Guest AuthorEver have a day where it seems it is almost impossible to get anything done?
I’ve been experiencing a lot of these lately, as have my friends, and I’m not too sure why they occur.
Here are three examples of minor incidents that blossomed into ugly ones.
First, I was recently charged with obtaining a special plaque for a nonprofit organization I belong to. I had produced a mock-up of what I wanted, complete with text and graphics.
But my old trophy vendor retired, and I had to locate another one. A friend recommended another company.
I called the store and talked to a woman about my project. She said she would be happy to look at it, but I would have to get there before they closed at 5:30 p.m. So far, so good.
I arrived at 5 p.m. There were two women behind the front counter typing on computers. I cheerfully said, “Good afternoon ladies. Beautiful day out there, isn’t it?”
They displayed no emotion and didn’t reply. I thought perhaps they hadn’t heard me. I then said, “My name is Tim Bryce, I called earlier about having a plaque made here.”
One of the ladies looked up, stone-faced, and asked what I wanted.
I explained what I needed and showed her my mock-up. I said my friend had something similar produced there which I would like to duplicate.
She dug through her computer files to find my friend’s order and a description of his plaque. She then showed me a blank version of the plaque that I agreed would suit my needs.
After giving her my name, number, and e-mail address, I thought I was finished. Far from it.
She insisted I send her the text and graphics by e-mail so they could just cut and paste it into their engraving software. She also said I would incur a $30 fee for converting my graphics into another file format.
I told her I could do the conversion for her, but it didn’t matter. I was still going to be charged $30.
Finally, she said they would need seven business days to complete the job. She wasn’t asking for my approval, it was “take it or leave it” with the emphasis on “leave it.”
It seemed she went out of her way to kill the deal. If I hadn’t been in such a good mood, I probably would have told her to shove it, but I let it go.
The second incident involved a restaurateur friend of mine who told me about his credit-card machine going down because of an interruption in his Internet service.
The service was knocked out for about 15 minutes, but this didn’t satisfy one of his patrons, who was eager to pay his bill.
My friend asked the man if he could pay with cash or wait just a few minutes for the service to restart. This did not sit well with the patron.
When my friend asked if the man had cash, he became more irritated. He said he had to leave and would stop back later to pay the bill.
This, of course, did not sit well with my friend, who went out and recorded the patron’s license plate number. The man could have easily walked next door to a bank with an ATM to obtain cash, but he rejected this proposal.
In other words, there was no interest in solving the problem amicably. To my knowledge, the man never returned to pay his bill.
The third incident involves another friend who sells industrial supplies to manufacturing companies in the Tampa Bay area. Recently, he visited one of his larger accounts.
His contact there told him that she just issued a purchase order for some supplies. He thanked her, but as he studied the order, he discovered it was incorrect. He explained to her that her company was entitled to a volume discount, which obviously pleased her.
“Not to worry,” my friend assured her, “I’ll have my office correct it.”
He then called his office and reported to her that all was corrected and she’d receive the confirmation shortly.
Three days later, the woman called my friend asking where the order confirmation was. My friend checked and discovered the people hadn’t processed it yet, which upset him.
Days later, the woman still had not received the order confirmation and phoned my friend to tell him of her displeasure, and that it may threaten future orders.
All three of these incidents were relatively insignificant, yet they harmed business. It seems people are going out of their way to irritate others.
Such incidents should never occur, yet they are becoming more frequent these days.
Here’s another example. During the holidays, my mother wanted to send a boneless ham, fully cooked, to one of her neighbors. She contacted the ham franchise (Yes, it was one of the big ones) and asked a clerk how much it would cost to have it delivered.
The clerk quoted a delivery price more than the cost of the ham. When my mother contested the price, the clerk became flustered and couldn’t answer the question. They obviously lost the order simply because the clerk was clueless.
We have extraordinary technology to help make our businesses efficient.
So, why do we keep bungling easy tasks? It baffles me. There is no spirit of cooperation or common courtesy anymore when people are asked to do mundane chores. Is it that we rely too heavily on technology or do we no longer care?
Historically, customer service meant bending over backwards to help customers. I am not asking people to make a herculean effort, just some simple “please and thank you” and a little cooperation can make life so much easier.
But I guess that is too much to ask in this fast paced world of personal technology.
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Tim Bryce is a freelance writer in the Tampa Bay area of Florida. http://timbryce.com/ Column courtesy of Context Florida.
