Michelle Kaplan

When Good Service Goes Bad

OK everybody, you can come out now, the holidays are officially over. It’s safe. Who doesn’t love spending a little off time with the family? And it’s great to be able to hang out with friends. It’s all good, except for the preparation. I don’t mind the cooking and the cleaning. I just hate the getting out there, having to deal with the traffic, and the incompetence that is running rampant in the stores.

I’m like any other girl out there, I like to shop, but going to the mall is like a trip through a demilitarized zone, with stuff everywhere and no one in sight available to help. What happened to customer service? Looking for someone to answer a question is like the search for the Holy Grail. Forget that it’s the holidays. This just seems to be an ongoing problem in an industry that doesn’t care to cater to the customer.

If you’re out there shopping at Costco, BJ’s. Sam’s Club, it’s expected. There is no one around, that’s why the prices are lower, they’re not paying people to help you, it’s no frills, customers help themselves. But what about an industry that is in the service business?

Last week, before the busy holidays, my boyfriend crossed a career milestone, something he had worked very hard to do. To mark the occasion I called a high end fresh fruit business that delivers the fruit carved into a bouquet of beautiful flowers. The presentation is beautiful. I wish I could say the same for the service. They told me that they were busy with the holi- days but she told me she would check to see if they could add the order to their day. She came back and said that they could and that they would deliver to his office by 3 PM.

I thought that would be perfect, so he could share this milestone with the people who would most understand his recent success, his co-workers. They delivered at 4:40; with the holidays, nearly everyone had left the office. It was put in the fridge until the next day. I called the company back and although they apologized they made no attempt at restitution. Since they are in the delivery business, missing a delivery time should be a big deal. Not to them. According to them, they got it there. End-of-story.

I knew it was the holidays. I knew they were busy. I knew I was mad that I spent a lot of money and the moment was ruined. Taking the delivery charge off would have been nice. I would have been very happy with that. Sending me a note with a coupon for a future purchase would have been another right thing to do. Instead, they did nothing. I know there are many of you nodding your heads. It seems that no one cares, or not enough people take personal responsibility for their work.

It’s the same feeling I get when I’m at a crowded department store, again before the holidays, and there are three registers out of 12 open. It’s days before Christmas, did anyone think they may need a few more people manning the registers. The line was long, people were pissed, is anyone out there thinking? There is no help on the floor, no one at the registers – there’s even no little man behind the curtain pretending to run things. The store is like a sinking ship, with no one at the helm, except maybe Cap’n Crunch.

I made a New Year’s resolution when I was 16. It was one I kept. I resolved never to make another New Year’s resolution. I try not to exceed my own expectations, with false promises. When I pay money for a service I expect them to exceed my expectations, or at least try to, or at least put the illusion out there that they tried to. That, my friends, right there, may be the problem.

We should make a resolution as the American Consumer. We the American Consumer resolve not to stand waiting in long lines glaring at empty registers. We will not call customer service and say, yes,
I’ll hold. We will not wait between either 9-3 or 11-7 for the cable guy.

We will not sit holding menus for more than 15 minutes.
We will not please touch or say anything to that voice in the phone that has no body attached to it, no compassion or understanding.
We will actually expect service to be rendered by the time it was promised, not two hours later.
We will not pay more than the price quoted to us.
We will expect to get what we paid for.
We will expect if we don’t get what we paid for, not just an apology – make it right, give a discount, send our money back, or offer to do it again, the right way.
Bad service is like a child behaving badly, if you keep patronizing places that give bad service, they’re just going to continue the behavior. You “vote” with your dollar. Every time you make a purchase even after you’ve had a bad experience you’ve said, “Thank you sir can I have another.” Maybe its time we say to bad business what we say to bad children. In the words of Bill Cosby, “I brought you into this world, I can take you out.”