Blame Game Poll: Overarching Cash Register Sentiments
Just curious, let's spit on our finger and stick it in the air.
Post a comment
Comments:
I don't know many consumers who would blame themselves for a transaction breaking down, even if it was their fault from an objective point of view.
any company shooting for success needs to anticipate customer ignorance and head it off at the pass. how many cars would a company sell if they expected the customer to design the engine?
I love how this blog started out looking to skewer business and customer service and general incompetence, and now it appears there's this little swell of backlash as some readers (apparently 26 percent of those who voted in this poll)think that maybe, just maybe, some customers are complete wanks who deserve the crapola service they get.
.....I've worked retail. And I voted in the minority, of course! Those same bastards who set crappy corporate policy eat in restaurants, special order like crazy, and leave fifty cent tips, if anything.
.....Mr. Q is right. It is often screwed up on both sides of the equation!
AFter 26 years in retail, I honestly believe that customers today are both more lazy and quite a bit more self-entitled than they were in the past. The customer is not always right. Simple as that. Many of them are jerks.
Hmm, I wonder what the prevailing sentiment on this vote might be.... (hint, the website's name is NOT the corporatist)
People are becoming more and more stupid and sent-entitled, I agree. And I am only talking about the other people in other companies I have to deal with as part of my daily duties.
It blows my mind how unprofessional people can be when interacting with another company.
I still voted for "company," despite being a former retail drone with a considerable amount of sympathy for anyone in the service industry.
No matter how much of a jackass a customer is being -- a wrong jackass, an irrational jackass, an angry jackass, whatever -- the company should have measures in place that will allow the necessary customer service measures to resolve the situation. Period. If managers have to get involved & strings have to be pulled & exceptions have to be made, then so be it, but it's the company's responsibility that anyone dealing with customers is both willing & able to handle whatever snafus arise.
To use just one example, Kohl's (where I worked for years, in high school, as a cashier) has a "Yes We Can" policy that authorizes cashiers to give customers a discount of up to 15%. This was a godsend in terms of diffusing any problematic interactions with customers, & I'm sure that all companies who are thoughtful about their customer service image have something similar in place to streamline the transition from "pissed customer" to "placated, possibly happy, customer."
Every once in a while, someone's being completely unreasonable and you have to just be willing to lose their business because the alternative isn't viable. But those are the exceptions. Companies need to make sure that their corporate customer service system allows for the type of human, "I understand, & here's what I'm gonna do for you" interaction that makes people feel heard and valued. Otherwise, you just end up with people reading from scripts and telling you "the system won't allow me to do that, ma'am" and that's what makes people REALLY frustrated.
The poll needs a third option: A Little Bit of Both.
K