Show Me the Honey

i'm not in the habit of "responding" to other people's blogs, but today i will make an exception. As some of you know, i check out all my friends' blogs throughout the day, rather than work. Today, John posted an entry on his blog (Cigarettes and White Castle which i highly recommend you check out) which really got me thinking about our shoddy customer service industry. You may want to read his post 1st, since the comment i left for him easily unraveled, in my mind, into this "Democratic Response":

as I’ve mentioned before, I used to be a retail queen. I worked for almost 15 years renting videos and selling suits, cd’s, and comic books. I know a thing or two about rude customers and customer service. I also know quite a bit about poor service, since I am a Verizon Wireless customer. Over the last 10 years I’ve had to change my cell number three times because my service “mysteriously” failed in my home and the only way the situation could be rectified was with a change of number; even after the changes I still get the most abysmal signal strength in my neighborhood or most anywhere else on Staten Island. Whenever I call Verizon I get the same song and dance about limited number of towers and that service isn’t guaranteed. I’ve also had the misfortune to have a number of tech problems with my phone itself. I dread going to the Verizon store because I know their techies could really care less. it's quite obvious just by the half open eyelids and monotone voices.
They can never explain why my battery has the lifespan of the average tsetse fly or why Cingular customers happily chat away at the King Kullen around the corner from my house yet I’m reduced to asking “can you hear me now” every two minutes. More often than not I’m told that it will take less than half an hour to fix my problem, but return to be told that it “will just be ten more minutes” three times. Did you do the math? That comes out to another half an hour (not counting the 45 minute wait to see a techie). I wouldn’t mind the wait-time or the fact that my service is horrible, or even that my bill is about $80 a month. What I mind is that I keep hearing commercials lauding their superior quality, and "reliability". it makes me angry.

is it any wonder why people tend to get ornery when they finally are presented with a representative of the company? Whether it’s bad cell service, poorly prepared diner food, or a mis-altered suit bad service is bad service. Since everything has become so expensive in the last couple of years, and since it’s become so difficult to get problems resolved, by the time you finally reach someone who should care, you’re just a little ticked off. The last thing you want to hear is somebody else either a) be completely blasé about your problem or b) condescend to you. it forces you to wonder about the amount of money and time you're wasting on sub-par services that are being supplied today. It’s enough to make a sane supermodel throw a cell phone.

Yes, I’m a former retail queen. Yes, I’ve been yelled at by customers. No, I didn’t like it and I rarely do it myself unless it’s completely unavoidable. I’ll agree that attitude is too easily thrown around (especially on Staten Island), but sometimes you just have to punch a wall. If that wall happens to be wearing a polo shirt with corporate logo, so-be-it. Perhaps if the service wasn’t so shoddy to begin with, people wouldn’t need to vent.