Upside Down Under: Where is the customer service?

There’s been a lot of chatter lately on social media about lack of customer service. It seems it doesn’t matter if it’s retail, wholesale, the service industry or even medical clinics.

Why is this happening?

The easy answer that has become a cliche is everybody is short staffed. Employees get stressed out when they are overworked. I get that. It’s happened to me numerous times in my career.

But this seems to be happening to a lot of people “customers” and they aren’t happy about it. Yes, I’ve dealt with employees who could care less if I spend money in their business or not.

In fact, two weeks ago, I wrote an article about this that I decided was too harsh to print because I was angry about the lack of customer service I received in Minot. Not once, not twice, but in four separate businesses I visited in one day.

A friend in Williston said he and his wife have had to deal with arrogant receptionists. And when the service work finally got done, it was only marginal at best.

My brother in Bismarck has told me he’ll sometimes go into a store and nobody is present. He wanders around for 15 minutes or so, nobody shows up, so he goes to a competitor and buys his products.

A high school friend who lives in Jamestown and has been there for 40 years is treated poorly in several businesses where they know who he is. He’s been a customer all those years.

So it isn’t just an anomaly that I dealt with that one day in Minot. It seems this is happening all across the state. The question is, what can be done about it?

On the other side of this equation is a young lady who is 18 and works in a local convenience store. I know her parents pretty well and I know that she is a good kid. Every time I drop by I tease her about something.

On this day, however, she wasn’t in a happy mood. She told me she appreciated the humor, but it appeared every customer was blaming her for the floor not being mopped, a gas pump not working, or another employee who would rather have been taking a cigarette break than restocking products or helping customers.

This poor girl took the brunt of something none of us would want. But you know what? It made her even more determined to succeed. It made her realize that if her co-workers don’t care about being a better business, she does and will do everything in her power to make that happen.

She seems a rarity in today’s world. But the point is, maybe this lack of customer service is a two-way street. It got to the point that she was anticipating the next customer to be crabby just like the last one. And that, in and of itself, manufactured stress.

Ironically, this could be a chicken or egg kind of situation. Management that hires people to be employees, needs to make sure, especially in retail, they are hiring people who have a personality that can work with the public at large.

As customers, we need to put aside our petty angst like a floor that isn’t mopped and treat employees more professionally.

Did Covid create this? Did Zoom create this? What was the catalyst that actually caused this kind of egotistical human behavior?

Regardless of the reason or the excuse, it has to be fixed. Because the longer this kind of behavior goes on, the worse it’s going to get.

We see TV commercials, we see newspaper ads and hear radio commercials “buy local” they all say. Customers want to do that and most of us have that option. Williston, Minot, Bismarck and Jamestown all have small towns around them that would love to have our business. Try buying in a neighboring community, see what happens. See if you are treated like the above examples I provided.

I know now I’m not the only person who feels like this or sees this. And business owners wonder why we use Amazon or Sam’s Club and don’t go into their stores. It’s unfortunate, but it’s the truth.

(Marvin Baker is a news writer for the Kenmare News and formerly Foster County Independent.)