Safeway by RoadsidePictures via Flickr
Last night I went to the grocery store, a Giant in Northern Virginia not the Safeway pictured here, although both are just as culpable. As I am tossing my soon to be purchased items on the conveyor belt and later as I put my bagged groceries into the shopping cart (shopping trolly for those of you outside the lower 48) I realize a couple of things:
1.) Very few grocers unload your shopping cart for you. I think in the DC area maybe Trader Joe’s and Harris Teeter are the only two.
2.) Customer service has taken a serious nosedive.
Like everything else that is wrong with the world I would like to blame it on the effects of high fructose corn syrup. But I don’t think I can. Maybe it is an increase in worldwide apathy, maybe it is a fundamental change in how we collectively view the world based on the amount of information we can now consume. We get overwhelmed with the need to help the world we see online and on TV, we forget about helping out or even being courteous on a local level.
I was recently listening to the BBC World Service and they were airing a special on tourism and different takes on the service industry. Trinidad & Tobago look at it as you’re here, I am here but I am not going to treat you any different than a local. Bahamians have a different point of view, since tourism is their chief means of income, the customer above all is said to be the national philosophy. I am not saying either is right or wrong but there has to be a happy medium.
I may gripe about it under my breathe sometimes but I do think I lean towards the Bahamian way of thinking and try to help out customers, both internal and external. Which brings up another point, (man, my coffee must have been extra bitter this morning) I think we have forgotten that we serve internal customers as well as those outside our company. There used to be a time when you would bust your ass and work as hard as you can to do a a great job. Not because you were a company-man, or woman, but because you took pride in what you could accomplish and wanted to do a great job. If that meant staying a little late or working on a project at home then that is what it meant.
Today, the mentality is “what can you give me today” instead of “what can I do for you,” coupled with very little self-motivation to get through projects without being nagged about it. Right now I am writing this blog post, taking a little personal time to do so, I also know that I will work late tonight and work from home after the game. Might be my Catholic upbringing and the guilt that comes along with it, might a tinge of work-a-holicism, might even be sheer determination to get something on my ever growing to-do list done, might be that I have attempted to take on both the role of directing the department and doing a bunch of production work as well, might be that I am just getting old and slow and I can’t get stuff done. Who knows, I do know that I care enough about putting my name, even if I am the only one that knows it, on something and making it the best it can be given the time and materials.
What it all boils down to is this, put in the extra effort, give service with a smile and be grateful for the customers you have and do everything you can to keep those customers happy, otherwise they might go somewhere else to get their groceries.
