Am I being old fashioned? When I walk up to the checkout in a supermarket to hand over my hard earned jobseekers allowance the last thing I want to hear from the woman behind the checkout is "D'ya wanna bag babe". I want to hear would you like a bag sir. I am paying her wages, actually this is a difficult one because she is paying mine also. It could be just the one I go in occasionally when there is nowhere quite so convenient, but it isn't a local one it's a chain. Oh it's the Coperative, there I said it.
It's not only in shops I am hearing this laid back couldn't give a damn about customer service type of attitude, familiarity breeds contempt and I hold many companies in contempt. I was in the Jobcentre on Monday ready to sign my name for my fortnightly cheque, it's easy to hear my name called I am the only White in there, as I sat down in front of a guy that looked about 18 his first words to me were "Hey dude what's up" I looked at him in disbelief, had I walked into a drug store by mistake, and I am not talking about Boots. He never checked my book that I take time and pride filling in so that they can see I am serious about finding work and he didn't even read it, probably not old enough to read yet. He looked at me again with what looked like love in his eyes and said "Yo Bro, how are you". He ain't my Bro he ain't even a White.
Shop, White collar and Orange staffseemed to have dumbed down their selection process, are they finding it hard to get staff? I called Orange the other day yet again to explain how my Internet on my phone wasn't working and got called Fella and Buddy! I have a question, why am I unemployed and these kind of people in the customer service sector?The customer has always been and always will be the most important part of any transaction, we have a choice of where we go and we should vote with our feet and choose where we walk in to spend our ever decreasing pound.
A final word to the person that served me this morning in the Co-op and looked more like Sonny than Cher, I ain't your babe and you ain't got me.
Oh where do I start? Mark we must think alike so much. One reason why I enjoy reading your articles. I know will start with my own experience of the Job Centre. A few years back I left a perfectly good job for what I was lead to believe was another perfectly good job but with better hours and better pay. Turned out they failed to tell me I would be working over 50hrs per week including evenings and weekends and had to travel 1 hour up the motorway just for a 30 min meeting every day. So left that and went to try to sign on after 3 weeks of no money. The 'service' I recieved was terrible. So I bluntly told the man on the other side of the desk that I was actively looking for work and wasn't bothered what job I did as long as it paid a reasonable wage. I also told him not to associate me with the people that had no intention of ever working a days work. But I think they are just used to that 'kind of person' in the job centre every day and forget how to treat the genuine job seeker.
ReplyDeleteNow onto customer service, I have always worked towards the ethos that customer service is the biggest most important part of any job where you come into contact with a customer. Hence the reason I always treat my customers with the respect and attitude I would expect to recieve. My employers on the otherhand need to know what customers want rather than think they know what they want and try and make me appear like a programmed robot.