The Paradox of Customer Service
Dec. 28th, 2005 11:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caraigI am repeatedly amazed at the depths to which people will descend when demanding service and satisfaction. I use the term 'depths' purposely, since these are actions that are frankly stunning to me. Yelling, carrying on, loudly declaring how much you paid for an item, insisting that you will not wait in a line for customer support. Things such as these, and this isn't even getting into the random emotional outbursts such as 'My child's holiday was ruined!'
I'm not going to talk about those people here. Rather I'm going to talk about what it is that they -- and those of us involved in customer satisfaction/support roles -- are engendering.
In general, retail done right has one major rule: The customer must always leave with a good opinion of the store and have had a good experience. This generally equates to the old adage of, the squeeky wheel gets the oil. In general, the lengths that a retail store will go to satisfy a customer is directly proportional to how much of a scene or how much of a ruckus the customer looks ready to make.*
So this generally means that a customer who is nice and polite gets screwed over, while the customer who is rude and obnoxious and a crashing boor to all of humanity around them gets more than anyone deserves. It occurs to me that this is just going to engender more and more customers to cross the line from 'assertive' to 'assholish.'
The basic problem comes down to this: I want for to reward the polite customers, to do something extra for them, to, in essence, reward politeness, even if it means bending the rules. And I want for to slam a steel grating between the obnoxious ones and anything more than the basic service that they paid for. Mostly, this is to reward the people who are decent human beings, and make for a rolled-up newspaper applied to the noses of the obnoxious ones, in essence saying, "No! Naughty human! Rude behavior BAD!"**
So does anyone have a solution to this dilemma? Or can anyone offer guidance on getting closer to it? Because this is going to be a sort of sickness in consumerist culture and it needs to be delt with as best as possible.
* - And if I ever find out one of you has used this information for EVIL, I will hunt you down and bloody well inflict grievous harm upon you. This message brought to you by Darth Nukus, bringing terror and oppression to breakfasts everywhere. Part of a well-balanced galactic domination. Ask for him by name.
** - Yeah, yeah, the usual Jon caveat of "... and not a FUN kind of 'naughty.'"
I'm not going to talk about those people here. Rather I'm going to talk about what it is that they -- and those of us involved in customer satisfaction/support roles -- are engendering.
In general, retail done right has one major rule: The customer must always leave with a good opinion of the store and have had a good experience. This generally equates to the old adage of, the squeeky wheel gets the oil. In general, the lengths that a retail store will go to satisfy a customer is directly proportional to how much of a scene or how much of a ruckus the customer looks ready to make.*
So this generally means that a customer who is nice and polite gets screwed over, while the customer who is rude and obnoxious and a crashing boor to all of humanity around them gets more than anyone deserves. It occurs to me that this is just going to engender more and more customers to cross the line from 'assertive' to 'assholish.'
The basic problem comes down to this: I want for to reward the polite customers, to do something extra for them, to, in essence, reward politeness, even if it means bending the rules. And I want for to slam a steel grating between the obnoxious ones and anything more than the basic service that they paid for. Mostly, this is to reward the people who are decent human beings, and make for a rolled-up newspaper applied to the noses of the obnoxious ones, in essence saying, "No! Naughty human! Rude behavior BAD!"**
So does anyone have a solution to this dilemma? Or can anyone offer guidance on getting closer to it? Because this is going to be a sort of sickness in consumerist culture and it needs to be delt with as best as possible.
* - And if I ever find out one of you has used this information for EVIL, I will hunt you down and bloody well inflict grievous harm upon you. This message brought to you by Darth Nukus, bringing terror and oppression to breakfasts everywhere. Part of a well-balanced galactic domination. Ask for him by name.
** - Yeah, yeah, the usual Jon caveat of "... and not a FUN kind of 'naughty.'"
