Monday, August 10, 1998
We must strive to provide, receive better service
CUSTOMERS: Businesses should pay attention to those who pay
their bills
By Jim Vance
Daily Nebraskan (U. Nebraska)
University Wire
LINCOLN, Neb. – Customer service: to most of us college
students, that means a summer job of kissing butts and listening to
people complain at us for things that are not our fault. But
there’s a little more to the phrase than that.
I’ll agree the jobs advertising customer service normally suck,
mainly because you’re just trying to sell people crap they neither
need nor want. And it’s usually over the phone.
Yet the biggest element we are all missing is the latter term,
"service". This word implies a certain respect which must be shown
to those whom we attempt to serve.
Without that respect, there soon may be no customers willing to
be served.
I have recently experienced poor customer service. I’m not going
to withhold names. It was at a Perkin’s and an Arby’s.
Their service was so poor that I left both establishments fuming
with anger – and a multi-year boycott plan.
(For the record I have just finished my four-year boycott of
Wendy’s.)
The saddest thing is that both restaurants could easily have
made me a happy customer given the circumstances, had they simply
apologized and offered me free meals. I would have gone from a
disgusted customer to a continued loyalist, had they made a very
upsetting situation a pleasant one, and I could expect the same in
the future.
But their reaction was to be simply obtuse to the situation they
caused, even though I had been calm, respectful and courteous in
explaining how upset I was.
Think if a hospital or doctors office did this. They would be
sued for malpractice.
Even worse, they do not have the opportunity the food industry
and others have to make an unhappy customer happy, as the unhappy
customer in the medical example, more times than not, is dead.
The fact that it would be so easy to alleviate a poor situation
– yet a service company would not attempt to – only further goes to
show the lack of respect for those who pay their bills – the
customers.
What if the electric or gas companies did this? Imagine calling
to tell them you are out of power and they simply said use a candle
or light a fire, and all they would do is offer a candle or some
firewood. This is pretty much the reaction I have received.
Where does this attitude of disrespect originate?
The fact our phone, electric and gas companies are obvious
monopolies makes it scary to think what it would be like if they
treated us as such.
Unless you’re Amish, you’d be continually subjected to their
crap.
Something worse to think about is that many reports say a lack
of jobs for college graduates have lead to their flooding of the
customer service markets, namely the food industry.
If this is the type of service and respect coming from college
graduates, how does this speak of our educational system? Do we
need Respect 101 to be included with our prerequisites?
If you are involved in the customer service industry, which
includes nearly everyone, I hope you will think about the value of
respect – not only in the typical business sense, but in a social
and personal sense as well.
If you are treated poorly by a service company, don’t hold back.
Let them know you’re unhappy. If we don’t, we’re not doing anything
to bring respect to ourselves and our society.
How can I expect respect if I don’t have enough for myself to
tell what treatment I demand?
What respect level will I have for others if I have none for
myself?
If I am continually run down, and begin to run down other
people, what greater good do I bring society?
So am I saying if the guy behind the counter doesn’t, at the
very least, give me a smile and "Thank you" with my burger and
fries, the world is a lesser place?
Damn right I am.Vance is a writer for the Daily Nebraskan.