Something I have noticed lately is the absence of polite customer service. This evening, for example, I approached the snack stand at school and there was a young woman sitting behind the counter leaning against the window eating. When I approached she did not even bother to acknowledge my presence. I asked if anyone was working, to which she replied yes. I asked if she was working, she replied yes again, all the while still sitting and chewing. She acted as if it was unimaginable that I would want her to get up and get me something, despite the fact that she was being paid to do just that.
This is nothing new. I have noticed more and more lazy, impolite clerks working in customer service positions. Grim-faced and appearing as if performing their job tasks are an imposition, I have witnessed this behavior in convenience stores, grocery stores, and video stores. I believe the rise of the super-sized national chain stores replacing the mom-and-pop stores of the past are the culprit in this rise of surliness.
One of my particular pet peeves is the phrase, "Have a nice day," replacing, "Thank you." Though being wished a nice day is quite lovely, I would prefer hearing appreciation for my patronage more than that. It is just as easy for me to spend my money somewhere else. And quite often, if I am subjected to outright rudeness, I do just that. I refuse to darken the door of such establishments, but with the rise of poor customer service I may not have many options left.
What has happened to our society? Why is it so difficult to people the cash registers of stores with polite customer servers? I know all about customer service. I did it for years, in a number of capacities. As a result I know how nasty some of the general public can be, but part of your job is being polite. Maybe that's the real problem. No one really knows anymore how to be polite. We witnessed a generation of people who came to believe it was "cool" to behave nasty. More and more it becomes clearer and clearer, "It's tough to find good help these days."
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1 comments:
One of the things I discovered when I left Denmark 8 years ago, was that such a thing as polite customer service does exists.
This summer I was back for a month, I would have given anything for a "thank you" or even a "have a nice day". But [sigh] such a thing as: "the customer is king" does not appear to be a policy they support in Danish shops.
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