The Customer is Often Badly Wrong

The writer is exactly WHY customer service can be poor. I can see this as someone who receives customer service and is often displeased; but also someone who has a working career of giving it - and the appalling attitudes that I was subjected to. The author of the above mentioned article is one of the appalling ones.

I really wouldn't like to be on his team - with his anal and corporate lists and attitudes. He tells customer service givers who do not conform to his military envy syndrome-like work ethic to give up their jobs - not always easy to do, especially when customer service is your main work experience. I have high standards of what I expect, but having an employer and customers like this man explain why some staff do seem bored or hardened.

Many companies try to avoid using real people at all. Whoever thought of the concept of Frequency Asked Questions is a fool: we want OUR question to be personally answered, without the faff of clicking round a website, seeking an answer or a way to get in touch with a real person. By this time, I'm angry - and this is when the real person at the end of a phone or email encounters unnecessary wrath. Online sites are the worst. But our supermarkets are full of that ingratiating electronic woman telling us to 'insert cash' - how do the staff not suffer a form of tinnitus, with her voice on a loop? When I shop, I want a real person to serve me; and a machine means an axed job. Some libraries expect the public to do all their own issuing and discharging - not much of service; and the machine invariably goes wrong and gets stuck because the book you've discharged hasn't fallen exactly where the sensor is. And again I see fewer staff who are getting a more boring day.

And then there's the phone with the many stupid options; ironically or perhaps fittingly, BT [Britain's original telephone provider] is the worst for this. We live in a world of increasingly preset categories. You put your CV/résumé online - your job experience must fall under drop down menus, as must your benefit claim details and your customer service query, and even some dating sites expect your religion and attractiveness and favourite music to be chosen from their limited list. And what's worst, in the electronic world, you can't get past to the next stage without placating their little OCD-like need for all boxes to be ticked - their boxes, their choices, fielding all communication into expected categories. And then the staff who deal with them are probably only trained for that task, which again is boring for them.

The people at the top are thinking only of money saving, not of the service or the job satisfaction - of the way it is making society.

Thus, the thrust of my argument is, treat staff well from both sides of the counter and they will give better service. They'll be happy, motivated and therefore able to give the service that you the public want. And you, the employer will gain more too. But from an employer's perspective, it shouldn't only be the business sense in making staff happy that motivates you to treat them well: it should be humanity. We're losing that in our work places and public dealings, and I hope its detrimental effect is already clear.

Let me make a little treatise of best practice for customer service. We know as the public that we like our phone answered quickly, or presence to soon be acknowledged, that we like smiley father than frowny service, and we like people who have knowledge and enthusiasm.

However - sorry America - we don't like the 'have a nice day' style that's creeping over here. We like real people to answer us with their own words. If you're at the same restaurant chain regularly, as I am, I can tell that they have to ask me certain questions. No, I never want a side salad or starter - I'd have said so if I did, and your asking wont tempt me - it'll do the reverse. My most memorable experience from this nameless but now international chain was when I was asked down a rolled up tube if I was ready to order. Possibly stepping over the professional boundary and risking an annoyed diner, but it made me laugh and it felt unscripted, unlike so many other transactions. It's like the basic computer programming: if a$ [string]= (i.e. if the customer inputs the following into the customer service machine, I mean team member) then y= (then this is how you reply).

The customer is not always right. Julian Richer, behind the cheap but well informed British stereo selling chain, disappoints me with his placard above every store's cash desk that this is his only rule. It is tempting to ask if he has ever served on a counter, or if he has forgotten about that experience after making his fortune. It's the reason that this otherwise excellent chain has never received an application from me.

The customer should be treated warmly with respect, friendliness and wherever possible knowledge BUT this is retracted if any kind of abuse is given by the customer. That doesn't just mean shouting or throwing things. It means that snide tone, that bossy impatience, that patronising and demoralising behaviour that I have often seen in posher areas.

The customer can only expect good treatment if they give it. The assumption that the person on the phone or counter is merely a serving wench, someone beneath you and to serve you without any rights, needs to be squashed immediately. Often customer services have as many qualifications as you - perhaps more; not that qualifications and future potential to be greater than you is the only reason to salute a skivvy. A good secretary, shelf filler and call centre clerk are all valuable. I've heard people in certain professions - OK, teachers (also lawyers) - actually say to staff that they are better than the lowly server. One person was rude to 'the £6 an hour clerk' at the supply agency. The £6 an hour clerk who had the power to give him work or not. And why is this demanding job paid so badly? I've seen teachers go into bookshops and leave them in a state that they would not allow in their classrooms. I have been THAT close to telling them that.

Perhaps courses should be introduced to be good citizens and behave properly in customer service situations.

Really, this comes down to respect for others, and the need to clamp on those whose arrogance obscures them from what customers and staff deserve.