General Chat

I saw both sides to customer service this morning.
I went into a well known shoe shop to have a browse and an elderly gentleman came in. He looked around and then asked the mature assistant if they had a particular pair of shoes in his size. She replied abruptly 'they're on the shelf'. No attempt to help him at all. Needless to say both he and I walked out.
Then went into a well known chemist where another elderly gentleman was inquiring about something for a nail infection. The young assistant who admitted she had only been working three for 3 days advised him not to buy an expensive treatment but to see his GP instead.
What a difference.
I'm ashamed of the way the first gent was treated.
Really annoys me. Rant over
Di

Di,

You are so right. If one has this sort of experience you must complain...remember.. NO complaint means there is no problem.

I have had this sort of thing happen to me but instead of speaking to a manager, I have had a very quite word with that particular assistant. Yes I was quite, but I was very firm in what I said.

We do not have to put up with rudeness, manners cost so little.

Kathlyn

As it happens, today, I came out of the ladies at Tescos and ran into the man preparing to go in and clean. He was so surprised when I told him that the loos there were the cleanest open to the public that I had been in and were a pleasure to go in. He was delighted!

I completely agree. As I have years of experience in customer service, not in hospitality (face to face) and over the phone, we always get to hear when things go wrong, and rarely if ever get to hear when things are right. When a compliment does come in it's a very pleasant surprise, not because we got it right, but because someone actually said so.

Sometimes though, if only hearing complaints, the job can become very negative, so things have to be balanced by ratio of complaints to actual calls, and those complaints are usual in the region of 0.2% of all calls taken. That's not bad really. But, there are even less compliments, even when we get it right.

So yes, its always good to remember when things go right, that someone has put the effort into making sure it's right, it doesn't just happen. So a thank you, (almost as rare as compliments these days) doesn't go amiss.

Another example of good service. I deal with an Internet firm for inks for my printer and occasionally for the odd gadget. Recently I bought a Netbook from them and it seemed just what I wanted. Unfortunately,Bt, my ISP does not support Windows CE, which was the system installed on it. There was no way I could get on the internet. I explained the problem, and the firm told me to send it back. Having received it, they checked with me for the password so that they could delete everything I had put into the netbook. The day after that the money was back in my bank account.