Do You Know Why Outstanding Customer Service Has Virtually Disappeared: I Do!
What I term outstanding customer service has virtually disappeared and I know why–it’s because if you were born after 1965, you’ve truly never had the opportunity to experience it. How in the world could one ever understand or be responsible for teaching something, like outstanding customer service, yet too young to have experienced it first-hand. In fact, it won’t be that many years from now when there’ll no longer be anyone left from the baby boomer generation or those born between 1946-1964. What was the largest populated generation is now beginning to drastically shrink as the oldest boomers are now 77 years old.
Many who are members of the younger generations believe this notion is nonsense. They believe it can be learned via information which can be found on the internet. In an upcoming post, I will be blogging about my feelings regarding leadership where those from younger generations believe it, too, can be learned when, in fact, it cannot–either you have it, or you don’t, and only a very few have it! You may be able to teach someone to be a leader, but you will never convince me you can teach leadership.
As I’ve stated before and will continue to say, the institution of family has “gone to pot”! Family structure and standards have all gone by the wayside. Parents no longer “parent”–evidently, they’re too focused on themselves, their careers, and the supposed “new normal” which is abnormal to me and not willing to make the necessary sacrifices to reestablish the institution of family. Yes, call me “old-fashioned” and maybe even a “male chauvinist pig”, but my mother’s career was that of a housewife and homemaker. She worked very hard and put in some very long hours having the tremendous responsibility of being the “glue” that kept our “house of cards” together and she had zero days off as she was on duty seven days/week. She was proud of her chosen profession and guess what–when I got to high school she went into real estate and had an extremely successful career for 45 years well into her 80’s. I think mothers today opt for a career over raising their family because it’s much easier in comparison and, honestly, they’re just lazy. OBTW, what I’ve just described was what I would term the “norm”, that is, “back in the day” as most women were “stay at home” moms and the institution of family was sound.
Parents not “parenting” has led to a boon in the daycare industry where strangers who really could care less about your children are being left to care for them–where is the common sense in this philosophy? Who is teaching these children to be civil? Who is teaching these children to be polite? Who is teaching these children to be courteous? Who is teaching these children to have manners? Who is teaching these children to be respectful? Of course, the obvious answer to these questions is absolutely no one. Where is Captain Kangaroo when you need him??
In order to provide outstanding customer service, you must know how to be civil, polite, courteous, have manners, and be respectful. I seldom come into contact anymore with those who practice these must have basics. Where have the “please” and “thank yous” gone? How about the “yes sir” and “no ma’ams”? “Back in the day”, there was structure and standards. If you didn’t conform to the structure and standards, there was accountability and the type of accountability that would get your attention. Believe you me it wasn’t something called “time-out”–no, it was most likely a well-deserved spanking! Today, they call this harsh punishment which is interpreted as child abuse. Anyone with any amount of common sense would believe this to be totally absurd. Sorry, folks, there are consequences for your behavior or, at least, there should be if proper parenting existed.
Y2K and the emphasis on technology hasn’t helped create outstanding customer service, in fact, it’s dramatically hindered it. People aren’t connected to people anymore–they’re connected to their technology. Folks don’t know how to interact with one another as they’d much rather text you then speak directly with you. Being social is such a challenge and few people today can look you straight in the eye and carry on a conversation–it’s truly a very sad state of affairs. In fact, I know of companies who hire summer interns where a full day of their orientation process is devoted to social graces and interaction. Schools aren’t going out of their way to help this situation either as laptops are provided at an early age to all students becoming the main means to receiving an education virtually eliminating the need to develop any people skills.
Outstanding customer service must be real, it must be genuine, it must be dedicated, and it must be heartfelt–it can never be fake or orchestrated. Chick-fil-A has done an amazing job in creating a “brand”, but a “brand” that is based on unfortunately orchestrated service. I swear if another Chick-fil-A associate says, “my pleasure” one more time, they’re gonna get punched in the nose!
The Marriott Corporation has built a reputation for outstanding customer service over the years, but when it came to their chain of Roy Rogers Restaurants, they implemented a program of orchestrated service which was very apparent. Everyone working there wore a uniform which consisted of a pair of jeans, a plaid cowboy shirt with a bolo tie, and a small cowboy hat which didn’t quite fit right. When you approached the counter to place your order, the associate would belt out, “Howdy, Pardner!” and, of course, when you picked your tray up, the associate would send you on your way by saying, “Happy trails!”. It was really pretty comical, but at the end of the day, the service was completely orchestrated.
Outstanding customer service is all about relationship building. It’s about discipline and having the self-discipline to consistently practice what needs to be practiced in order to perfect the role you are playing even when you don’t feel like doing it.
Yes, it’s becoming a lost art form, that’s for certain. Corporate America has all but given up on providing outstanding customer service as the odds are against their being successful. You can see this occurring in many ways: the outsourcing of customer service representatives to places like the Philippines and India providing service via reading from created templates, fewer and fewer manned customer service departments in retail stores now being turned into self-service, more and more self-service checkouts, and companies using computerized on-line chats to answer customer questions. Now, which to me is not only very scary, but extremely dangerous is the onset of artificial intelligence (AI) where machines can now learn from experience making adjustments to perform human-like tasks like providing customer service.
This, in my opinion, is why outstanding customer service is now a thing of the past and it’s a true shame. What’s your take on this topic?
2 thoughts on “Do You Know Why Outstanding Customer Service Has Virtually Disappeared: I Do!”
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You have described today’s ongoing problem with the lack or non existent customer service that plagues most companies! Even the top companies that were the standard for excellent customer service have pretty much thrown in the towel! Many of these companies blame lack of qualified staff, budget constraints and even the fact that they do not feel their competitors have an edge on them. A I will take the place of the human element in this area and the “old standards of delighting the consumer “ will be a memory!
Ed–Thanks so much for your comments. Another key which I will be a blog topic is the lack of “leadership” in today’s corporate America and the inability to incorporate the importance of relationship building in providing what was outstanding customer service. Certainly, we remember in our Giant experience how, with a rather simple Mission Statement (Quality, Value, Service), they had nearly 45% of the market share within the Baltimore/Washington Metro Area even though they were proud to be the highest priced grocer in the area. By merely providing their customers with a wide variety of in-stock quality items and providing outstanding customer service, even though they were high-priced, customers were completely satisfied, thus, creating value. I remember as a GM being taught my initial tour in the morning wasn’t to discuss seen opportunities but was to speak with each associate concentrating on building a relationship. It was referred to as “managing by walking around” (MBWA) knowing if your associates knew you cared about them as an individual, they would pass that along in building a relationship with the customer exhibiting outstanding customer service creating customer loyalty which is also lacking today.