Why is it that with jobs so scarce and so many extremely gifted people out of work these days, are the ones in the service sector (customer service, retail, and hospitality) so pathetically disengaged and horrible at their jobs?
Have you noticed that nowadays when you have someone wait on you in a restaurant, or go into a store to make a purchase, or go to a teller at your bank, or the super market, or the Post Office...etc, that the people in these "SERVICE" based settings that are tasked with HELPING ("serving") the public so sullen, inarticulate, lazy, foul-mouthed, and disengaged?
It used to be that receiving awful service was a 50-50 proposition. Toss a coin...heads you get passable service, tails you get a lousy experience. Now it seems like virtually EVERY experience you have is awful.
As we moved from a manufacturing, production-based economy to a service-based economy, you would have thought we would have gotten better as providing service. But in fact we've gotten much worse.
Why do you think that is?
It starts at home. You should learn to be polite- say hello-proper goodbye -shake hands look the person in the eye. Second, our educational system is also to blame. Class sizes are too big and students can get by without any expectation of competence in school work or workforce decorum. Although I like what NYC is doing recently with Charter schools and reducing classroom size but thats only a recent ocurrence. Employers should be blamed for not emphasizing that the customer comes first and if they are not happy with our company, you the employee will suffer the consequences. Lastly, each employee should take inventory of their personality. Am I a surly and morose individual? If so, I better adapt to what customers would expect. Some customers are difficult but an employee should only reciprocate with kindness and understanding.
ReplyDeleteYour premise seems to be that if customer service stinks, it must be the fault of the customer service rep. Does this mean that if customer service is great, you would reward that person? I think you'd reward the CEO. Even when you generously tip your server, you're probably rewarding the restaurant owner at a higher level. Isn't it possible that customer service stinks because it's tough for a manager to make a career in it, and therefore most upwardly mobile person would want to do anything to get out of it?
ReplyDeleteMaybe we're terrible at managing service. As for the service I personally receive, it's often extremely good. When it's not, I can usually see something in the process that a manager did to lead to the poor service. Not always. Some people suck. I just don't assume that front-line people are more likely to suck, and I don't see much evidence to reach that conclusion. By the way, I would expect to see some evidence to support it, if for no other reason than the fact that most of the occupations you identify are near the bottom of the income spectrum. If the market doesn't value the service jobs highly, why would we expect the people in those jobs to value their roles highly? The astute ones will see the opportunities to increase their rewards, but those opportunities won't always be to behave the way you want them to behave.
Best regards,
Jim