Customer Service Rant

[kincanucks]

The employee's are probably showing the same reflected attitudes that some ignorant customers have shown to them once or twice... It's a catch 22.

You get new employees who show good manners and happytudes and then throw them a few "unhappy customers" who **** up and down all over these people like it was thier direct and personal fault that this customer is now unhappy and voila, two way street of bad moods.

Don't even factor in the handmedown crap that the front office unloads on staff these days.


Cheers.

What a bunch of useless nonsense.  Regardless of the customers' behaviour it is the employees' job to provide the best possible customer service and if they can't handle an unruly customer or some asinine order from head office then they should find a job at a lighthouse.  What a freaking cop out.  Poor babies.

 

[Hawk]

I've worked in customer service, and its not easy! I simply refuse to accept bad customer service - and can be the customer from hell.

Speak up - ask to speak to the manager, shout for service, do whatever it takes. I've e-mailed Winnipeg Transit about bad bus drivers, and e-mailed Subway's head office about one rude and incompetent "sandwich artist". Did you know they're supposed to acknowledge you within 10 seconds of entering Subway, and a sub is supposed to take 3 minutes from bread to till? Corporate policy.

My latest was at Safeway where a clerk told me I should wash my reusable bag-it smelled of cigarette smoke. I told her someone should learn to mind her own business.

Being complacent about bad customer service won't solve anything. However, be ready to award good service with a smile, a tip, or speaking to a manager about how good a person is-whatever's appropriate.


Hawk

 

[Lil_T]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZkdcYlOn5M

dileas

tess

Bahahahaha  that was awesome... almost an exact match for the queen of subway.

 

[2 Cdo]

Being complacent about bad customer service won't solve anything. However, be ready to award good service with a smile, a tip, or speaking to a manager about how good a person is-whatever's appropriate.


Hawk

Bravo! Peoples complacency is how we ended up in this situation. Any poor customer service should be addressed promptly be it supervisor, manager etc. People have let it go for so long, that some folks feel it's part of the job description to treat customers like dirt for interfering with their highly demanding job of asking "Would you like fries with that?"

 

[Jacqueline]

Alot of customer service people, don't care about your *feelings*, they really need to get a new job. I was at Subway once when a worker threw a roasted chicken breast along with some olive green juice at a pair of 'difficult' customers and said screw this minimum wage bull... a lack of care... who cares.

 

[OldSolduer]

My wife and I wanted to do something nice for our daughter and her hubby, an electrician in CE (MCpl). We decided to pay their new van off. I drew a substantial sum from the bank and went to the closest dealership, thinking they'd spring at that.
Well the response was underwhelming....it was "yah just leave it here and we'll take care of it." I lost my mind and in no time had the whole dealership in an uproar.

I will never deal with that particular dealer again.

 

[The Bread Guy]

How many nails did you throw out because the head was on the wrong end?

That's not correct - they're just for the other wall....

Being complacent about bad customer service won't solve anything. However, be ready to award good service with a smile, a tip, or speaking to a manager about how good a person is-whatever's appropriate.

+ 100 -- I LOVE calling/e-mailing a manager or CEO and telling them, "ya know, I know you probably get a zillion calls a day about a problem, but I wanted you to know about what a good job Bloggins did with me...."

BTW, anyone in the customer service field, or with experience in same, ever get an "atta boy" from that sort of call?  I know when I'm a boss, and get such a thing, I immediately pass it along.

 

[Lil_T]

BTW, anyone in the customer service field, or with experience in same, ever get an "atta boy" from that sort of call?  I know when I'm a boss, and get such a thing, I immediately pass it along

I did back when I was working retail for Aliant.  Used to bust my a**  regularly for my customers.  Actually got nominated for an Ace award (for great customer service) and got a lot of company "thank you gifts" as a result.  I'd still be working there if my manager hadn't been such a tool* (and we didn't get posted).

*forced me to quit instead of giving me the week of unpaid leave I requested. 

 

[riggermade]

I'm all for good customer service but I have seen alot of ignorant customers who have acted nasty towards some people who didn't deserve it

 

[ENGINEERS WIFE]

Having been in customer service areas everywhere I have ever worked, sometimes there are people that cannot be satisfied and are totally unreasonable.
And having been on the receiving on crappy customer service, non worse than Bell Express Vu, it can be extremely frustrating when someone hates their job and it shows.
Like with most things in life if you throw a little humour in the mix, it usually turns the situation for the better.  Whether you are the customer or the employee.
I have had customers come in extremely upset and by the end of it, even if I couldn't fix the problem the way they wanted, we are all laughing and they have had a pleasant experience.
It's all about what you make of it, let them know if they are doing a great job or it it's not what you expect. Being constructive will go a lot farther than being a jacka$$.

 

[TCBF]

- You know who has the WORST customer service?  SCHOOLBOARDS!!!!

- As a parent, you are a customer, right?  WRONG!  You are just another TRANSIENT to them, and soon your kids will be gone and you will, too.

- A big Marxist cover-their-commie-butts mutual admiration society.  Most of them SHOULD be working at Wendy's!

 

[riggermade]

Then we would have to strike Wendy's off our list of places  eat

 

[ENGINEERS WIFE]

TCFB
A  little bitter are we?
You made me larf :rofl:

 

[chris_log]

I'm all for good customer service but I have seen alot of ignorant customers who have acted nasty towards some people who didn't deserve it

Which turns even the more reasonable and calm people hateful and spiteful. I've worked in fast food and the 'nightlife' industry and there's nothing like a constant stream of idiots and arrogant jerks to make you hate humanity (and your job, which can show with some people).

Like the 75 year old who found himself fit to lecture me on what he saw were my personal shortcomings because Wendy's that evening had no baked potatoes left (I was the grill boy, I made burgers...just burgers) and how he had never once been baked potatoe-less in his long, esteemed life....or the group of young customers who thought it would be funny the smear ketchup all over the tables one night....or the guy who thinks that the best way to express his dissatisfaction with being asked to leave a bar is to spit at the guy asking him to leave....or the guy who figures it's perfectly ok to let off steam by swinging a broken bottle at staff....or the guy who calls 911 when he gets kicked out the door and tries to get you arrested (although those always ended in the kid getting his nose broken on the hood of a cruiser and spending the night in the drunk tank)...or the girl who digs her fingers into your eyes when you pull her off another girl she's pummeling...or the guy who calls his 8 friends because you won't let him in and you're suddenly in a 1 on 9 fight.

I guess I'm venting too. I'm polite to everyone in the service industry, I hate seeing people treat service people like garbage and I HATE ignorant comments like 'it's customer service, you have to be nice all the time' because it's those people who always call the manager when your big s**t eating grin wavers just a bit behind the counter. It's a two way street, and for for every ignorant (well, to be honest, almost every one, there are crummy people who are crummy for no other reason then they are crummy people) service rep there's usually an equally ignorant customer who was before you that day.

 

[stealthylizard]

I pretty much got fired from a job for an incident involving bad customer service.  They offered me another position knowing that I probably wouldn't accept it.  It was at McD's, I was missing 3/4's of my staff due to a high school grad all niter party, and had a brower truck come in, that I also had to unload myself.  They wanted something that was buried under everything because of rotation while waiting for everything else to be offloaded.  I explained that to the customer, and I guess I said it in a snarly kind of way, without meaning to sound that way.  It got back to the owner and the next day I was given my option of doing maintenance at night, or finding another job.

 

[Lil_T]

yeah, I've had my share of crazies too - I mean, I did work for the bloody phone company. Right after the 2004 strike no less - everyone who came in for 6 months after I started was pissed off royally.  They took it out on me, my coworkers, my manager.  It sucked, but I didn't have a meltdown and snark out on my customers.  I was fortunate to always have a coworker on the same shift in case I needed to go in back and take a breather, and vice versa.

Point being, yeah, everyone has crappy days at work.  I suspect the military is no different from what I've gathered from the husband and friends.  But that doesn't mean you just throw the crap back on unsuspecting and undeserving people. 

 

[Hawk]

On the other side: I used to work in a donut shop in a small city, where most of the customers were regulars, who came in at the exact same time every day and had the exact same order every day.

I'd turned over the till and left one night at 10:00pm to the night guy, and these 2 women had just come in and started on him as I went out the door. I should have hung around - it got better! They regularly gave him a bad time about the coffee, the donuts, the other regulars, etc. This night, so I heard, he stood behind the counter with his cleaning rag in hand, letting them rant for awhile, then calmly walked around to their table, leaned on it and said something to the effect of he'd been standing there trying to think of a polite way to tell them to f@ck of, and couldn't think of one, but he'd get back to them. The whole place erupted in laughter, even the bitchy customer, and he never had a problem with her again. When the owner heard, he told the night guy not to do that again, after he laughed till tears ran down his fat cheeks!


Hawk

 

[Celticgirl]

yeah, I've had my share of crazies too - I mean, I did work for the bloody phone company. Right after the 2004 strike no less - everyone who came in for 6 months after I started was pissed off royally.  They took it out on me, my coworkers, my manager.  It sucked, but I didn't have a meltdown and snark out on my customers.   I was fortunate to always have a coworker on the same shift in case I needed to go in back and take a breather, and vice versa.

Point being, yeah, everyone has crappy days at work.  I suspect the military is no different from what I've gathered from the husband and friends.  But that doesn't mean you just throw the crap back on unsuspecting and undeserving people. 

+1

A lot of jobs are "thankless" and a lot of people put up with crap on a daily basis at work. So I should just lower my expectations of customer service then? I guess not being offered my change back was the result of some other moron customer giving my server a hard time, hmm? I don't think so.

I agree about speaking up about bad customer service, but as it's a regular thing and it's happening all over, I would be using a lot of my own personal time to write and call with complaints. I also suspect that 99% of the time I did so if I did, nothing would come of it anyway. I'd probably just be labeled a difficult customer.  :

 

[ringer98]

Hey, sorry for having to make you waddle 20 feet because your machine is AFdU.  

Hey, whats AFdU stand for?

One a side note, I have recently been to a KFC without chicken (totally, as in no more for the night and it was 7:30pm on a saturday), as well as a Tim Hortons without donuts (true story)

 

[Eye In The Sky]

Hey, whats AFdU stand for?

All f**ked up