what you deserve, call them on it! I think if we all said "Hey, I'm spending money here and I believe you owe me some manners and consideration," things would really change. Or not.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

how come you didn't publish my comments was it a little to close to the panouse

Anonymous said...

ok ignore the last comment i made i see you did post my comment sorry