Tuesday, October 05, 2004
Service The Customer?
Does anybody know what customer service means? Have we so lost the art of quality customer service that we have just succumbed to being treated poorly; to just sit there and take it? Have we bought into the idea that the business is doing us a favor so they can talk to us and treat us however they so choose and to top it off, pay them for it?
Well I have not. I know what good customer service is and not only do I give good customer service, and yes, I get a lot of recognition at my jobs for it, I also demand it when I’m the customer. Here’s how it works:
You perform a service that the pulic wants.
I’m one of the public who wants you to perform this service and I agree to your prices.
You perform the service, I pay you, we all win.
What it is not:
You perform a service that the public wants but you make demands on the public.
I’m one of the public who wants you to perform this service and I agree to your prices but excuse me, you have demands of me?
You do not perform the service because I find another business who performs the exact same service as you do but they understand quality customer service and good business practice. They get my money.
When someone is offering to give you money, you find whatever way you can to get that money and give them what they want. Example: Your shop doesn’t take American Express, only Visa and Mastercard. A person walks in, wants to buy things, wants to give you money but only has an American Express. You are not only a fool but a piss poor businessperson if you don’t find a way to get that money off of that American Express. You are not only a fool but a poor businessperson if you turn that money away because, “We don’t take American Express.”
When someone is offering to give you money for a service performed, you do not treat them poorly, fail to give them information, give them excuses and make demands of them so that you can perform your service how you want to do it, how it’s comfortable for you, you perform the service to appease the customer. That’s why they are paying you.
So I called up the groomers yesterday for this dog to be taken in. I say I’d like to set up an appointment and the lady on the other end finds the dog’s name, says bring her in tomorrow and starts to hang up. I have to tell her, “Wait, wait, wait” because I’m not fricken done yet. (Another key to quality customer service: You NEVER hang up first. You ask them if there is anything else you can do for them.) I barely got her back in time before she hung up so that I could ask her where the place is...even though I had informed her that I’m pet sitting AND that I’m new to the area...I apparently know where everything is around here?
Gives me the address and landmarks and we hang up. I start to look over my notes....there’s no actual time. Damnit! I didn’t get a time, I just got, “bring her in tomorrow.” So I call back to ask what time tomorrow I’m supposed to bring her in. I get told, “Bring her in at 8am so we can let the groomer know.”
That last bit threw me off and I thought about it all day. I started to think that 8am wasn’t really an appointment afterall. If I’m bringing her in at 8am...shouldn’t the groomer already know that? Am I going to show up at 8am only to find the groomer isn’t there yet? The groomer needs to be called in? Huh? I’m not understanding this at all.
So I wake up at 7:30 this morning and call them again. I’m not mean in the morning but I’m so, so very not a morning person and the last thing I want to do is show up at this place to find the groomer doesn’t know about this dog getting groomed. I call to get a feel for things and frankly, to see if I can come in at a later time because I’m still not comfortable with that whole line about “so we can let the groomer know” after I get there.
Ok. Here’s where everything got stupid. This could have been an easy phone call...actually, the very first call I made yesterday is when I should have found all of this out, not at 7:30 in the fricken morning the third phone call later.
They demand to know precisely what time in the afternoon I’d like to bring the dog. Now, anyone who has ever set up an appointment knows that you give a morning time or an afternoon time and the appointment setter lets you know what they have. “How about 1pm?” “Well, actually, that is booked, but we do have an opening at 2:30pm, would that work for you?” (Another quality customer service tip: Ask the customer if it works for them.) And if it does, you are good to go, if it doesn’t, you work with that appointment setter until you find a time that works out. That’s how it normally works...in the world of quality customer service.
So I tell them, “How about sometime in the afternoon?” Now, up until this point, not one single person has bothered to tell me that they don’t do things this way. I’m still under the assumption that you set actual fucking appointments at this place. They say, “OK, you want to bring her in at noon?” I responded, “Well, afternoon, I mean, I don’t know what you have, I don’t when he leaves...”
“Who leaves?”
Erm...ok. Who are we talking about this whole time? The groomer!
I’m informed that the groomer leaves when the groomer is done. I can understand that but I have no idea when the groomer’s last appointment is now do I? But if they are taking calls for him, surely they must have some idea? Before I get to ask another question she pipes in, “But we close at 6.” Ok, well, I don’t know, sometime in the afternoon, what do you have open?
THIS IS WHEN, I’m informed that all the dogs come in at 8am and they just do the dogs in the order received. So, I could drop this dog off at 8am but actually not be done until say, three hours later. So I ask this:
“So, I bring her in at 8 but there is a chance I may have to wait around for three hours?”
“Well, you don’t have to wait here. You can always go home and come back.”
Now. To let you know ahead of time...I didn’t say what I’m about to write but I was thinking it and frankly her comment really got under my skin and I was starting to get pissed. Whether I’m sitting at the groomers or sitting at home or sitting at work or sitting under a fucking bridge watching the clouds go by, the fucking point is, I’m still sitting around somewhere for who knows how long..could be an hour, could be three, could be all fricken DAY...but no one knows! So I’m being told that I get to schedule my day around a dog getting a hair cut because the groomer doesn’t like to make appointments. What I said was:
“I don’t understand. So it’s not an actual appointment then?”
“Well it is an appointment. The groomer just doesn’t actually work like that, he doesn’t set up actual times. You would have to call and talk to him if you want an actual time set up.”
“Ok...I don’t understand, I thought that’s what I was doing this entire time.”
She gets annoyed and puts me on hold to find someone else to talk to me. (Quality customer service tip: If the customer keeps asking questions, it isn’t because they are trying to be difficult, it’s because they are trying to understand how things work around there because information isn’t freely being supplied. GIVE them the information, anticipate questions and hell, I don’t know, customers kind of like it when you act like you want their business, not like they owe you something.)
It took three phone calls to get that information? Don’t be misled. I do have plans for my day and they didn’t include waiting around for unknown hours for the dog to be finished. See, I like to plan things out for my day. I work well with schedules. I am not completely rigid about schedules but I like to arrange times when I am going to do certain things. Ok, from this time to this time, I’m going to be doing this. Then I’m going to go to the gym. Then I’m going to set up a time with these people to do that. After that, I’d like to do this. And yes, I did have plans for what I was going to be doing today. I have three things I want to do today in addition to getting this dog groomed and having no idea what time the dog will be ready kind of throws a wrench into everything else.
So do it on a different day? Wouldn’t have been a problem except that this simple fricken task of getting a dog’s hair cut was turning into a fricken ordeal because getting information was like pulling teeth!
So, although I’m writing how I actually feel here, I did not say these things to the person on the phone. So now I have a new lady on the phone and I basically get to start all over. I let her know that I’m just trying to set up an appointment for the dog, I was unaware that you don’t actually set appointments, you just go in and some time later you get told they dog is ready, I’m not the actual dog owner, I’m pet sitting, I’m unfamiliar with their process and was just trying to figure things out.
She tells me that if I want to set an actual appointment, (because apparently when I called the first time and said I would like to schedule an appointment, that didn’t mean I actually wanted to schedule an appointment), I would have to talk to the groomer. Period. The end. No further information.
OI VEY!
“What is the groomer’s name?” (I was still keeping my voice calm but I’m really getting ticked by this point. This isn’t fucking national security, it’s a dog groomer!)
She tells me the name and I ask if I can speak with him. He’s not there yet, call back later. I thank her and we hang up. I already know what is going to happen. I’m going to call up later and I’m going to get: “He’s busy” or “He’s at lunch” or “He’s gone home for the day.” Anyone wanna start making bets?
I’m not even going to go that route. It’s just going to irritate the ever loving hell out of me. Instead, I’m going to bring the dog in at 8am some other day, some day that I have specifically set aside to do absolutely nothing all day long since L-rd only knows when the dog will be ready to be picked up but now I know all of this information. NOW I know how it all works, three phone calls and 4 people later, (one who apparently can’t handle questions), I know not to plan a thing else on dog grooming day because the groomer doesn’t like to set a schedule. Who cares about your schedule because it’s the groomer who needs to remain happy and comfortable.
Oh, and here’s another tip: If you are taking calls for a groomer, someone asks you a lot of questions and you tell them that the groomer has 17 dogs today, usually he only has 10 and imply that the customer is soley responsible for his hectic day, you might want to think about that before you say it. Never make the customer feel like a burden. Even though the customer has absolutely nothing to do with how many people you told to come in today, blaming them for a hectic schedule doesn’t make the customer very happy.
Whether it’s a regular customer, first time customer or pet sitter, everyone deserves to be treated to quality customer service. I did not get that today or yesterday. So, while this may continue to be the dog’s vet and groomer, they will never be the vet for my cats. They may have kept their customer they already had but they lost a potential customer. Not good business practice.
