it is a matter of service and quality

This week has been full of customer service experiences. Sunday started it off with a bang when one customer called me “some sort of stupid” and ten minutes later, I was yelled at for not knowing whether the shoes that were left at home would fit the child in her arms; guess they thought I had special powers. Being on the receiving end of open hostility was terrible, I found it hard to let those customers’ anger leave with them and not carry it on with me to my next charge. For those of you who know me know I have exceptional customer service skills and so when both of these incidents happened I remained stout, smiling, bidding them adieu with sincere blessings. Yet I cannot help but wonder what they thought I owed them.

Yesterday I had a run in with good old corporate Wal-Mart and their lack of customer service skills. A very simple matter turned into a very complicated issue resulting in a total of two trips, two hours and five register transactions for one order. Not once did anyone say I am sorry for your inconvenience, let me see how we can work around this issue, or any sort of expression of a desire to aid me, the paying consumer. I think it is appalling how Americans don’t care about one another, corporations look at the bottom line versus the customer. People are grouped into “customer classifications” that are then “targeted” so that they spend as much money as possible to feed the pockets of the rich. We do not care about quality; we go for cheap, hence putting out of business the small hand crafted furniture guy. And why would we buy his merchandise when we can buy spray painted particle board for half the cost? And if we do not require quality in our product why would we assume to have quality in our care?