What happened to basic Customer service? Is it gone forever?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC is worse than elsewhere.

DC is straight up unfriendly and impolite. It’s not the that customer service is better down south and in the Midwest. It’s that everyone more friendly and polite. My family noticed that nobody says excuse me when trying get past someone when they visited. People think the “yes, sir” “thank you, ma’am” thing is weird but it helps when respect is taught early and built into the culture.

[Anonymous]

Treat everyone with respect and kindness.

[Anonymous]

If an employee is happy, that means the owner is leaving money on the table.

[Anonymous]

I do think levels of general civility are higher in the South (don’t know about the Midwest).

I also agree, however, that the level of customer service we have been lead to expect in this country has declined for the most part, although excellence still exists (the compounding pharmacy for my cat’s medicine is fantastic).

What worries me in this climate is whether we descend into the type of place where bribes will be necessary to accomplish the simplest things. I have to admit it won’t surprise me.

[Anonymous]

Are you looking for enthusiasm or just civility? I find most customer service encounters around here to be neutral to friendly. However, there is not the chit chat you get in other parts of the country.

[Anonymous]

Lack of competition. Where else are you going to go? I spent 4 hours in the phone today trying to access my own information for my health savings account, credit card and health insurance claim. I got nowhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Customer service is expensive. The kind of "good" customer service people expect requires training, knowledge, professionalism, empathy, and emotional regulation. People are too used to sitting behind a keyboard; they don't know how to interact with other people. When business propose a model that uses good customer service, like a concierge doctor, people complain about the cost.

+1000

This is the answer.

Most people working the kinds of jobs that you think of when you say "customer service" don't even make a living wage. When you don't make a living wage and the job isn't interesting, you don't give a darn, and that is going to be exacerbated by dealing with the general public which often means dealing with angry/rude/insane/demanding/ignorant people who want to treat you like a servant. Why don't the businesses hire people who will give a darn? Because they aren't willing to pay for it. Unemployment has been quite low for a very long time so the people who are self-motivating and care about the quality of their work are able to get higher paying jobs pretty easily, and businesses that don't pay much have a hard time keeping anyone around at all. So when Larla is rude to the customers, they can't really fire her, because it's too hard to find someone else -- someone else who will be any better anyway; at least mean old Larla shows up on time.

[Anonymous]

Go to Asia, non China.
Everyone cares about being on time, professional, caring, accurate, clean, and prompt.
And many are smiley, happy cultures too- Malaysia, Philippines, vietnam, Thailand.

It’s refreshing.

[Anonymous]

You can’t talk to anyone on the phone anymore because c-suite got rid of almost all of them, or sent the work overseas (and it’s not their fault those people are reading out of a binder. Yes, it’s incredibly frustrating but don’t take it out on a poor person working for pennies overseas) so they could enrich themselves.

Same people drove in person businesses out and continually reduced staff for the same reasons. Customer service is largely dead because the c-suite took it away from you. This is why you are self checking, waiting an hour at the pharmacy, and no one waits on you in a department store.

[Anonymous]

Companies will have good customer service if they find it's good for their bottom line.

And that is the only reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are any of us willing to pay more for better service?

Corporate profits are at record highs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are any of us willing to pay more for better service?

Corporate profits are at record highs.

Probably in part due to ditching customer service.

[Anonymous]

I try buy anything in first place in order to avoid customer service. Some things I just have to do like buying a car or anything medical.
I'm not going back to the car dealership as they messed up 7+ different things during my car buying. It's mostly paperwork and they just don't know what needs to be done nor do they care.
Anything medical is always a mess in DC.
Now I simply collect stories about what when wrong, how, how to fix it, or how to avoid it.
I did quite well not buying too much from Amazon last year after broken table was sent to me. They didn't take it back or give me a discount.

[Anonymous]

Companies will pay the absolute lowest wage they can to retain a percent of their client base. That’s the formula.

[Anonymous]

I hear you OP!

I have experienced horrible customer service as well many many times.

And it always puzzles me how businesses do not prioritize this more.

At least now we have Yelp as well as other online review choices where people can post about a business who do not treat their clientele well.