I am sick to DEATH of shitty customer service

The BBQ Pit
61

My hubby, who has the BEST work ethic of anyone I’ve ever met, finally had to quit his last job at a well known financial institution last year because the stress was literally killing him.

While the rest of the staff sat around and ignored customers, took personal calls, and refused to answer the phones, he worked like a dog … picking up the slack. And you know what? They took advantage of him. Well duh … they’re GOING to take advantage of an employee like that. If they can get away with it, they WILL. The various branch managers (who came and went like a revolving door) saw the horrendous customer service going on … and consistantly ignored it.

On top of the customer service issues, he originally had a loan “goal” (read quota) of $1 million per year. He freaked about that number … and said there was NO way he could reach it. Well, he worked hard every day … making his monthly goal (a percentage of yearly goal) … made his cold calls … and met the goal with three months to spare.

What happened? Three months later, they announced goals and his new goal was $2 million. He came home freaking out about THAT number … said there was NO way he could reach it. Well, he met the goal … again with months to spare.

Obviously, the next year’s goal was higher … I think around $3.5 million. But what management didn’t realize (or more likely CARE) was that he’s a PERFECTIONIST. He was KILLING himself to meet those goals … working 12-14 hour days … bringing home a TON of work … it was ridiculous.

He went to his manager … in tears. He’d developed depression … anxiety attacks … and tried to give her his resignation. She BEGGED him to stay … “Please please … we’ll make it easier on you …” He stayed … she quit less than a month later. The stress got to HER … and come to find out the reason she’d begged him to stay was because HER ass would’ve been on the fire if the numbers weren’t up … and without him, the numbers would’ve been dismal.

He stayed another six months … and I finally sat him down. I told him the job was killing him … he was withdrawing from everyone … depressed … a physical and mental wreck … and that he should quit. So … he did.

Know what? The world went on turning … the bank is still open … and they still have HORRIBLE fucking customer service. We closed our accounts … and those people now abuse a NEW girl who cries in the bathroom because no one will answer phones or wait on people in the lobby.

What the fuck is going on? Why are we treating people like nothing more than human waste!? We wonder why everyone is being treated for depression … why everyone is angry … well, hell! You treat people like crap every day for years … it’s going to wear on them!

Sorry … I’m done venting …

62

Some would argue that the companies that train and treat their employees better would see the rewards in increased business, and beat their competitors. But that’s the same, smarmy psudo-logic we’ve been “invisible-handed” for far too long. In practice, the following hierarchy has emerged:

  1. The Stockholders (who want high, short term profits for the sake of liquidity, so they can send their “new” money into other ventures. Economic physics states that money doesn’t go where it’s needed; it goes where it will grow).

  2. The Corporate Officers (who will sometimes play tricks, such as camoflauging themselves as Major Stockholders in order to usurp their place at the top of the hierarchy).

  3. Various middle management, based on their immediate monetary value to the company (a good illustration is The Kids in the Hall’s “Brain Candy,” where the pharmecutical sales hotshot is allowed to humiliate the chemist who actually invented the new drug)

Next to Last: The Customers

Dead Last: Customer Service

Solution? I dunno: if the regulations in as immediate a document as the company’s articles of incorporation can’t protect #1 from #2, what hope do the last group on the hierarchy have, based on the protections from state and federal regulations (regulations often written by lobbyists in group #3).

If you’re an empoyee, I guess your only hope is to start your own business, treat your customers like gold until you go public, then treat your stockholders like gold and the customers now like a more base metal.

If you’re a customer, I guess your only hope is to call in ahead of every place you go, telling the manager “this is so-and-so at the cross-town branch. Corporate is sending a ‘secret shopper’ your way,” and describe yourself.

63

I hope this does not offend you, but I think this is a horrible idea.

Compliments from customers, written or otherwise, often have very little to do with the calibre of the representative. I gave consistent service, but could get 3 compliments in a week or none in months. As a supervisor, I get complimentary calls or letters and do praise the employee and note them, but I find they run the gambit between wonderful representatives and horrible ones on the route to termination who just decided to be nice on one call this month and got lucky. Quality assurance (call monitoring) can pick up everything that a compliment can cover and more – and customer satisfaction should be a major part of quality.

Further, what’s to stop a money-driven employee from having “customers” (friends, family, or even themselves) mail in for non-existent service? From giving away the store at the company’s expense for no reason, just to see if they could garner some compliments?

Also, regarding the complaint about being promoted from within: I find it odd that entry-level workers would be complaining about not hiring outside the company! My company does a mixture of both, and supervisors with no ground level experience take forever to catch on, and quit at a much higher rate. We have much less of an idea of how good their management is going to be before hire, whereas someone from within should have shown pride in their work and consistent performance to begin with to be considered. I think the problem is that people are being promoted for having occupied a seat, not because they deserve it – and, heck, if your hiring practices are bad, then I can’t see how outside applicants would be any better. (Of course, I should admit that I was promoted from within, and I feel – and so, given all feedback I’ve given, does my manager – that I’m doing a fine job.)

64

Oo! Oo! I have a pin! Want to know why I got it?

For talking a woman through delivering her baby.

I remember thinking at the time that this should have at least earned me the 911 coffee mug. I still don’t have one. I’ve gotten several other pins, though.

I’ve worked a variety of jobs in my lifetime. Started out in fast-food hell in high school; worked as a newspaper inserter (and if there’s a job out there that sucks out your soul faster than inserting, I don’t want to know about it); even worked as an Evil Telemarketer for a while. I’ve also done the retail clerk thing and the convenience store thing. And while I’ve hated most of these jobs to some degree or other, and generally the pay was crap, it was a matter of personal pride to me that I perform these jobs to the best of my ability. Just because management thought I was nothing more than a warm body hired to mechanically do Their bidding, and just because some customers obviously thought I was lower than the lowest, loosest worm dropping (a point of view I came close to agreeing with during the telemarketer schtick), it didn’t mean I had to believe them. If I could cheerfully help a customer with driving directions, or quickly provide them with a hard-to-locate item, or suggest a way they could save money by doing this instead of that, or if I could make sure I had a fresh pot of coffee ready for some of my regular customers - then I felt like I had made someone’s day a little more pleasant, which in turn made my day more pleasant. And it didn’t cost me anything to do it.

I’ve spent the last 15 years going from job to job, each one paying a little more than the last, each one a bit more tolerable. I’ve never been fired from a job and I’ve always gotten good references. Now I’m in a job that I love, that I’m good at, and that makes a difference to people. Took me a while, but I believe I’ve found my niche.

Some customers, of course, just can’t be pleased, and some managers are complete wankers, and there were times when I was one shitty customer away from walking out the door forever. But (and if it starts to sound like I’m blowing sunshine and roses up y’alls asses, please forgive me; that’s not my intention at all), usually you can find something positive to focus on. Unless you’re a newspaper inserter.

65

Let’s not be too hasty to put the blame on “liberalism” (whatever that means). I had the good fortune to go to a private university in the Northeast that was beyond my parents’ means to afford. The student body was largely made up of WASP princes and princesses whose parents were sitting on enormous piles of money, no doubt amassed by their robber baron grandparents, great-grandparents, etc.

Some of them (the students) had jobs on campus, as did I, so they’d have a little spending money. They were pretty much good Young Republicans, and it was clear that they felt that these jobs were so far beneath them that they were actually doing a favor for anyone who approached them in the course of that job. “Liberalism” had absolutely nothing to do with their attitudes.

I can’t tell you how annoying it was. I was driving a cab and loading trucks in the summers and on weekends (in addition to my on-campus job during the week) and generally busting my butt, and doing a pretty good job on top of my studies.

66

Depends on how your company does it. At mine, just lasting a couple years got you a promotion, qualifications or otherwise. People that knew their job well and were trained in the area that was open would be passed over for someone who’d been there 3 months longer.