Saturday Musings: I Suck at Customer Service!
That's a rather weird statement for me to make, given that I have spent virtually my entire adult life in some form of sales, marketing, advertising or support service.
If you believe in that sort of thing, you might argue that it's simply my karma, coming back to haunt me.
Just Get it DONE!
Red salvia
I think what I love most about Steemit-- and this "format" of writing, in general-- is that I just get to create something, "put it out there," and we're pretty much done, at that point.
Of course, I also really enjoy the interaction and community connections here... but once my original post is out there, nobody's going to "bring it back" for a return or exchange; nobody's going to call me to tell me it's "very nice, but could we change the main color to purple;" and I don't have to wait till the "deadline" and then the "drop-deadline" and finally the "Hail Mary" three months later... just in case "someone changes their mind" about it.
I write it, I publish it... and we're DONE.
For better or for worse, that is-- and pretty much always has been-- my preferred Modus Operandum for life. And everything in it. I like "completed," not "ongoing."
Ironically Enough....
Cholla cactus in bloom
As I said, I've spent most of my life entangled in assorted branches of "sales and services" that seem (at least to me) to take simple processes that should be over and done with in minutes... and turn them into complex protracted odysseys that last weeks and months.
In various forms of retail, I have been tasked with "delivering something people have to be happy with." Even worse, I have spent a lot of time delivering things people not only have to be "happy" with... aforesaid things also have to "work." They have a "function" along with "parts" that can break. And sometimes there are "warranties" involved... meaning that this wretched gadget I hoped to be done with forEVER-- five years ago-- can still come back to haunt me.
Service... and Exploitation
Purple Morning Glories
You might wonder what made me go off on this mini rant... so let me explain: Humanity.
Specifically, the seedy and dodgy part of humanity that perceives any kind of "service" situation as an opportunity to "exploit" a situation for personal gain, of some kind.
I suppose it's the lack of integrity that gets my hackles up.
I remember back when I had my "old" store in Texas-- a very upmarket art gallery and gift shop-- people would come in and buy things, actually use them, and then bring them back for a refund. A couple of times, we actually sold complete sets of pretty fancy china... only to get them back a week later with traces of food remnants on them!
I don't remember there being a sign up that said "dinnerware for rent-- inquire within."
"Customer Service" is Just a Metaphor...
Scotch broom in bloom
Do I sound a little bit jaded? Well, maybe I am. And I don't like trickery and deception, even if people claim it's "a part of the game of life." I'm done playing that song, sorry!
In this case, "customer service" is merely a metaphor for something else... the eternal ambiguity that surrounds lacking personal accountability.
In the end, what is this about? Accountability and integrity... or the lack thereof. My jadedness stems from the fact that it always feels like any given "seller" is the one responsible for "thinking of everything" on behalf of any given "buyer" in life... and that "buyer" has the expectation of not having to think, and "getting off free" if something is not to their liking.
From where I am sitting... maybe we should learn to choose more wisely, and to be accountable for our choices... rather than blaming something-- or someone-- outside ourselves.
What do YOU think? Do you prefer "defined and finished" interactions, or "open ended" ones? Does it ever seem like lacking personal accountability causes "simple" things to become complicated? Have variations on the saying "the customer is always right" been raised to unrealistic levels-- whether it concerns actual sales, or just personal interactions? Leave a comment-- share your experiences and feedback-- be part of the conversation!
(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Published 20170715 12:23 PDT
"Play the game", and don't have any responsibility or accountability for what the game stands for. Dishonesty. Disintegrity. So many people operate that way. It's OK to exploit that system, the government, etc., it's the game.
Why work to get rid of the screwball games or the problems when we can exploit them and feed them more while profiting ourselves at the expense of long term improvement. Just play the game... plenty of that on Steemit. Even the Steemit whitepaper "Bible" paints it as a positive. "Code is law" and "whitepaper Bible" syndrome affect a lot of minds here. Really figuring out what is best overall long-term comes after short-term "what's best for me personally" instead. Money rules, rather than coming after more important drives and motivational principles or axioms.
"Time horizon" has long been one of my hobby horses... one of the reasons I am generally disgusted by politics as it currently exists: Almost nobody thinks of solutions that play out outside their term in office. It's all about "What will make ME look good while I am top of the heap, and to hell with the long term ramifications!"
"Where's your 20-year and 50-year plan?"
"Why would I have that? I'll be dead by then..."
Steemit is a strange "society," in its own way. The scariest people here are what I have come to think of as "Blockchain Apologists." They (sincerely) believe that Steemit is pretty much exempt from all the quirks and follies of human nature and psychology "because we're on the blockchain." Sure, that's a nice ideology but it doesn't exempt us from human foibles like greed and pettiness.
Of course, I have my personal biases... anyone who steps up and starts claiming expertise in "game theory" should be required to spend a minimum of four years each studying industrial psychology and philosophy.
Yeah, an ideology that doesn't conform with the reality it claims to represent LOL. Knowledge of self (psychology) is lacking in so many. Free will power of consciousness is what can create the greatest change outside the deterministic natural causal forces in the universe. People create code, and people can change code. Code is not law. Moral codes and moral laws are the real law. I agree with you on everyone needing to learn psychology and philosophy. That's what should be in all primary and secondary education. Real valuable knowledge for life and living. Then people can learn WHAT they want with the proper cognitive tools to do it. That's a real learning education vs. outcome based education we have now.
regarding customer service.
in the coming age of robotics and automation.
Customer Service will be ALL that a business has.
For example..my wife works in Department Store that concentrates on selling clothing.
Anyone can buy the same clothes (for all intents and purposes) from Amazon.
IF you want to deal with a 'bot.
If you want to deal with a REAL human being...you come to her store.
She has customers who seek her out personally.
The company she works for has about a hundred thousand employees.
She's ranked in the top ten for...(wait for it) customer service.
If a company wants to survive...it will concentrate on CUSTOMER SERVICE
other wise the 'bots will eat it alive.
Personally, I prefer customer service.
I don't really like bots.
The increasing challenge-- especially for smaller retailers-- is that bots don't get a salary.
So the price disparity between "customer service" and "bot service" increases.
And people are tight for money...
the way I see it is that if small businesses do NOT provide customer service...then they go OUT of business.
There is no other way to compete with the internet.
I don’t wish that industry on anyone. It’s a soul sucking industry and people take far too much advance of people just trying do their job. If only companies focus more on making there employees happy; instead of, waste hundreds of hours a week on analyzing, and annoying customers in trying to determine “how to make the customer more happy. I got a simple solution. Stop making employees so miserable with your 1001 metrics that they all need have perfect scores in. Customers will always complain if they dint feel they were “treated how they wanted to be.” No need to punish a hard working employee who fulfilled their job only because someone felt “entitled” to the world being served on a silver platter to them with no reproductions of their bad behaviors.
Whoa @enjar... and YEAH!
Call me cynical but some of this strikes me as the last gasp of an entire industry at the very edge of being about to enter obsolescence... that is, we're moving slowly towards becoming a "post consumer" society.
For example, I sell on eBay for part of my living. 15 years ago it was a pretty fun and free marketplace where buyers and sellers connected and terms were agreed to. Now it's an endless pit of rules, all of which favor buyers, at the expense of sellers. It feels as if they have run out of ways to actually increase sales organically so instead they bank on making the terms of purchase more and more liberal for buyers... to the point that the buyer has ZERO risk and ZERO commitment... if the freakin' wind changes direction six months from now, the buyer can return the goods in now USED condition for a FULL refund PLUS shipping... all expense now borne by the seller.
Reading between the lines, this suggests that the "consumption train" that drives the world is running out of steam. We can no longer sell on "equitable terms," so we have to sell on UNequitable terms to keep the train running. Well... maybe the stupid train should just be allowed to CRASH so we can build a better model...
Always seem like we have these mega companies that are just too big to fail, and too big to adapt to anything meaningful. With how easy it is for someone to make a site to handle similar transactions you see a lot of these little things pop up all over that focus on trading goods local. I’m sure if companies like ebay had their way they just buy up these companies and kill them to keep business as it always is. They corner the market, and can’t grow anymore so they focus on other things to profit from. When they can’t profit from something they try and reduce the liabilities. In the end they are just killing themselves off. If no sellers want to sell anymore out of fear of being scammed; then it does not matter how safe of a market place you make for the buyers they no longer have anything to buy.
It’s scary how many jobs are on the brink of being replaced by automations. I know a lot of call centers already have the AI sitting in the back ground “learning” but are able to take over at a single keystroke. No amount of automation will save these companies when the common person no longer has a job, and can’t even afford food. You just can’t eat an iphone for nutrition no matter how much they want you to think you can!
Eventually, the things we today call "jobs" will no longer exist... within 20? 50? years most of them will have been replaced by automation. What "work" will look like at that point is hard to say...
As early as 10 years unless they come up with a way to tax automation into giving us humans a fighting chance. I hate having use taxes in such a way but greed is winning out on both sides. One side where works think they should be paid $15 for there inability to get an order right and construct the meal in the correct way. The other side under valuing "human capital" and working it to death in very stressful and ridicules standers because they have another option --automation.
food industry and retail are going get hit very hard and already are. So many people are employed in these jobs. I cant go out to eat without them already wanting me to use automations to pay for me my meal, and trying tell me I should get use to ordering from it soon as well. Even sadder when these people are already having to accept work that was never meant to support a family in the first place.
Outside of increasing government assistance I just cant see it ending well for these people. I fear with increased government assistance so will be increased regulations and testing to maintain such assistance. Then when large portions are being held up by government assistance that is funded from tax on automation they will start to increase the requirements to receive help. I could see it going into: required therapy, mediations, drug testing, removal of weapons. After that they just have to add in 20-30$ tolls on the roads so everyone is just staying home. Scary thoughts pop into my head when thinking about these kind of things.
Well, I can tell you that I have also been in customer service one way or another my entire working career. The hardest field, in my opinion, is food service. If you screw up someone's meal, you might never see them again. But worse yet, they could tell all their friends (including social media!) Oy! So... Be 100% all the time. It's not easy!
My husband now works in a big box store in the plumbing department and I cannot tell you how many times he comes home telling me someone tried to return a used toilet seat or a dirty plunger. I'm so glad I work from home!
It makes me a little sick @merej99... and-- of course-- "The Rule of 10" applies: A customer who gets good service might tell one friend who tells one friend... but if it's a negative experience... ten friends will let ten friends have a horrible warning.
Used toilet seat? Ewwww....
Although I deal with lots of BS, I'm also very grateful to be working from home.
Yeah, used toilet seat! But that's not even the worst of it. One of these days he's going to get his butt active on Steemit and tell us these terrible tales.
That might be pretty entertaining...
Came back to this because I suddenly remembered my friend Tom from down when I lived in Texas... he sold a used antique toilet seat on eBay for $96! Had us all scratching our heads... speaking of "weird."
Oh my gosh... does that make a use toilet seat cool? How old must a toilet seat be to be considered antique? It is like cars; 20 years and it's a classic?
I've spent a good part of my years in the service field as well. Home service, perhaps a bit different from others. I've found the best way for me to keep my integrity is to not make promises (just too easy), not take on a job if I don't have the right person (or myself) to fulfill the contract, and to keep everything straight by being honest with both myself and the client.
I'm there to solve a problem. Their problem not mine. So it's important to ask the right questions sometimes. As well as pointing out important facts that the client hasn't even considered.
You can't put a tree that is shading shade plants back once taking it out and exposing those plants to more sun than they can handle. You can't put the black top back (without taking a loss) if you accept a job on their terms because they want it pressure washed now to do it fast and cheaper. Rather than use proper procedure and allow the soap/solution to work and a good physical brushing before gently pressure washing. Those jobs/clients are best left to fend for themselves.
Still, as mentioned above...the Rule of 10 applies here too. Putting out fires is no way to run a business...unless of course that is your business.
Thanks for the good thoughts... some people just can be made happy, no matter what. I remember seeing that in my former retail store... there were even a handful of people we-- quite literally-- "fired" as customers because their behavior was SO unreasonable (and costly) we didn't want to deal with them. And we figured most of their friends would also be aware that they were chronic complainers...
I spent about five years in various positions in food service and I think you're absolutely right: in so many cases I've been told to practice "customer service" and excuse customers who exhibit a complete lack of integrity and accountability by owners and managers who lacked the experience to know the difference.
One previous employer demonstrated signs of this with their first few restaurants and it wasn't much of a problem until they opened an upscale rooftop bar I've been told now caters to a coke-snorting clientele that's far less classy than they'd hoped for. Sometimes you've gotta draw that line!
One of the interesting-- but unpleasant-- things I noticed in the retail/service industry is that often it was the "lowest" end of the clientel that was the least pleasant... it was almost as if there was a "layer" of people who felt basically powerless in their lives... and the only sense of power they ever got to have in their lives was to be verbally abusive towards some counter clerk who'd been indoctrinated into "the customer is ALWAYS right!" thinking.
I used to think so because my first few jobs didn't exactly serve "high-end" clientele but my last gig was on the campus of a major tech company in the U.S. and most of those geeks made at least two to three times the average of my previous customers and still managed to behave every bit as trashy.
Yeah, money doesn't give anyone good manners... it just gives them... money.
I don't think I could work in customer service for those very reasons! I've seen too many people think they can be rude or take advantage of the people who serve them. I'm more of a let's not have to do this again type of person...but maybe that's because my current situation feels like it will never end!
Customer service fields can be hard at times... and it definitely helps to have a thick skin because some people see you as the "sole reason" for whatever unrelated problems they are having. And people DO often behave badly when they are having an issue.
I personally prefer more defined and finished interactions, but I have had to get use to more open ended interactions because it seems the majority of people I talk to are the open ended type
Maybe it's just me, but sometimes I get the distinct impression that the world has a secret fear of not being able to change its mind. Which-- from my perspective-- translates to a fear of commitment.
good post ,,
l like it @ denmarkguy
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