Professional Business Communications

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We ain't gonna take it!

Dealing with the decline of customer service

I am usually a loyal customer and, when things go wrong, I tend to give stores and its sales people the benefit of the doubt. However, the arrogance displayed in some of the stores here in the Mid-Peninsula, who really do their best to make sure I am thoroughly disgusted with their services, just amazes me. They treat me (and I am sure many other people) so badly that I know I will never go back there – a fact I usually announce quite loudly as I leave (unless I am totally intimidated).

To begin my saga……
Several years ago, I bought an expensive pair of glasses from a privately owned store in Palo Alto.
From the beginning things went wrong and it ended just 5 days ago:

The new glasses were incorrectly adjusted and gave me horrible headaches
…that took about 6 visits to be corrected.
The screws on the frames came loose – not only once, but many times
….and it was always my fault.
I had to hand the glasses in for all the screws to be renewed and tightened – with a promise they would never come loose again.
…. except that they did…(and I had no glasses for weeks). I was told that I wasn’t suitable for rimless glasses, and I ask you, doesn’t all my education at Stanford count?
And this continued for about 2 years.Why did I continue to go there? I needed the glasses to work and I thought this was the easiest way.

I generally was treated as if I were guilty of "spectacle abuse"; it was my fault and such an imposition that I wanted to see clearly. I got a stomach ache just thinking of having to go back to the store when the same problems happened again and again.

I think the last straw was several days before Christmas 2002, when I picked the replacement glasses up, this time the coating had come off after 2 months and I had spots and dots all over the lenses. When I entered the store, the female owner brushed by me, not acknowledging my greeting, to effusively greet another customer – who, by the way, also had a complaint.

Another store, equally "guilty" of this amazing arrogance, is a knitting store in Los Altos, where several saleswomen remind me of customer service in Europe in the 60s – intimidating and awful.
If you don’t know correct knitting terminology – watch out.

Instead of being supportive, suggesting patterns, colors and knitting needles, I was treated as "the knitting loser". I left the store -after putting up with this insulting attitude for months, since it is the only store around - swearing under my breath that I would never be back, and indeed, I never will. I would rather drive 45 minutes to Half Moon Bay to the nearest knitting store, where people are courteous and a little more helpful.

Why did I go into all this detail telling you my experiences? I think we have to realize what long lasting effects an uncaring and arrogant attitude will have on our clients.
And, we should never underestimate the networking circles of our clients, especially in the Silicon Valley, where a good reputation is so very important and everyone seems to know everyone else.

I have been mulling over what we can do to improve our relationships with our clients. I encourage you to email me with stories and suggestions of your own, angelika@professional-business-communications.com and I will publish them here on the web site.

Here are some of my ideas:
First of all, a money back guarantee should be given with a smile – especially important if the problem is our fault.
We can rectify the mistake fast and not take weeks, months or even years to fix the problem.

When our clients are new to our areas of expertise- let’s not make them feel like idiots. Maybe we should remember the times when we were new to something and treat people not as it they were inherently dumb, but support their efforts with encouragement and a smile.

People in California often dress in a way that doesn’t necessarily reflect their education or income. Suspicious characters with wild hair, looking as if they lived in a shoebox, were sometimes pointed out to me at Stanford with the explanation that they either had a double Ph.D. in computers and artificial intelligence or were on their way to a Nobel Prize.
The lesson to me – being European-born - was to be careful not to judge someone just because he or she didn’t fit my preconceived image of someone successful.

Above all, we need to put ourselves into our clients’ shoes and show them that our intentions are well meant and, we have to make sure that they are well received.

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