* Wake-up, Brain it's Monday again!
Brought to you by the Innovation Network
http://www.thinksmart.com

** For your free, weekly brain wake-up message, send this request:
TO: majordomo@thinksmart.com
Message: Subscribe wake-up

Good Morning Thinkers!
Archive: August 1, 2000

We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore!

Whatever happened to Customer Service? Remember several years ago when Customer Service was the "in" thing? People fell all over themselves telling the latest Nordstrom story and Delta Airlines was the paragon of service. What happened?

Some folks blame it on customers saying their expectations have grown out of reason. Some say it's the fault of employees, that you just can't get good help these days. Some lay the blame on companies that have been sliced and diced through reengineering, downsizing, mergers, spinoffs and general reorganizations. And many say the buck stops with the greed of all of us shareholders who want our stocks to automatically double every few weeks without understanding how company value is created.

I have a story. Last week I ordered a pizza from Domino's and was told that the total was $15.07. Now this is a good deal... hot pizza delivered right to my door. So far, so good. But, I had a $2 off coupon so I told the order taker who then recalculated my total to $16.30! I thought he was joking and laughingly asked how the price could go up if I had a discount coupon. He said, seriously, something about the coupons only applying to the normal price. I knew I had lost the war so I gave up and said, "Let's not use the coupon." Now my questions are: Since when did we start giving coupons for higher prices? Is that false advertising or just bad customer service?

Here's another story: I was taking a friend to the airport and there wouldn't be a meal on her flight (of course, we hardly expect food anymore!) so she wanted to buy a sandwich. We stopped at one of those ham sandwich shops. We walked in and there was a woman behind the counter and a couple of customers at tables. My friend asked for a ham sandwich and the woman explained, with great friendliness, that they didn't serve sandwiches after 4:00, and it was now 4:35. The place was still open, they still had ham, but someone, somewhere decided not to offer service after 4:00. Was it great customer service because this woman was friendly or abysmal customer service because management decided that customers wouldn't want sandwiches after 4:00?

And, one more. Our local hardware store, currently being threatened by two of the "biggies," apparently decided that the way to fight the competition was by offering stupid service. We needed a new barbecue and my husband saw one that fit the bill with several of the gadgets that he wanted. Sitting on this model was a price tag of $139. He found a salesperson (with some difficulty) and told him he wanted this model. The guy began to take boxes off the shelf (of course all the pieces would have to be assembled). My husband noticed prices on the boxes that were adding up to far more than $139. When he asked, he was told that the price displayed was just for the basic model, not all the accessories. When he complained, no one, including the manager, cared and the salesperson, irritated by the whole encounter, walked off muttering, "There's always one" My husband walked off muttering, "You'll never see me again."

I'm sure you have stories and I think we should rise up and tell our stories to the world! Let's say, "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore!" Or at least create a wall of Stupid Customer Unservice Stories. Please, just send one and make your story as brief as possible ... one short paragraph and send
TO: story@thinksmart.com
SUBJECT: MAD!

Yours for a resurgence of Customer Service,
Joyce Wycoff