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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly OP, I think if you experience this often, you are the common denominator.

While I hate phone prompts and bots, once I get to a human, I rarely have poor service. But I don't treat people in the service industry like they need to solve my problem - and approach it more like "hey, let's see if we can figure this out together." It's all in the approach, and always being polite and kind in your tone.

I’m a tax lawyer and I end up on the phone with the IRS quite a bit. I can tell you from the large sample size of my calls over the last five years that I am not the problem. I can call five times on the same issue and have five different experiences, many of which will not be pleasant. I know you catch more flies with honey than vinegar but some people are just rude.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Learn to leverage the chat feature thats the new way forward, I've gotten a lot of stuff done w/ it. Sometime even AI will give me exactly what i want which is often a refund.

You must be an exec if you use the term “leverage”. Horrible word. Maybe you can write a post using the word “synergy”.
Chat bots are generally useless and are only capable of basic things. Most times they tell me you need to talk to a person.

Chat bots are not the same as chatting with a live person. Chat bots are useless. Chatting with someone can be super effective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Treat everyone with respect and kindness.

I wish this worked. It doesn’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

Interesting. I find Amazon customer service to be excellent once you can talk to someone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Treat everyone with respect and kindness.

I wish this worked. It doesn’t.

I think it often does, and if it doesn't, then you know the other person is the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Learn to leverage the chat feature thats the new way forward, I've gotten a lot of stuff done w/ it. Sometime even AI will give me exactly what i want which is often a refund.

You must be an exec if you use the term “leverage”. Horrible word. Maybe you can write a post using the word “synergy”.
Chat bots are generally useless and are only capable of basic things. Most times they tell me you need to talk to a person.

Chat bots are not the same as chatting with a live person. Chat bots are useless. Chatting with someone can be super effective.

+1

I regularly use the chat function to deal with a 100 percent online business we use, and it's a real person. Excellent service every time. (It's 1-800-Contacts website for contact lenses)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Interesting. I find Amazon customer service to be excellent once you can talk to someone.

Yes and no. I returned an item that Amazon didn’t receive. But I had the tracking slip and they could see that it had been scanned in. I was getting nasty gram emails saying I would be charged for the item if it wasn’t received by X date. When I called Amazon to tell them I had returned it, I was told they could see that and they were happy to help but they “couldn’t do anything” until I was actually charged for the item. And that I would need to “call back” once I saw the charge for the item. So I had to keep tracking my credit card and make TWO different customer service calls for something you already agree is not my fault?

I was already cutting way back on Amazon purchases and this only motivated me more. I couldn’t believe she couldn’t just take care of it then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Customer service at clinics, retail, fast food, and stores in Wash DC are the worst and always has been.

Even my European husband has noticed this and said what’s the deal? We go to Florida or the Midwest or even Boston and the worker culture, vibe and response time is good.

Here it’s like no one wants to work, and so they just sit there scowling.

I agree. It’s so much worse in this area. I wonder if it has to do with the huge wage gap between hourly workers and those they are providing customer service too. Not sure, but customer service is much better if you leave this area.

I’ve had excellent customer service right in Foggy Bottom!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Customer service at clinics, retail, fast food, and stores in Wash DC are the worst and always has been.

Even my European husband has noticed this and said what’s the deal? We go to Florida or the Midwest or even Boston and the worker culture, vibe and response time is good.

Here it’s like no one wants to work, and so they just sit there scowling.

I agree. It’s so much worse in this area. I wonder if it has to do with the huge wage gap between hourly workers and those they are providing customer service too. Not sure, but customer service is much better if you leave this area.

I’ve had excellent customer service right in Foggy Bottom!

I’m sure you did. There will always be isolated cases, particularly at higher end establishments with higher prices. But when you leave this area, even the overnight clerk at the Holiday Inn Express is friendly and helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

It's because wages are low and tipping is not a thing overseas. the minimum wage hikes have caused a major problem in the USA. Businesses have also leveraged the tipping culture to underpay. The solution is to eliminate the minimum wage and tipping so that people will quit and businesses will respond with better pay and services.

[Anonymous]

People are robots now. They don’t really listen and aren’t curious to solve problems.

The medical front desk is the most bizarre to me. Why can they not be bothered to be friendly? Almost all of them act like it the most miserable job in the world. Is it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People are robots now. They don’t really listen and aren’t curious to solve problems.

The medical front desk is the most bizarre to me. Why can they not be bothered to be friendly? Almost all of them act like it the most miserable job in the world. Is it?

The worst is that now with most health plans having deductibles beyond the co pay, we almost always owe something from a previous appt. But the front office staff can’t view your balance or take payment. Oh no that would be way too simple! They literally hand you a card with a phone number to call or website to visit to pay your bill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People are robots now. They don’t really listen and aren’t curious to solve problems.

The medical front desk is the most bizarre to me. Why can they not be bothered to be friendly? Almost all of them act like it the most miserable job in the world. Is it?

Yes, I had that happen recently at gyn: rude front desk, said loudly for the whole room to hear that my insurance was invalid. Turns out THEY mistyped the number...And they didn't apologize! It felt like people yelling out orders at McDonald's.

[Anonymous]

It's been very hard to get anything done lately. I keep thinking maybe it's the places I chose to do business but really starting to think it's the area. They can't get decent people in these positions and they're letting a ton of unprofessionalism and rudeness because if they let those people go they'd have no one. My spouse and I have been treated really poorly at several businesses we had to deal with lately. This whole situation is just so sad. I do not experience being treated this way except in NOVA. In other states it is not like this or instances like this are much fewer and far between. Here its all the time. And to those fools who think OP and the person on the receiving end of the rudeness that's bs, I've very pleasant and nice to anyone and everyone.

Situations like this continue because people accept it.

[Anonymous]

You need to travel outside of the US to get good service, namely to Asia.