Customer Service

This is a story from my archives, but it has not yet made it online. Some of you may have already read it, but, hey, it's good enough to read twice.
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Customer service. Depending on your experiences of the last 24 hours, those two words can bring to mind fond thoughts or irrational impulses. Perhaps you thought of the helpful gal who showed you where to find hemorrhoids ointment at the drug store when you were in dire need, or maybe you were reminded of the tech support provider who answered the phone in India to help you with a problem in America. Perhaps the words “Customer Service” remind you of the brilliant kid at the drive thru who refused to accept a five dollar bill and a quarter when your total came to $4.25 because he couldn’t figure out what your change should be. We all have stories of good customer service and bad customer service.

One day when I was in college and working as a professional gopher at an office building, I was given the job of taking about 25 boxes to the post office to be mailed. They were pre-stamped and just needed to be dropped off. As I pulled into the parking lot, I saw a postal employee walking past. I decided to ask him if there was a place where I could drop off the whole load since the boxes wouldn’t fit inside the convenient blue mailbox where all pre-stamped mail should be put. His response was simple, “Hey, I’m off the clock right now,” and he kept on walking. I later found out that all this guy had to do was point to the loading dock behind him and say, “Put them there.”

Today I had another bad customer service day. I was at a popular office supply store and needed to have some photocopies made. (To be fair, the name of the store had nothing to do with any tools used for attaching two sheets of paper together.) The order wasn’t huge, but it had a few minor complexities. I began explaining it to the clerk who then cut me off mid-sentence to tell me that she couldn’t write down my order right now because it was time for her dinner break. A brief glance around my immediate surroundings revealed that she and I were all alone in the photocopy section. There were no other customers piling up in line behind me and no pre-stamped boxes waiting to be taken to the post office. I guess she was just hungry. I hope she went to the drive thru and encountered a mathematically challenge juvenile who spits on burgers.

Somewhat shocked, I left and went down the street to the other store and explained my situation to a very helpful lady. Even though she was not the one who would actually print my job, (that person was at dinner, no doubt enjoying stellar service from a local establishment) she took copious notes and made sure the instructions were clear.

If you had asked me yesterday which office supply store I liked best, I would have given you an ambivalent, “I don’t know.” If you ask me tomorrow which store I like, I will tell you that I prefer stores with names that rhyme with words like “maples.” (The names in this story have been changed to protect the innocent, but if you think hard, you just might figure it out.)

It’s amazing how one brief encounter with an employee can taint your image of a business just like that. Fortunately we live in a country full of choices. That’s the beauty of a free market system. If I don’t like something I can go somewhere else. Oh, that reminds me, you can go somewhere else too if you don’t like what you read in the online so let me conclude by saying with a genuine smile on my face, “Thank you for reading with us today. Come back again soon!”