A great deal of energy is expended by many of the largest
business corporations persuading us that they are truly committed to providing
excellent customer service.
If my
experience is shared by other consumers looking for reasonable service from
businesses, then these claims are hokum.
I am
writing this from an Australian perspective, so mentioning specific names is
pointless, but I will give some examples of what I have experienced.
A large
department store chain is struggling to keep pace with its main competitor. The
retailing group owning the department store chain is considering selling off
the business, since they cannot see the solution to the poor performance. I
have shopped at this department store. One time, I found entering the store to be an
eerie, almost surreal experience. There were no people. Eventually, a few staff
members and customers ambled into view. I asked for directions to find a
product, and was told ‘to the left’ with the wave of an arm, and no eye
contact. A little later, I had to wait for the privilege of paying for the
item. Staff morale was obviously at rock bottom, and it was no fun to shop
there, so people did not bother. Any senior executive could surely have seen
and sensed what I did. Too obvious, I guess.
The
telephone company had a promotion which involved telemarketers calling and
offering a deal that included a free cell phone. When I received the call, the
telemarketer was based offshore, and had a heavy accent. To make matters worse,
the telephone line was appallingly bad – I could barely hear what was being
said. When I said I did not want a free cell phone the telemarketer demanded to
know why not. I ended the call as politely as I could. For a telephone company
to market its services over poor phone lines with a telemarketer who wants to
argue with potential customers simply defies belief.
I was in
one of our major banks, and overheard some conversation from the staff behind service
desk. One of the staff, obviously experienced, was dealing with what appeared
to be a young customer. She seemed flustered. When the ‘customer’ left, her
colleague leaned over and said ‘that was a shopper’, to which she replied ‘I
thought so’. The shopper was a phantom customer, used by the bank to check if
the staff members followed the prescribed formula to deal with a customer. This
branch of the bank dealt with customers who were both wealthy and of advanced
age, some a little eccentric. To use the formulaic approach would risk driving
them away.
We humans
are a gregarious species. We enjoy communicating with our fellows - we need to
be needed. We are hard wired to
cooperate, so helping one another should come naturally. But no, decision
makers, out of touch with day to day life, seem to come up with formulas to better
what we do naturally. As I said at the start – hokum.