Good Service, what's that?
Tara Paterson
July 15, 2007
Ask not that events should happen as you will, but let your will be that events should happen as they do and you shall have peace. –Epictetus
Whatever happened to good service? It seems that everywhere you go these days the one thing that stands out the most in many situations is the lack of good customer service. Whether it’s the cashier at the checkout in the grocery store; the customer service assistant at the cable company; or the ticket agent at the airport; the motto of the customer is always right or we will do whatever is necessary to please our clients, seems to have disappeared from company policies like planes in the Bermuda triangle!
We recently decided to hire painters to paint the interior of our home. I was excited to finally have a finished office, family room, and kitchen, which had been sitting half done for over a year. I could not wait to finally begin organizing our space. The project seemed to begin with ease. Granted, some of the rooms were going to require more work than others, but that’s what professionals do, right? That’s what I thought anyway….
First, we were told that they would need to have at least 2 rooms to work on at a time, which made sense since the paint would need to dry. So we moved things from one room to another with the understanding that the rooms we uprooted would be put back later in the evening. I truly expected that hiring professional painters to finish the work we detest (painting), would be a pleasant and speedy experience. Boy was I wrong.
Never would I have anticipated the amount of work I would encounter having painters in the house. They tracked dirt and mud through the house; they left painted footprints on our rugs; they dropped paint splatters on the hardwood floors; they left our front door wide open for our adventurous cat to sneak out of, repeatedly; they nicked the woodwork; they dropped our satellite receiver onto the floor (which we need to replace)…. and the list goes on and not so much as an apology of any kind. All we heard were the excuses for arriving at 10am and leaving before 4pm or why they wouldn’t be back for a week.. (oh don’t get me started on that one)…
Needless to say we are into the third week of this project, none of our rooms are complete and I must find the resolve to continue my work and not allow the chaos to overwhelm me. Somewhere along the line, customer service or client appreciation has been shuffled aside and replaced by people showing up for work. For those of us who truly work hard to treat our clients with respect and consideration, we have the decline of customer service to thank for the skepticism that many people have about the way in which they will be treated.
“If you don’t like something, change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.” –Mary Engelbreit.
I will change the way I think about this experience. I will continue to treat people the way I wish to be treated and with any luck our rooms will be finished sometime this year :o)
2004- 2007 by Tara Paterson, All Rights Reserved
Whatever happened to good service? It seems that everywhere you go these days the one thing that stands out the most in many situations is the lack of good customer service. Whether it’s the cashier at the checkout in the grocery store; the customer service assistant at the cable company; or the ticket agent at the airport; the motto of the customer is always right or we will do whatever is necessary to please our clients, seems to have disappeared from company policies like planes in the Bermuda triangle!
We recently decided to hire painters to paint the interior of our home. I was excited to finally have a finished office, family room, and kitchen, which had been sitting half done for over a year. I could not wait to finally begin organizing our space. The project seemed to begin with ease. Granted, some of the rooms were going to require more work than others, but that’s what professionals do, right? That’s what I thought anyway….
First, we were told that they would need to have at least 2 rooms to work on at a time, which made sense since the paint would need to dry. So we moved things from one room to another with the understanding that the rooms we uprooted would be put back later in the evening. I truly expected that hiring professional painters to finish the work we detest (painting), would be a pleasant and speedy experience. Boy was I wrong.
Never would I have anticipated the amount of work I would encounter having painters in the house. They tracked dirt and mud through the house; they left painted footprints on our rugs; they dropped paint splatters on the hardwood floors; they left our front door wide open for our adventurous cat to sneak out of, repeatedly; they nicked the woodwork; they dropped our satellite receiver onto the floor (which we need to replace)…. and the list goes on and not so much as an apology of any kind. All we heard were the excuses for arriving at 10am and leaving before 4pm or why they wouldn’t be back for a week.. (oh don’t get me started on that one)…
Needless to say we are into the third week of this project, none of our rooms are complete and I must find the resolve to continue my work and not allow the chaos to overwhelm me. Somewhere along the line, customer service or client appreciation has been shuffled aside and replaced by people showing up for work. For those of us who truly work hard to treat our clients with respect and consideration, we have the decline of customer service to thank for the skepticism that many people have about the way in which they will be treated.
“If you don’t like something, change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.” –Mary Engelbreit.
I will change the way I think about this experience. I will continue to treat people the way I wish to be treated and with any luck our rooms will be finished sometime this year :o)
2004- 2007 by Tara Paterson, All Rights Reserved
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