Is Customer Service Dead?

I started working when I was 15 years old.  At that time, the concept of customer service was instilled into my psyche.  I was taught that the better I treated the customers, the more they would return, resulting in more hours for me, and therefore more money.  Consequently, I tend to spend my money at businesses where I am treated well.  Conversely, I avoid those places that don't.

My wife and I have recently had some very bad experiences. The first occurred when my wife went to get her eyes examined.  She had her exam and got her prescription from the doctor. She picked out a set of frames and wanted to find out how much her glasses were going to cost before committing to purchasing them.  The customer service representative refused to help her saying it would take too much time to figure it out if my wife wasn't going to buy the glasses.  We took our business elsewhere.

On another occasion, my wife and I went out to eat at a local brew pub.  We have been regular visitor of this brew pub since they opened several years ago.  Over the years, I have built up a sizable collection of pint glasses and t-shirts from the various seasonal beer launch parties that they have every month.  Unfortunately, after our most recent visit to this establishment, we will never be back.

I ordered a salad and my wife ordered the seafood cannelloni.  When they brought our food, my wife's dinner wasn't hot.  She complained about it and asked to have the dish remade.  Our server was very apologetic and seemed willing to help.  Unfortunately management wasn't so helpful.  He came out and told us they could not remake her dish.  Instead, he argued with us, telling us that the dish was made correctly, brought out hot, and the best they could do was reheat it for us.

We objected saying we wanted a fresh dish as a reheated dish would not be as good as a fresh dish.  Eventually, the server came back out with another plate.  This time the food was hot and you could see steam coming from the sauce.  Unfortunately, it became obvious that it was the same dish heated in the microwave.  The pasta was overcooked and hard.  The cheese looked like a frozen dinner that had not melted completely.

We came home from dinner and I went to the corporate website and sent a complaint detailing what had happened during the evening.  In the past, whenever we have complained about service in a restaurant, we have either received a written apology, and in some cases gift certificates to visit again to give them another chance.  This time, we received no acknowledgement that we had a problem.  We won't be back to that establishment ever again.

Still Around

I have not been around here in the blogosphere much lately.  It isn't that I haven't had anything to talk about or that I have decide to abandon blogging. I haven't fallen off the face of the earth or have had anything disastrous befall me.  I just have been busy doing other things.

I have been very active in other areas of social media and interaction.  Twitter has been my main form of communication in that arena.  There is just something about being able to share brief thoughts quickly that has been appealing of late.  The ability to see an article I like, share it with my followers with a brief comment, without having to sit down and write a blog post has fit in with everything else that I have been up to.  You can find me on Twitter at dickster1961.

I have also been doing a lot of reading lately.  My Kindle is by my side constantly.  I make it a point to read during my lunch breaks at work and in the evening.  There have been so many free and bargain books that I have downloaded from Amazon that I have really enjoyed.  Mostly, I am reading theology and Christian living, but I am also enjoying books by Brad Thor and James Rollins.

Last year, when it became apparent that Mitt Romney was running an ineffectual campaign and that Barack Obama was going to get re-elected, I made the decision to cut back on my consumption of political news.  I instead decided to pursue things of a more spiritual nature.  Now, instead of listening to conservative talk radio like Sean Hannity, I am listening to Family Talk Radio and pastors Michael Youssef and RC Sproul and their radio programs.

Just before the election, I made it my goal to read through the Bible in a year.  I have read the entire Bible in the past, but not as part of a dedicated reading plan.  I downloaded the Bible App from YouVersion on my tablet and used one of their Bible in a year plans.  I am happy to say that I actually finished reading through the Bible in about 9 months.  If you want to read the Bible, a highly recommend the YouVersion app.

Still, I have neglected this blog for too long and it is time for that to change.  About a month or so ago, one of my old blogging buddies from the Adgitize days sent me a message through Twitter to check up on me.  I assured him that I was alive and well.  He also helped me to work through an unnatural links penalty from Google.  You can find a link to his website Ask the Blogster in my blogroll.

So, I hope to be updating this blog on a more regular basis.  I don't think that I will ever get back to updating nearly everyday like I did when Adgitize was up and running, but I do hope to update it at least two or three times a week going forward.  I also have another project that I hope to start soon which I will share here when it is up and running.

 

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