I am feeling customer service is not the priority as it may have once been. frequently when I need help in a store I feel more like I am interrupting the life someone who is avoiding doing their job. I apologize for needing help in a store when interrupting sales associates having animated and personal conversations. I wait while cashiers text on their cell phones. I cringe and try not to be shocked when meter readers march into my back yard while loudly jawing obscenities on their cell phones. I am the customer paying the bill, I deserve some consideration.
I have tried to determine what about me makes me invisible the times I want to be noticed and helped. I can remember wondering this while being overlooked by the staff at one such desk for minutes as they wrapped up a personal conversation with a friend who departed just as their replacement person arrived. They brought the replacment up to speed on how to run the information desk and I still waited, the only person around the desk other than themselves. Eventually another person came up to ask for directions to something and they dropped what they were doing to field the questions. As the customer departed, they started to go back to chatting informally and I said, "I am sorry to have to draw attention to the fact that I am visible but I have been waiting for quite a while." I got 2 very annoyed looks.
I pass along compliments and complaints and I try to keep them balanced. I am hoping that businesses realize that poor customer service, lack of training, professionalism and outright rudeness will cost them customers and money in the long run. Not many people I know have money to burn right now. When we choose to spend our incomes at businesses who give us professional attention, the losers will be the ones who have not trained their employees to value the customer. I refuse to be a victim of poor customer service.
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