Customer (dis)Service

Customer Service: (noun) the assistance and advice provided by a company to those people who buy or use its products or services.

I start this article with a definition for those of you that don’t know what customer service is. It seems to me that the whole concept of customer service is being lost in society.

I recently had a chat with someone about just this very same thing and she told me she used to take her mother shopping at Flora Hatch. Her mother would sit in the changing room and tell the sales person what they were looking for, “a red dress for Saturday night” or “Something comfortable for the summer.” The clerk would go and select a few things matching what she wanted and would bring them to her to try on. Try that at a discount department store! You would be lucky to even find an “associate”.

She also complained about trying to shop at a local “Big Box” store. She said she had to chase down a clerk who told her “That’s not my department.” When she finally found the right person, it seemed to her that she had as much knowledge about the products as they did.

A few times I needed work done on my home. My house roof was leaking so I called several local roofing companies. I like to try and spend my money locally in Lockport. Over half of them didn’t bother to return my call.  Apparently the owners were wealthy enough that they didn’t have to work anymore. I ended up with a roofer out of Buffalo.

When I wanted to put an addition on my house, I called many of the people in the Lockport phone book (Yes there are still a few of us that use a phone book). Most of the people I called didn’t give me the courtesy of a response. I ended up getting a contractor from Lancaster.

I needed a piece of siding replaced on the back of my house Two guys showed up and looked at what I needed and said they would get back to me. I never heard from them again. Despite my best efforts to hire someone locally, I ended up calling my guy to get the job done right.

The garage wiring shorted out and we had no power in it including to the garage door opener. Back to the phone book. Out of the eight people I called, three responded, two who said they would try to send someone out in the next couple of weeks to “look at” the job. I finally found a local company to do the job.

I wanted two doors and storm doors replaced on my house. Out of all the people I called, including some that advertise on television, just a few got back to me saying that the job was too small for them. I guess my money wasn’t green enough for them.

A recent Saturday I needed an emergency electrical repair. My heat was out. I pulled out the phone book once again started dialing. I started those that had ads saying they had 24/7 emergency service. I left messages on several machines and finally called a place that utilized an answering service. I explained my situation and the person on the other end of the line was very empathetic and said they would call the “technician" and get back to me within a half an hour.

Two hours later I called them back and asked what was up. She said that they were still trying to get ahold of the technician and they would call me back in a half an hour. I was starting to think this was their stock answer. I called my daughter and, she lined up an electrician out of Elma. After two days of freezing at night and finally getting the problem repaired, the 24/7 people started returning my calls.

 I take a prescription I can only get out of state. I called them up because I was running low and they told me I needed a new script. So I called my doctor to have one sent to them. Finally a whole day later and one day closer to running out, I called the out of state pharmacy and they said they had received the script. They then asked I wanted to have this filled. Well no…. I was just calling to see what the weather was where they were located.

So I finally got the prescription filled, or so I thought. A few hours later they called back to inform me that the delivery date had been moved back by a day. I’m even closer to reaching the bottom of my pill bottle. Two hours after that, a different person called me to see if I wanted to schedule a delivery of my drugs. I calmly explained that delivery was already scheduled so they checked their computer and told me I was right. I told them to have a nice day and hung up. Then at 8:30 that night someone else called and we went around this one more time. When they asked if I had any questions, I was tempted to ask why they were so inept.