Community Forums

Billieg · 06-04-2011, 05:17 PM

I am so sick of the way businesses run these days. Last week I wanted to buy a zero turn lawn mower that lists for $6,800.00. I traveled 45 miles into town to buy it in mid afternoon. When I got there some moron pickin his nose watched me looking at the mowers. I had to ask him how much they wanted for the mower. He said "I don't know, the boss ain't here". I asked if he could find out, nope... He said the boss would call me when he got back to the store. A week later the boss called.

Trying to buy a fishing pole on Saturday proved to be useless too at the local sporting goods store. They are closed on Saturday.... When do they expect to do business? You guessed, on Monday morning when everyone who has any money and a job is working.

Wanted a grill cheese at the diner. Nope, not on the menu. I asked if they had bread and a couple slices of cheese. Nope, not on the menu....

What has happened to these business owners? No common sense and they all complain about low sales.

So what is your pet peeve? I can't be the only one and I could go on and on...

TXiceman · 06-04-2011, 05:22 PM

No one has heard of customer service and the young ones have very little work ethic.

Ken

JC2 · 06-04-2011, 05:31 PM

I agree. Customer service is basically non-existant and work ethics have, by and large, gone the way of the dinosaur.

TW · 06-04-2011, 06:00 PM

Now - the Europaens think we have GREAT SERVICE here in North America. We think it went DOWNHILL here. We love those times in the 60's in Texas, inculding the West. What a great Vacation spot. 5 Years living in El Paso. Boy - we got spoiled with Customer Service everywhere.
Way tooooooooooo much Pay for those CEO's.... You can only eat and drink so much.

TW

j2m2 · 06-04-2011, 06:08 PM

I agree that customer service is the pits, even here in Canada. I guess that my pet peeve is customer service as well, if I don't get good customer service in a business I tell them first then everyone else after. I have worked in the customer service industry 35 years and if I acted like aforementioned I wouldn't have had a job long.
We have essentially done it to ourselves.We all grew up with a work ethic, responsibility and respect for ourselves & others. Once we became adults we all swore that we would never be like our parents. We would give our children all the things that we never had, so we did/do. They got everything we never had, so our children grew up not respecting others because respect is earned and what did they earn? Nothing, because everything was given to them and because they didn't earn it they did not learn the lesson of work ethics or responsibility. So here we are with another generation coming along who have the same principles as their parents, no respect, work ethics or responsibility. Makes it hard to get things done now. I work in an end of life care home and it scares the snickerdoodles outta me to know that this younger generation is gonna look after me when I get old.

TW · 06-04-2011, 06:27 PM

WELL SAID

TW

bookman52 · 06-04-2011, 06:59 PM

Not having a Human answer the phone.

decodancer · 06-04-2011, 06:59 PM

I hate discrimination of any kind but PLEASE, if you hire an employee who does not speak or understand English, do not put them in charge of taking orders. This has happened more than once in a fast food restaurant or gas station. It is so frustrating to get down the road and find that you have not gotten what you asked for. And calling a business to get information from somebody you can not understand is even worse.

rvjimmy · 06-04-2011, 07:11 PM

Customer service here is bad but not as bad yet as it is in Europe.

wa8yxm · 06-04-2011, 07:18 PM

In the old days the thing was Customer Service, Companies and stores would striveto actually serve the customer.

Alas, today all Cuss-some-more non service has been shipped over seas. (note the change in spelling)

There are still some ood firms out there though.. Fantastic Fan, several forum members in all the forums I visit have praised their customer service.

I sometimes tell teh tail of 3 phone calls (Driver should like this one)

Hughes: 7 hours speaking with some Citizen of I think India, no resolution, Finally tried a back door (Shipped the bad part to my installer) and still spent another hour with the folks here in the US once we got it bumped to someone with brains.

Xantrex: Spent about 15 minutes on phone, US based (At that time, do not know if still) man spoke good "Midwestern" American english, easily understood, Had RMA in just a couple of minutes, rest of time was combination of BSing and hints and tips to IMPROVE the install (Stuff they came up with post-printing of my manual) Very nice, I was thinking "not much better than that"

Till the oil change tecnician failed to reset the oil life counter on my Workhorse.

I called, (Taylor, MI. USA) A genuine human female answered, I told her my problem, well about half of it, and instead of switching me to a Customer service technician 1: Finished the story, and 2: Gave me the solution. Call lasted like 1 minute, now better than that.. I can not even imagine.

I told her I'd just gone for an oil change and the techinican seems to have forgot one step.. I paused for air and she said "Resetting the oil change notice" I confirmed and she gave me the process. Smart lady.

I should have known.. Same as Chevy's.

docj · 06-04-2011, 07:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by decodancer

I hate discrimination of any kind but PLEASE, if you hire an employee who does not speak or understand English, do not put them in charge of taking orders. This has happened more than once in a fast food restaurant or gas station. It is so frustrating to get down the road and find that you have not gotten what you asked for. And calling a business to get information from somebody you can not understand is even worse.

That goes double for employees who deal with unhappy customers. As a pretty liberal person I hate to admit that I've occasionally been telling customer service representatives that I simply want to speak to someone who speaks American English and is not reading from a script.

The sad thing is that when I did that with Dish TV a few months ago and ended up speaking with someone in "Executive Response" (angry customer support) he told me that what I had been told by the regular CSR people was actually a year out of date. When I asked why that was the case, he laughed and said "we haven't updated their scripts yet!"

wa8yxm · 06-04-2011, 07:22 PM

I forgot: There is, however, something you can do about it in many cases, in fact in all the cases in the original post.

You complain with your posterior.. Let them see it going out the door with your hands empty and your wallet full,, When you get to the competitors down the road where customer service is still a thing remembered.. TELL THEM WHY YOU ARE SHOPING THERE.

I have done this myself.. My first home computer I went to retailler now out of business (Small wonder) A and compared the different brands and models, Made my chioce and went looking for a clerk to write it up... Could not find one.

So I visited Store (Also now out of business) B, where I was quickly approached and written up.. Since I already knew what I wanted.

I kind of liked that Vic-20, It was a fairly amazing computer, FAST too. Not like this takes forever to boot up Poor Computers of today.

bldrbob · 06-04-2011, 08:51 PM

Went into a piano/ organ store once with wife and 4 kids.Looking around when another couple came in. Salesman went to them and said we were just looking and wouldn't buy anything. Went next door where the salesman talked to us. Took the receipt back to the first store and showed the salesman what he had missed and found that the second couple didn't buy either.

RobRV · 06-04-2011, 09:08 PM

It's not only the attitude of so many people working in places like Restaurants , Stores and repair Facilities it is also the Utter Lack of Common Sense!
If You don't know the Part Number ,They want to know the Model and serial Number of the Thing that the Part belongs to!
Case in point .I went into a Huge Appliance Repair store in Burnaby BC ( Stoves and Fridges ) looking for a pair of simple on off switches to control the Fan and/or Oven Light. What should have been a quick run to the shelf to select the proper switch turned out to be a total waste of 20 Minutes. These arrogant Parts People wanted to know everything about the freaking Stove and buried Their Heads in the Massive Parts Catalog but, still didn't bother to walk back to look on a shelf for the switch!
I left in disgust, walked down the Block to an Auto Parts place , picked up 2 Switches from their selection , Paid $2.29 each , went Home and installed them. Problem solved