I dread my monthly visit to my cell phone service provider. They are rude, thoughtless, indifferent and slow. It 
shouldn’t take 45 minutes, just to give them money. There are four customer service stations, but rarely more than two are in use. All four customer service reps are there, of course, but one is always in the computer room. They take turns going in there, I assume to check e-mail. One is always in the back room, where there must be lounge chairs, tall cool drinks and backgammon.
The thing that frustrates me, however, is their attitude. They resent me being there and take pleasure in making me wait. They hold nothing but disdain for customers, and very little of that (to paraphrase Groucho Marx). They are short and snippy. They say the words "welcome" and "how may I help you" but their tone is "why don’t you drop dead."
The company is having a contest where customers go online to "give us your feedback on today’s store visit" and maybe win $10,000. What do you want to bet that if my response wins, it won’t be reprinted in their newsletter.
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Re: June 12th blog on Rude, Thoughtless, Indifferent and Slow Employees--
The older I get, the less patience I have for such people. My attitude used to be "kill them with kindness." Now it's "don't suffer fools lightly." Now I calmly, pleasantly, but firmly explain to the employee why his behavior/effort is not acceptable, then ask, "so, how are you going to remedy this situation?"
When Slackers are allowed to continue slacking by the customer, only the customer is to blame. My next course of action is to go straight to the top of the food chain, and let him/her know I expect resolution to the problem, thank you very much! It works. But remember, you can't fix stupid.
Posted by: Cathy Marler | June 14, 2006 1:41 PM | Permalink to Comment