American Customer Service Sucks

I was born in 1947, and I received better customer service in the decade of the 1960's that I do now and I see that happening everywhere.

It is happening in healthcare, education, retail, travel and tourism, government, manufacturing, non-manufacturing, restaurants, service, law enforcement, and even in our Churches.

Now, I realize that we are only human but it seems to be happening everywhere like some sort of collective consciousness.

At first, one might attribute this to low wage hourly workers, but I receive poor customer service from Cardiologists, Surgical Oncologist, veteran law enforcement personnel, and PhD educators; not to mention all the various middle managers with whom I have had the pleasure of doing business with over the years.

I have been treated with contempt and scorned by fellow Church members for not doing this or that only to find out later that our precious minister had been charged and convicted of 3 DUIs over the last year which the Deacon did not tell the congregation for fear of losing memberships and revenues.

I have received “piss poor” service from a waitress or waiter who then complained that I did not leave a big enough tip.

Whenever I take my computer in because it is performing in a “funky” manner, I am made to feel stupid by the geeks behind the counter. I call them geeks not out of disrespect but because they call themselves the geek squad.

Customer service over the telephone is by far the worst and it seems, to me, to be worsening instead of getting any better, where the phone talkers try to blame you for the problems that you are having instead of helping to fix the problem.

And, most Americans know how law enforcement treats speeders when they are stopped for a traffic violation, and if we comment negatively or try to talk back, we are threatened to be arrested.

I would suspect that each and every one of us would be willing to pay a little to a lot more for an item if we knew we were going to be given outstanding customer service when we had a problem.

We contract with the local newspaper office for home delivery 7 days a week but typically do not receive one of those days each week, and yet, the newspaper has no problem problem collecting payment each month or each quarter.

Most of the products that we purchase on any given day, do not work as expected 3-6 months later and we have to take them in for repairs or replacement. Why do suppose that happens to customers in America? Do we not know how to manufacture quality anymore in this country?

The irony in all of this is that when we have a positive experience we typically say nothing but when we have a negative experience the data suggests that we tell 7 people... Word-of-mouth is the best and cheapest advertising that a company can receive so why is it so low down on their priorities for their employees, I wonder?

As a resident of your local community or as a citizen of the US, you might be interested in this fact. For every dollar that is spent in payroll, 8-10 dollars in economic impact is created according to data from the National Chamber of Commerce.

For instance, you work at a local retailer and get a weekly paycheck and after it is cashed, you put gasoline in your car. The person who owns that gas station takes your dollar and spends it on lunch during the week. That restaurant spend that dollar on local produce and that local farmer puts his kids in daycare and the daycare owner buys clothes for their family, etc., etc., etc.

That local payroll is also used to improve education, parks and recreation, transportation, sewers, garbage collection, law enforcement, and fire protection to name a few services.

And, I would think that most, if not all, of our elected local officials would know this stuff, so why are they not pushing for better customer service locally?

It is also very humorous, at least to me, how Americans travel overseas and as soon as they return back to the good old US of A, they complain about the poor customer service they received overseas.

Ain't that the pot calling the kettle black?

Do these kinds of values start at home with parents? I would say yes, I think it does. And, I would also say that these are not the values that I instilled in my daughter when she was living at home.

I recall one time, she was working at a sausage/biscuit place and was operating the register and a lady in line swore up and down that she handed my daughter a $100 bill and did not receive the correct change and my daughter claimed she only handed her a $10 bill that she laid on the register while she was collecting the change.

The customer, thinking that this young girl would be easily intimidated, especially with a long line of customers going out the door into a January cold morning, was totally amazed, when she shut the register down and hit balance and waited. The register balanced itself, proving that the lady only handed her a $10 bill.

Those in line waiting applauded my daughter for keeping her cool and maintaining a positive customer relations attitude instead of treating that customer with disrespect.

We have lost that quality in America, big time.