Customer Service; A big problem in our society

I’ve decided to make my much anticipated return to blogging as I’m sitting in New York’s JFK airport. I haven’t really felt the need to write about anything lately and I prefer not to waste your time by writing about meaningless things. Although today, I thought I needed to write about a topic that’s been highly preoccupying my mind as of late.  Bad Customer Service.  As we all know, customer service is present wherever we go; The grocery store, the pharmacy, the doctor’s office or even the Vet. The customer service I’ve received in the past couple weeks has been especially terrible. More than ever. I’m writing this blog in hopes that some of you will be able to relate to my frustrations. 

The thing that bothers me most about bad customer service is that It’s so simple. It only requires 4 key components in a human being; Efficiency, responsibility, productivity and politeness. At the very least, I expect to be greeted wherever I step foot and I also expect to be talked to in a respectful yet efficient manor. And that’s the very least. I also have no problem with waiting to be served or addressed. The only thing I do want in that kind of situation is for someone to acknowledge that I’m waiting and to let me know they will be with me shortly. 

I say this because a couple days ago, I was waiting in line at Shopper’s Drug Mart to get my pills. There was only one person ahead of me. There must’ve been at least 6 employee’s behind the counter, some busy, some not. There was an issue with the insurance of the man in front of me- Again, I don’t mind waiting, I just think it’s professional and respectful to kindly move the man over in order for someone else to grab cash and help the other people that are waiting in line. But this is obviously not what happened. I ended up waiting roughly 15 minutes. There was about 3 employee’s who were just talking with each other and joking around, that looked at me several times and saw that I had been waiting there for an unnecessarily long period of time.  Nobody bothered to come for 15 minutes. Are you serious? How is that a normal thing in today’s society? Why should we settle for below average customer service on a day to day basis? 

The sad thing is that most of these people don’t see the slightest problem with the way they approach their customers. For me, its just common sense but for them it seems impossible to provide customers with the service they deserve. They think it’s normal to talk down to customers. They think it’s normal to make customers wait when they could be the one’s giving a helping hand. I think it’s very sad that as the years go on, our standards and expectations regarding customer service have drastically lowered. Another very frustrating thing that has happened to me on a number of occasions these past few weeks is employee’s carrying out a full blown conversation in front of you, almost like you’re non existing. When has it become normal for employee’s to completely ignore the customer? It’s so wrong. I specifically remember the two managers at my past workplace being absolutely terrible with customer service; and they should be the one’s setting the examples for the employee’s to follow. On numerous occasions, I had to interrupt their conversation and acknowledge the customer myself.  

It’s so incredibly frustrating for me to be served by incompetent and disrespectful employee's at least once a day as I strongly believe that customer service should be taken seriously and that managers and owners of businesses should work on educating their employee’s on the importance of great customer service.  I hope some of you related to my recent frustration regarding this topic!