That’s not what I was asking, dear. My question has nothing to do with your experience in Smart & Final, specifically, it is a general question and it still stands.
What must an employee do for you to consider it good service? Peoples’ definitions of good service definitely vary. There are standards, and I’m not saying that either you’re overly picky or the employee doesn’t have to do anything, dammit. I’m just asking, and I don’t see where anyone has actually answered with positive statements about the level of service (as opposed to “don’t ignore me when I say hi,” which I’ve certainly experienced more in the reverse - I always say hi to customers, and they usually completely ignore my presence on the earth as I am just a peon who does not need to be acknowledged).
Well, I remember one night I had a terrible sore throat and I could hardly talk. So I was mostly smiling and nodding and when I did speak, it was barely above a whisper.
Some woman called my manager and said I didn’t say “hello” or “have a nice day.” I wasn’t rude, I just didn’t say those things.
A smile can easily substitute a “hello”. You’re reaching. As far as your “what entitles you to good service” statement, that’s so what’s wrong with the service industry today.
Attitudes such as that are the problem. I am entitled to good service or at least adequate service because I’m paying for it. What a ridiculous question. I never once disagreed with the “you get what you pay for” in terms of service. In fact, I was one of the first posters to mention it in this thread. So yes, customers are entitled to good service. Good service that’s relative to the store or resteraunt they are giving money to.
And racinchikki, sorry about my reaction to your previous post. It came right after Jessica defending the behavior of the clerk I described, calling outright hostility towards a customer “not very talkative.” Basically, saying it wasn’t bad. Anyway, I described the bare minimums of service in later posts.
I was working a checkout lane as a cashier for Kroger’s up in Michigan. This lady comes up saying the gallons of milk are all gone, can she swap out two half-gallons for the same price? Well I call the supervisor, he says no (he even gave me the reason: they got the gallons at a discount price from the dairy company, they set up these sales weeks in advance, he paid regular price on the half-gallons, so no swap). So I tell the customer this, and even am nice enough to tell her the reason. IMO, it’s a sensible reason, because I’ve worked places where they will offer to swap, and somehow that word gets around and people come up to the counter 30 minutes later with a dozen of those items to exploit what was basically a pacifying offer, and you have to honor it to be consistent.
At this point, the 50-something lady who works as a part-time bagger took it upon herself to get all indignant about the fact that the store wouldn’t do the switch. She goes on and on, and the customer eggs her on, and they stand there (this was late at night) for about 5 minutes arguing and making me look like the bad guy just because I wouldn’t join them in badmouthing the company. Badmouthing the company and blaming all problems on “well, you know the management around here” is just a cheap way to gain empathy with a bitchy customer. If management was right, I never had any problem saying so, and when they were wrong I figured it wasn’t my place to say so to customers.
Anecdote aside…
What “entitles” anybody to good service or to a good wage is what the market will provide. The management can choose to hire people at $6/hr who won’t give a crap about losing their jobs for being unfriendly, or they can hire at $10/hr so that employees will try extra hard to be friendly and keep their jobs. Which one of those the manager does depends on the importance of friendly service to his customers, his ability to squeeze some friendly service out of the $6/hr losers once and awhile, and the costs of firing and retraining for a position. Apparently the consensus among service industry managers is that hiring the $6/hr high school dropouts and just hoping for the best is the most economical, and that they’d lose more money from paying the “living” wage then they presently do from customers deciding to go elsewhere due to poor service.
Now when an employee decides to exploit that equation, an employee who is perfectly capable of being nice and friendly to everyone but who decides “what the hell, this job doesn’t pay me enough to be nice”, an employee who decides to be an ass on purpose…well, that’s just downright disgusting behaviour. They may not fire an employee for that sort of thing, due to the cost-benefit ratio of firing/retraining, but it still amounts to being intentionally rude. If we don’t normally tolerate intentional rudeness from the average joe on the street, why would we tolerate it from people we’re paying? It’s still being a jerk.
Well, I can see that too, I’ve had that same sort of feeling when I near the end of my employment somewhere. Perfectly understandable. It helped that this was a union job (even though it was just for the summer) and I was making $8, which was alot more than I’d had anywhere else, so I was predisposed to like the situation. But I’ve taken the same attitude at places where I made $5.75 (or even with my first job when I made minimum wage at about $4), and I figure I shouldn’t have to choose between respecting my employer and respecting the customers. But I do know the temptations of apathy setting in
I thought this was the point at least some of the posters were making - if you shop at Mega-Store X because their prices are much lower than Nordstroms (or wherever), you’re NOT paying for the service - the reason M-S X can keep their prices so low is that they pay people next to nothing.
Thus they get less qualified employees, or employees that have had no training whatsoever, and you get lower prices.
FWIW, (and yes, I know this is odd), I’ve trained people in customer service before. “Smile”. “Greet your customer” and “Be nice.” are acutally mentioned in most training handbooks. You would think this would be common knowledge, but I guess for some folks it’s just not.
Your experience at that store suggests a totally untrained employee and a management staff that just don’t care, as opposed to someone actually being rude.
Obviously, I wasn’t there and you were, but that example didn’t strike me as hugely rude. YMMV.
Alice, I’ve repeated that you get what you pay for service-wise at least 10 different times in this thread. You’re an intelligent person, I don’t think your reading comphrehension is that bad. So obviously your comparing Mega-Store X and Nordstroms doesn’t apply. Yes, you get what you pay for. I’ve said it for the 11th time now. And so I am paying for the service. Are you suggesting that if Mega-Store X had no customers, they’d still be employing customer service reps? Is the magical sky faire paying them? Who is then? Oh yeah, me.
And my experience at the store suggests a rude, sullen employee. You don’t have to train someone to say HI, in response to being said “hi” to. Most toddlers can do that. And telling someone their total? If you’ve ever set foot in any store, you know that cashiers do that. I’m guessing this particular girl has, in fact, set foot in a store of some sort before.
If that example didn’t strike you as rude, I’d hate to see the people you deal with on a regular basis.
Maybe she just reached the end of her strength, and could no longer force herself to say hi. You shouldn’t take it as something personal against you.
It really doesn’t seem that bad to me. I guess this is sort of where I would draw a line - the omission of saying hi is to be expected given the circumstances described in this thread. You are not paying enough for smiling, happy customer service. Not that it is a good thing not to be actively friendly, but it is very understandable.
But the deliberate and active embarassment of a customer, as in the other thread, is clearly very wrong and displays some bad things about the employee.
I give up. The excuses in this thread are pathetic.
Too tired to say hi? It’s like she’s working on the goddamn docks! How much energy does it take to say hi? And as I said before, she didn’t just not say hi back, she fucking glared at me. Like how dare I glean to say hi to her. What nerve I had, huh?
Sigh yourself - you’re clearly missing the point I and other posters have tried to make which is:
You got service. You managed to get some stuff, pay for it and get out of the store, right?
So the misses at the counter wasn’t cheerful and helpful, you still managed to get in, get your stuff and leave even if it wasn’t the most enjoyable experience of your life. Right? There was a person there to take your money, even if they didn’t act particularly happy about it, correct? So you got service.
You want an enjoyable experience, go to a higher priced store. You wanna get some stuff cheap and get out, go to MS X.
There are some people who just have bad attitudes. It’s not like paying those people $10.00 an hour more will improve those attitudes. What it will allow is the company to pick and choose from a broader pool of applicants. Tamiqua Washington, will still feel put out by having to show up for work and Hick Johnson will still rather smoke dope then help the customers. The only diference is that the company can afford to hire someone with social skills.
You can’t completely blame the employees though. Often times the managers are little better than the “any idiot” they hired. These guys aren’t Wharton grads. Usually it’s some kid who’s been there the longest or maybe a community college grad who majored in ‘business management’.
Every time I come into one of these threads, I so ready to bash the idiot customers, then all I read are excuse after excuse why its not the workers fault.
I have sympathy for low paid workers, I have been one in the past, I’m sure I’ll be one in the future, but that never gave me the right to do a bad job. Your work is worth more than what you are getting paid? Get a better job. Can’t get a better one right now? Then you are getting paid your value at the moment. It sucks, but thats reality.
And that attitude is at the heart of what prompted me to start this thread in the first place. While I am sympathetic to the plight of customers that experience rude treatment I still say that this sort of pompous attitude is pervasive and as much part of the problem as anything that the worker is doing. Both are wrong, and suck.
I’m not saying to completely blame the employees. I’m just asking that the employees take some responsibility! Many posters to this thread seem to be advocating no responsibility whatsoever for the employee. Pathetic excuses are followed by even more pathetic excuses and it’s frustrating as hell. I don’t care if your manager is Bo Bo the Fucking Clown, that doesn’t give you the right to be downright rude and borderline hostile to a customer who hasn’t done dick to you! If you can’t bring yourself to be civil as an employee, at least try to be civil as a fucking human being.
Your point is well taken, but I think the true issue here is that the level of service is poor or well below what is expected of the establishment. McDonald’s does not pay particularly well, I would guess, but I certainly expect very good customer service when I go there. That is part of their corporate policy I am sure.
The fact that McDonald’s pays didly is not excuse for a worker to give poor service. Their job, that they agreed to was one in which McDonald’s expects the customers to be treated a certain way. The botttom line is that for most places good or even adequate customer service is part of the job, as is ringing the cash register, flipping the burger, stocking the shelves, etc. If someone wants to do a half-assed job because they feel it is commensurate with their pay, that is their choice, but please do not expect me, the customer, to care.
The management has no obligation to pay their workers, train them, treat them like humans etc. because if you don’t like it you can “go get another job”.
However, employees have a moral obligation of some sort to slave away cheerfully under whatever conditions the management sees fit without ever complaining.
