The topic for this month’s blog and newsletter is “What it means to serve.” Beginning with the pandemic and continuing into the present, customer service has become quite “iffy.” Let’s take a fresh look at returning our commercial world to consistent, quality customer service.
In this article, let’s ask this question: When did customer service become a chore or a burden?
Two Types of Customer Service People
You have undoubtedly had experiences being served by a customer service or salesperson that you remember fondly or disdainfully. We all have had both kinds.
The first type of person is the one who truly enjoys assisting people. When they ask, “May I help you?” they genuinely mean it and actually want to know. You can feel it when they ask you—they’re reaching out to you warmly. As the customer service or sales experience progresses, their real intention to help remains obvious. They provide you with goods or services that you truly need, and you are thankful that you ended up dealing with that person. If there are tips involved, you’ll usually tip them and generously.
The other type is the one we all dread. When they ask if they can help you, it’s usually a wholly disinterested “Help you?” Right off the bat, you can tell they’re not sincere. When they bring you what you’re asking for, there’s a good chance it will be wrong, or something will be slightly off. If you point out something isn’t right, they’ll tend to be offended. And if you leave them a small tip or don’t tip them at all, they’re really insulted. That person isn’t happy being a customer service person—they only do it because it’s their job and they get paid.
An example today is airlines switching their focus from actually servicing people to the control of unruly passengers. This focus changed the whole mindset of flight attendants. Concerning themselves more with worry about unruly passengers resulted in more unruliness.
Which scenario will bring you back for repeat business? That may be an obvious question, but it bears asking in any customer service analysis. Of course, when you’re pleased with service, you’ll be back to that establishment. When service is consistently excellent, they usually make long-term customers. In fact, when you find a business with customers who have been patronizing it for years, you’ll generally find that they have great service.
Which Is More Prevalent?
Go back 50 – 75 years, and you will find customer service was much more genuine and helpful. You’d certainly encounter the second type of tentative or even surly service, but it was rare.
Today, the opposite is true. It is far more common to encounter bad service than excellent service—so common that we have come to expect subpar service. When we run into exceptional service, we’re usually surprised, whereas in the past the opposite was the case.
Good service was more common in former times because, to keep your job, you had to provide good service. A business wouldn’t keep you on if you didn’t make their customers happy—and there was always someone eager and ready to replace you. Service people who were rude or unhelpful didn’t remain employed for long.
This is no longer true. Today, the scarcity of personnel has resulted in a lower standard of service being more common than excellent service. When a business can hire a service person, it tends to keep them even when they’re doing a subpar job just so it can have someone in that position.
Let’s reverse that trend, shall we? Satisfying our customers with incredible service will only help boost our businesses—and it will certainly make for happier clientele.
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