Customer Disservice

Standing in line at a fast food restaurant, I noticed the lad behind the counter was struggling to enter the order of a couple in front of me.  It wasn’t even that difficult an order, but the young man kept pecking at his console with an expression of total bewilderment.  At one point I reckoned it would’ve taken fewer keystrokes to spin up and launch a missile from a Trident submarine than to place an order for a couple of burgers, one with extra pickles, hold the mayo.
                                    
Anyone who’s ever tried to navigate the IVR (interactive voice response) system for a customer service line knows the frustration all too well.  You can almost hear faint echoes of laughter in the background from the manager that signed off on this nightmarish carousel-from-hell ear torture which typically after several minutes culminates with a: “Sorry, you’ve entered an invalid selection.  Goodbye”.

Admittedly, you don’t have to look very far to find customer service people who are apathetic, incompetent, and slothful, but the real problem here is often a lack of training, tools, and motivation for those who serve us.  Companies like to talk about their “world class” or “award winning” customer service, but this is often merely corporate-speak.  When your average business is looking to cut costs – and they’re always looking to cut costs – service is where they look first.  The sales staff and middle to upper management are generally richly compensated, while service takes a back seat; underpaid, understaffed, and underfunded.  And it’s typically the lowly phone grunt or order taker that feels the sting of the customer’s frustration when a popular item has been out of stock for weeks, or the repairman didn’t show up when promised, or it’s “company policy” that you can’t substitute one side item for another which costs the same amount.

For the estimated nine in ten Americans earning (or eking out) a living in customer service, the pain of enduring a beat-down for the short-comings of corporate skimping is both real and undeserved. And you just have to smile and take it.

But – when you hit the clock at the end of your shift, you magically transform into a consumer. You’re the customer now.  And the best way to have an impact is to demand the level of service the business claims to offer.  And the best way to do that is to understand the person standing in front of you or on the other end of the phone is not only not the problem, but also powerless to change anything.  Go to the company’s web-site and make your voice heard.  Be specific about the problem.  Don’t hold back.  Offer suggestions, like: “Took forever to pull up my account.  Upgrade software much?” Or: “Couldn’t hear me at the drive-thru.  Same speaker from when you opened in 1989?”  You’re the customer.  Vote with your wallet, and let them know if they want your business they’ll take you seriously and make those pretty words mean something.