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Bad Customer Service
By Jay | January 3, 2008
I will not accept bad customer service. I have a list of several stores and restaurants in my neighborhood that I won’t go to or recommend. Not surprisingly, the list gets shorter as these businesses never seem to last very long. I guess I’m not the only one who won’t put up with bad customer service.
It’s surprisingly rare that I run into bad customer service, but I will complain loudly and publicly if I feel I am being treated rudely. I have made store managers and waiters cry. Having been a waiter and a store manager, and having NEVER treated a customer rudely, I don’t feel any remorse for this.
But what to do about a large corporation or government agency that provides bad customer service? My practice has been to write letters to the office of the CEO of the company, or to my elected representative. I can write a good complaint letter and have always gotten issues resolved to my satisfaction. But it can take time and frustration, and if a company is egregiously bad about their customer service, I’d like to know in advance so that I can avoid them.
I just discovered a site called The Consumerist that has a great theme: publicizing bad customer service. The site fits into my philosophy very well. People submit posts describing their lousy customer service experiences with various corporations, large and small. It’s depressing to see what people sometimes endure after handing their money over to corporations in exchange for a service. Airlines in particular take a lot of complaints.
What I like about The Consumerist is that it gives us a public forum in which to describe such incidents. When we endure bad customer service from an employee, it’s quite likely that a manager is not doing their job. I checked the readership stats for the Consumerist and they get over 200,000 hits per day (I can only wish for such a large readership!), so you can be sure that if your complaint gets onto The Consumerist, it will be read by a huge number of people.
And reading the site will give you a list of companies to avoid. I came up with a list of a dozen or so that I will avoid from now on.
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Topics: Business |
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Love your new layout and design. And, I like the way you post your weight and debt stats.
Now concerning customer service: I make it a point to tip all of the time. Its just that I only tip extra if the service is exceptionally good.
January 4th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Thanks for the complements.
I too always tip: usually 20%. I will tip as low as 7% or 8% though if the service is bad.
For the record, many times when we think service is bad it is the kitchen’s fault, or because because of short-staffing, neither of which are the server’s fault.
I only tip below 15% if the service has been insufferably rude, which does happen sometimes in New York City. A certain snottiness is ok, but flat-out rudeness is not something I reward with a decent tip.