UNITED STATES—It happens, and you have to call it out when you see it. How often do you actually encounter bad customer service? I don’t encounter it all the time, but when I do it strikes me immediately because it’s obvious and you know it. With that said, I recently had an experience at an establishment that was just terrible. Of all places for this to happen it was at the grocery store.
You know how you have different stations like the deli, the meat counter and the bakery. I happened to be at the bakery because I was wanting to retrieve a specific item. There was a clerk behind the counter, and I know she saw me when she walked past me to do something initially. So, I’m waiting, and waiting and waiting, and waiting. It had to be at least five minutes, and then I just got fed up and said, “Excuse me, can I get some help?”
I know the clerk had seen me because she had glanced up for a second in between whatever the hell she was doing. That just is a stinging feeling as a customer. You don’t want to feel like you are being ignored and that your money is not appreciated. That is precisely how I felt, that this retailer did not care about me as a customer and that is the absolute worst feeling.
Might be important to note that I have not been back to the retailer since that incident. This is not to say that I will not return to that particular grocer, but I have decided to take a step back because I want them to realize my actual dollars matter and trust me, I spend quite a bit of money each time I visit this grocer. This is important to point out because it’s not just about retail establishments, this also applies to dealing with service providers.
Many of them tend to be the absolute worst because unfortunately some of them are monopolies and that shouldn’t be the case. You have to wait on the phone for minutes and I’m not talking a few minutes I’m talking 30 to 60 minutes in some cases before you can get a live person. A lot of the time you get someone from overseas, who doesn’t speak the best English and it can be difficult to understand what they are conveying and what you are tying to convey at the same time.
I think the most annoying aspect when dealing with a service provider is they don’t always try to help the consumer. It is like pulling teeth to get them to actually do what you need them to do, and then some of them have gotten so brazen they just dismiss you like you don’t even matter. Not everyone delivers top-tier customer service, but when you find those great ones, you love to stick to them, but the first time you have bad customer service it stings to the core.
You always remember the bad over the good, especially if it is really bad. Businesses can do better by acknowledging customers when they are in their presence. You don’t have to overdo it, but I’ve worked in retail. If you are super busy, you can still acknowledge the customer and let them know you’ll be right with them once you finish what you’re doing. Now if you’re on the phone, I don’t know much to do there beyond trying to find a way to have more staff accommodate the customers that you have.
It’s a shame that some of these providers just take our money and think nothing of it when a problem arises. You complain and complain and they act like they can’t fix the problem, but you still want me to pay you? In what world does that make any actual sense. It doesn’t. Sometimes you do have to venture away from the familiar to discover something that might be better. Sometimes we get too comfortable with mediocre and we should strive for the best we can possibly get.
Written By Jason Jones
