Customer Service - What is this?

My friend Myles called me the other day to tell me about his frustrating shopping experience at Rona the other day. Apparently Myles was in a hurry (aren't we always?) and the person helping him behind the counter was unable to answer any of his questions, seemed unbothered by Myle's frustration and really didn't seem to have a clue about customer service.

This got me thinking...does customer service even exist any more?

I worked in a retail clothing store after I graduated from high school and I loved it. I liked the people I worked with, I liked the 20 per cent discount on clothing and I actually liked helping people! Seriously, I liked telling women what looked good on them, or helping all of those bewildered men at Christmas who were trying to shop for their wives. They came into the store with those deer in the headlight looks and almost always left feeling confident that their wives would cherish the boucle sweaters or fur trimmed jackets they just bought.

So what happened?

Why does it seem like everyone who works in customer service has a bad attitude and hates their job?

Not long ago I walked into a deli type of restaurant and went up to the counter to order. There were two people behind the counter talking. They would have both seen and heard me come in, but neither even glanced in my direction. I had to stand there patiently waiting for them to finish what I am sure was a very important conversation before I could order my sandwich.

"Really?" I thought to myself. WTF "Hello, I am a customer. I would like some service!"

And I had to laugh a few months back when Paul and I went to Pet Land. We were looking for some special type of fish food that we could leave in the tank while we went on vacation. We must have looked all over for about 15 minutes with no one offering to help us. We finally found what we thought we were looking for and went up to the front cash desk to pay. When we got to the desk we were greeted by two store staff.

The first asked if anyone helped us, so I tartly replied, "Nope we couldn't get help if though we desperately wanted it." The cashier must have not heard this remark because a few seconds later she turned to her co-worker and asked him if he was having busy day.

I laughed out loud when he replied, "Nah, it's dead in here. There are no customers."

I turned to Paul and said, "Ah hello, what are we?"

Television is not helping promote excellence in customer service...

I am referring to "Ryan" who works at A&W. In the last year, this guy has blown up the inflatable hamburger inside the restaurant, forgotten to ask the customers to pay for their meals and recently thought it was acceptable to order a burger from the drive thru when he was already knowingly late for work. This guy is an idiot and we are supposed to think it's funny that he seems incapable of handling the simplest tasks in a customer service environment.

How about Paul, the new guy who has been hired with Swiss Chalet. (NOT MY PAUL)This guy can't even manage to get through his first day of training before his boss realizes that he has walked away and instead is sitting in the restaurant enjoying lunch. The boss even remarks how, "Paul is going to go far in his career."

Are you kidding?

I certainly don't think my supervisor at Moxies twenty years ago would have been too happy to find me sitting in the restaurant digging into a plate of ribs on my first day!

Maybe instead of hiring people for customer services jobs we should offer them positions in customer tolerance.

Just a thought!