Putting the 'cuss' in customer service (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Putting the 'cuss' in customer service

1:46pm Thursday 12th April 2007

• Print
• Email

This week a debate on standards of customer service was ignited when Edwina Curry launched an attack on Mothercare, whose assistants she had found rude and unhelpful.

Shop assistants staged a fight back on breakfast TV when a spokeswoman from some retail association explained it was, in fact, us customers who were the problem - verbally abusing shop staff and threatening to "get them on the way home".

But what prompted that bad customer behaviour? I'd hazard a guess it was probably bad customer service.

This whole debate has been a subject close to my heart of late, having suffered badly at the hands of one firm - inparticular one employee of the firm and his cavalier attitude towards actually providing me with the goods for which I had handed over a substantial amount of money.

I ordered a new kitchen from a company in Keighley in September last year which I was told would be fitted over five days in early December. Well, it's still not right.

Ordering that kitchen from that man at that company has driven me to the edge of despair and yes, I'm afraid I am one of those customers who have verbally abused a retail assistant because he blooming well deserved it.

The whole thing has been a catalogue of errors. It took three attempts to get the right sink delivered, two goes to get the extractor fan, two goes to get the right handles, he even ordered half the kitchen from one range and half of it from another range - which the kitchen fitter didn't spot and fitted anyway. Of course, it had to all come out and be redone.

I still shudder to think of all the time I wasted waiting in for yet more deliveries, praying that this time he would have got it right.

And the response of the man himself (when we actually managed to get hold of him on the phone) was "well, having a new kitchen fitted is up there on the same stress levels as getting married or moving house".

My response: unprintable.

Rarely in my life have I met someone who is just so bad at their job and so rude and unhelpful when the inevitable problems caused by his sloppiness cropped up.
In contrast was my experience buying new flooring for said kitchen. In this instance I will name the company - it was Floors-2-Go in Keighley.

The staff there were attentive, but not pestering or pushy. They were knowledgeable about the products and extremely helpful, loading the car up for us (they even smiled indulgently at my two pre-school children when they ran into a table knocking over a stack of leaflets).

However, I think you can also go too far attempting to promote good customer service. Is it just me, or do other people hate it when they shop in Gap and get asked at the till 'did anyone help you today?'

I don't know if the assistants get some kind of bonus if their name crops up a certain number of times or something.

If so, that's wrong too because good customer service should be a matter of course, not something you get extra brownie points for.

When I trained as a journalist I was taught you can't afford to have an 'off-day' when you are interviewing people who are experiencing life-changing events but who are still good enough to take the time to speak to you.

My advice to shop assistants would be if you don't like helping people shop then find another job that doesn't involve standing around in a shop, assisting people with their shopping (the clue is in the job title).

Then we won't phone you up and threaten to stand outside your shop with a banner warning everyone about your bad customer service.

Yes - I did threaten Mr Kitchen man with that and I'm not ashamed to say it felt good.