Profound Pronouncements: Customer Service

Remember the good old days when you could treat your customers like lepers who had eaten too much lead paint as children and still see them shop in your store the following week? When did people get so fired up about “customer service”? I remember one of my old bosses asking a customer how he’d like a “boot in the @$$” after accusing one of his workers of pocketing $20. Today a customer can try to return a used diaper, call your mother a “lady of the evening”, wipe their muddy feet on your shirt and we’ll still smile, say “yes sir” and give them a bag of gold coins and a kiss on the...cheek. Maybe it’s a combination of low-price big box stores undercutting everybody on prices and the decline of unions. Or maybe we’re just too wimpy these days and think it’s virtuous to allow people to treat us like serfs in the midst of the bubonic plague. So how do we roll back this insidious problem? Direct action, that’s how. Well, maybe some indirect action first. When a customer is raising his voice, or being demanding about that rotten avocado or $1283.00 credit card overcharge, giggle in a high-pitched manner and shout out “yay!”. Then skip away. Or, look them right in the eye, point at your ears and shake your head “no”; every time they try to say something, shrug. Finally, learn a few words in an obscure language: Ðâщяφφűř or whatever works for you. After a few weeks of the indirect approach, then you can move on to direct action: nail-studded baseball bats and flamethrowers. Get some complaining S.O.B. all toasty, or poke ‘em full of holes and you have solved about 85% of your problem right there. So the next time you’re confronted with an angry customer: take action.

Ill-Gotten Booty