You do have a point–and it’s a valid one, I agree. But, I can see someone interpreting it as Guin did.
The woman in question had barged in front of everyone else in the queue (we were queued up at the nearest checkout) to demand someone get an item off the top shelf for her (and the shelves in the store weren’t THAT high, either).
However, even if she’d waited in line and then asked, I’d still consider it rude. She’s inconvenienced 8 people (who now have to wait behind her while the cashier sorts the problem out), instead of, say, going to the customer service desk or asking someone NOT serving huge lines of people (like the people in the DVD section, or the clothing section, or something) to help her out.
The staple puller story is an example of excellent customer service, and I’d certainly remember somewhere that did that for me, but I’d also feel VERY uneasy about taking it, because first of all there’s a high chance someone’s watching and you’re going to get the guy in trouble, and secondly, you don’t want Store Security hassling you either.
Of course, as long as you realise it was a one-off (as you do), then no harm, no foul. But there are people who expect Magical Ass-Pullery EVERY time they shop somewhere, because “they did it last time…”
Well, so much for my scenario…
I must admit I’m flabbergasted at that behavior. Brings to mind the definition of stress: “the confusion caused by resisting the urge to choke the crap out of somebody who really deserves it.” Sorry you have to deal with that.
I think in a lot of ways the problem is the word “service” and its implication of “servant”. The managment line is often that good service means staff being servile doormats; as pointed out above this raises unfulfilable expectations and actually decreases customer satisfation overall. Customer satisfaction comes from setting achievable, slightly pessimistic expectations which you can usually exceed, rather than setting unrealistically high standards which you usually fail to meet.
I have a lot of trouble in US shops and restaurants in particular because of the unequal power relationship between staff and customers, I see people treating staff like slaves. Staff naturally resent this and there’s a level of (quite understandable) surliness mixed with patently insincere management-mandated friendliness that really grates.
In Europe often I’ve seen the opposite, with staff behaving like they’re doing the customer a favour by even talking to them.
In Australia in general the assumption is that the staff member is a social equal who happens to have a different job than you, no need for power games in either direction.
Well, if that’s the case, fine. However, a lot of places will NOT allow a cashier to leave his or her register. Not even to help a customer-you have to call someone else to do so. I often ignored this and went to do price checks because it took so damned long to get someone else to do it and used to get chewed out by management about it. Of course, when I didn’t do that, I’d get chewed out by the customer.
You just can’t win.
When I worked in a shop, I used to calculate how much I’d been paid for dealing with that particular piece of verbal abuse. For example, customer complains unreasonably and rudely to me for 3 minutes (which is quite a long time), at £5 an hour works out to be… 25p.
Try finding someone in the street to take 3 minutes of personal insults, without retaliation, for 25p. Ah well - I don’t work there anymore :).
I think this is pretty much all that needs to be said.
As a member of society, I feel a sense of obligation to show a certain amount of courtesy to my fellow citizens. There’s no excuse for the behavior described in the OP, but implying that those kinds of situations are the norm doesn’t ring true. What about all those PAYING customers that pass through the checkout line without so much as an aknowledgement from the cashier?This isn’r rare; in fact it’s pretty much standard, and it’s an indication of a crappy attitude(not to metion crappy management). There’s no excuse to be an ass, regardless of on which side of the counter you’re standing.
I went into a teeny-bopper music store yesterday to get a DVD. I had had trouble finding it at Hollywood Viedo and was pleased to see it right in front of me and the TBMS. I went right up to the counter and smiled slightly, saying hi. The clerk looked bored and uninterested but she went ahead and just rang up my purchase. Whew, I thought, no upselling and I can just get in-get out. “You save 30% if you get one of these magazines.” Darn it, spoke too soon. I shake my head no and she continues with ringing me up. I sign the credit card slip and skim front and back of it to make sure I’m not signing anything about the magazines, since from the SDMB I know that people have been stung on that before. As I leave I hear her laughing at me for my bizarre routine. :rolleyes:
Now, can I expect that someone looks polite when I buy something there? Can I expect that they let me complete my business and that they refrain from laughing behind my back? Keep in mind that this was not the cut-rate place, and the checkers at Walmart where things are cheaper are actually usually more polite than that. I felt like going back and explaining things and calling her out; should a shopping experience really leave me feeling like that?
Customer Service is not a right, but it’s part of the price. If I don’t want customer service, I buy from a vending machine.
But the Service has to be adequate to the business. CS can’t change specifications; CS should make sure there is enough staff around to ask a staff member to get that high item for a customer; staff should know the product and know who else to call if the product in question is one that particular staffer doesn’t know well. I realize that the big electronics stores where I like to go tend to get a lot of “not very knowledgeable extras” on certain times of the year, but would it be so hard to teach them the line “oh, that’s not my section, those guys over there should be able to help you better”? You know, instead of “dunnow”.
Actually, right before Christmas, I could care less if you buy it. My constrained resource is my cashiers and cash registers. I can put more sales through having cashiers ring consistantly all day. They start when the store opens, they stop when it closes. Any time they leave the register, I’m slowing down my revenue intake.
I can put employees out on the floor, but it won’t help my short term sales (which is all most retailers can think through - retail isn’t known for long term strategic thinking). Because no matter how many people I put on the floor to help get high items down from the shelf, I can ring any more people through then the cashiers can handle. It turns into an episode of I Love Lucy in the candy factory.
I had the “pleasure” of being a Fanny Farmer cashier from Halloween through Valentines Day one year. Frankly, if you want to take more than 3 minutes of my time, I can ring through two other people during those three minutes with similar average sales. As a discount retailer, during busy seasons, you want the cashiers time - better be one hell of a high price/high margin item sitting on that top shelf.
I think Customer Service is a great thing - Nordstrom is a joy to shop at. But I don’t expect the same bootlicking sales staff when Nordstrom has a big shoe sale going on as I get when I stroll in ready to pay full price.
Working in health care means that I get to see people who are sick and stressed out on a daily basis- and some of them take that out on me and my fellow workers, while others acknowledge that we are trying to help them as best we can. Guess which ones get the extra mile from us?
The concept of service is interesting though. Is your service merely making available the possibility of acquiring x, so I should behave like a guest in your home (European model)? Or does your service including helping me choose the best x for me among options, so that you are providing expertise in addition to availability?
On behalf of the vertically challenged - if you must reduce your floor staff, please make stepladders available to customers or keep the top shelf low; I don’t want to have to climb shelves either.
He gave you an item belonging to his office for free? And that’s what you consider good customer service? I’m sort of offended that the guy did that, because now you’re going to expect that in the future, and now you seem to feel that it’s reasonable to expect a business to give you the equipment in their own offices - for free - if they don’t have an item in stock. You have to wonder what the hell was wrong with the guy who gave you the free staple remover. That guy should be fired for stealing from some office to satisfy a customer wanting a dollar item that didn’t happen to be in stock. Jesus.
P.S.: That font is absolutely hideous.
Oh, boy; that idea of providing stepladders foir the use of customers must have given erections to all personal-injury lawyers who read it.
When I worked at KrapMart, all of our stepladders had signs that said “For employee use ONLY.” Any customer seen using one was told to get down.
I used to do the customer service thing, and I believe that you are missing the whole point. When I go to a place with service people, I don’t want to have a bud, or service that one can expect from Saks FA, or a Captain Peacock or Mr. Humphries, or anything else. I have better things to do than pal around with another clerk. And being rude to a service person takes up too mu ch time. All I want deom the service people is to
a. Show/tell me where to get what I want.
b. Stay out of my way if they aren’t going to get it for me.
c. Say “I don’t know” if they don’t know.
d. Take my money and give me change/receipt instead of have a protracted conversation with the cretin white cracker gang banger-wanna-be with a pierced tongue/eyebrow while I am standing there waiting to get said change/receipt.
Don’t give me a “Sir,” a “Thank You,” or a smile. My change will suffice, and don’t take up any more of my time. Adhere to the aforementioned, and your service is exemplary, and I will tell the boss that you should be promoted, because THAT is what I call good service.
Of course, you are correct about the “Does this mean it’s free?” thing. I used to give away countless products from where I worked for just this type of Grande Wit.
hh
Unless, of course, the store is in New Zealand, where you can’t sue for personal injury…
And, on preview, what Handsome Harry said.
I used to tell people who tried the “Does this mean it’s free if it has no price on it?” thing that they could have the item for free, provided they could guess the price I was thinking of in my head.
No-one ever guessed the right price. 
I think we’re pretty much on the same page. I’m not of the opinion that a customer should be grateful for anything better than assholish behavior. What you want from service people is pretty much what I think someone earning minimum wage as a customer service person should cover. My problem is customers who are of the opinion that a customer service person is their personal servant from the moment they enter the store until the moment they leave it. And these customers are depressingly common; they have been told that the customer is always right enough that they believe it, and they translate that homily to mean that the store’s employees must do everything within their power to satisfy the customer. These people think that your job is to obey any orders they give you with a smile and a “Oh, yes, master! Certainly!”
Those are the people who need to realize that if they want a servant, they need to start paying a lot more than bargain basement rates for their products. Same with customers who expect in depth knowledge of any product in the store; you get that knowledge from a clerk who is paid enough to make that knowledge worthwhile to provide. It’s a trade off; if the product is that cheap, you’re not going to get expert info on it. And really, that’s why I tend to bullshit rather than say “I don’t know” - customers are generally dumb enough that you get less trouble if you bullshit them into thinking that you know something than if you admit you have no idea as to the answer of the question.
But this is what bugs me. I go in, and I will take all the time I need to look for something rather than ask for help. I like to say “just looking” and figure it out for myself. But it seems that the very few times that I drop all that and just ask for where something is, they don’t know. Why ask me if you can help me, linger around ready to take my question, if you end up not having a clue.
It just embarrasses both of us and I will end up searching on my own as I had planned to anyway.
Having been on both sides of the counter (and telephone for that matter), I don’t think it’s all that unreasonable to expect to be treated with courtesy. That goes as much for the salespeople as it does for the customer. In that regard, unless your company has no customer service policy at all, yes, actually it IS a right to some degree.
In my experience, the trick of “customer service” is convincing people that they’re being treated right, within the boundaries of the job you’re doing. If someone demands something that I can’t give them (can’t leave the register to get them an item, can’t provide them access to an internal tech document, can’t dance on the back of an elephant in the middle of downtown Manhattan, etc) I apologize, sympathize, and find something I -can- do for them quickly and easily, and without making my coworkers glare at me like rabid dogs. Most of the time, this works, but then again I’ve been lucky enough to work for companies that have some pretty clearly written policies on what a customer can and can’t expect from the staff.
To the folks who think that the staple remover guy at Best Buy should be fired, I quite disagree, UNLESS the company policy is that such a thing shouldn’t be done. Without a manager of Best Buy, possibly even that specific Best Buy, coming here to confirm that, we’ll never know. Sounds to me like his quick thinking produced repeat business, and didn’t cost the company any more than a dollar. If that, considering that wholesale on such an item might be less. 
That sounds exactly like something I would do, as long as it wasn’t against company policy to do so, with a reminder to the customer that “we don’t usually do this, and may not be able to next time, but…” just as a CYA. Maybe I’m unusual, but my coworkers used to send all their problem child customers to me instead of a manager, because a little common courtesy and politeness went a long way toward diffusing a situation and getting the problem resolved. Note: NOT ass kissing. There is a VERY fine line in the service industry between kissing ass and diffusing hostility. They don’t need to be the same thing, and ass kissing just gets you more of the same behavior from a lot of customers. 
On the flip side, Customer Service people are treated like crap by a lot of customers. I know this, since I work in it. They are often blamed for things that aren’t their fault, have unreasonable expectations set on them by management staff who don’t understand what it’s like to deal with the hostility that comes from the customer side of the phone, and are often underpaid for the things they deal with on a daily basis. As a result, whenever I have to call for support or assistance with something, from mail order to banking and finances, I try and be kind to the rep, regardless of how miffed I am about the situation I’m calling about. If I go shopping, and need help from someone at the store, I try not to set unreasonable expectations, and am sympathetic that the last 6 people they talked to may have been bitchy and rude.
What yanks my chain is I’M NOT THOSE PEOPLE. Give me a chance to show you that I can be patient, and we can solve my problem with as little inconvenience to both of us as possible. Don’t immediately start in with the “you’re just a stupid, whiney customer” attitude before I’ve even made my request. You don’t have to be my best friend. You don’t get paid enough for it. But if you took the job and wear the clothes, I would expect that you were prepared to handle requests from customers. I don’t mind being on hold, if I’m being helped. I don’t mind waiting my turn, if I’m getting my problem solved. I don’t mind speaking to a manager instead, if my request falls outside what you can do for me, as long as I can get answers to my questions. I don’t even mind going to another department if I’ve waited in line at the wrong place, if you direct me to the proper department without acting like I’ve somehow stepped on your toes for standing in line at the wrong place.
In my experience as a customer and a customer service rep, the simple little things make a difference. $6.50 an hour or $22.50 an hour, 30 seconds to get the customer into the hands of someone who can help them fix their problem makes a world of difference. And I have survey scores to prove it. (PS: customers, let store managers and support people know when employees are doing a -good- job. Don’t just fill out those silly surveys when they’re bad. They remember it, on both counts.)
But then, I’m the lady that waits in line for 30 minutes to ask for help getting something off the top shelf that I can’t reach, and doesn’t mind hearing “I’m so sorry, miss, I’m not allowed to leave my register. Can I ask you to wait over here while I call someone who can help you? It might take them a minute, but they’ll be here as soon as they can”. I’d rather hear that than bubble gum popping “yeah, you’re in the wrong place, lady eyeroll go over to Children’s Clothes random sort of directional waving they’re never busy. I don’t have time for you. NEXT!”.
Ick. Eyebleed post. sorry it was so long.
Geez, this is the kind of attitude that gets me. The elephants were in town for the circus anyway, is it too much to ask that you meet my entertainment needs??