Tag Archives: customer service

Calculated Misery

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I recently watched this TikTok, about ‘calculated misery’.

It starts off with the idea that social media platforms are going to work together to get us to pay or pay more for their services. It’s no longer enough that we have to watch ads to play along. I notice it when I watch YouTube on my phone and I’m regularly asked if I want to upgrade to avoid ads. Meanwhile I’m also watching more ads that I can’t skip after 5 seconds.

My Twitter feed is filled with ‘blue checkmark’ profiles where that check costs anyone $8 a month to have, regardless of if their content or expertise is valuable to me. And meanwhile, my checkmark-less profile is being viewed less often than those who pay.

Also discussed in the video is how airlines use calculated misery to upsell you. The carry-on suitcase I bought 15 years ago used to be good on any airline, now it needs to be checked on many of them. Leg room has been reduced, and while tickets used to include choice of seats, now that’s something you need to upgrade or pay more for to get. You want a meal or beverage on a 5 hour flight? Those used to be free, but many airlines charge for them now.

It used to be that the basic price was good enough, and upgrades gave you perks, but now it seems anything less than premium is meant to suck a little bit, meant to be just enough misery to make you want to pay more. Even amusement parks are doing it, giving people privileged access in lineups if they pay more. And it’s hard to be in line and watch others get priority over you.

We’ve moved from an era of customer value and service being a priority to an era where profits matter more. It’s a world where customers are made less comfortable, unless they pay a premium, and the benefits are really to shareholders. Essentially, services are getting gradually worse, and misery is creeping in… unless you pay a little bit more.

Customer Service matters

There are some stores where when you ask for help the person either can help you or finds someone who can. Home Depot is a good example of this. You feel like they want to help you and that if they can’t, well then they admit it and get someone else that they know knows their stuff. I never get that sense in Canadian Tire. You ask a question and it feels like you are inconveniencing the employee. You get an answer and you aren’t sure if it’s the best answer or just the best answer to get you to leave the employee alone.

Now I’m positive that there are some Canadian ‘aka Crappy’ Tire employees that are better than some Home Depot employees. But after decades of going to both stores (for different products not available in both stores) I consistently see better service at Home Depot. So is it the pay scale? The training? The average age or pre-employment skills of the employees? What makes one so much better than the other?

Regardless, I find myself wanting and expecting better customer service, and being less tolerant of poor service. It’s the same at restaurants. Now when you go to pay, the tip percentage offered automatically on credit card machines is usually 15, 18, or 20%, and sometimes 18, 20, or 25%. I remember when 15% was an amount you tipped for good service, now it’s the minimum expectation. I feel for waiter staff who need this tip to make their wages livable, but I also think that this shouldn’t be an expected thing the way it is, and that tips should be rewards for good customer service and not an expectation.

I remember last summer taking my wife and my daughter and her friends out for a nice lunch in Kelowna. The meal wasn’t cheap but the service was very good as was the meal. I decided that even at these prices I would tip 20%. When the tip option came up on the payment machine the choices given were 20, 25, and 30%. That seems quite presumptuous to me. I gave the 20% and felt cheap rather than complimentary.

In China I used to go to a street vendor and my favourite meal costed 32 cents Canadian. When I tried to tip the vendor would just give me a larger serving. In many other countries tipping is either not expected or greatly appreciated. Here it seems that it’s an expectation no matter what the customer service is like. But I think good customer service matters and should be rewarded either by being a loyal customer or tipping appropriately… and expecting 20% as the minimum doesn’t seem appropriate to me.

*Also, isn’t it interesting that cheaper restaurants will often start the bottom tip percentage at a lower rate than more expensive restaurants? I’m asked if I want to pay 12, 15, or 18% on my $30 meal and 18, 20 or 25% on my $90 meal. Meanwhile I seldom see a dramatic difference in the service quality.

Everything is an 11

I don’t know what has changed but it seems that whatever the concern is that people have, on a scale of 1-10 that concern becomes an 11. Anything bigger than a 6 out of 10 just skips on by 7-10… if it’s more than a 6 it’s an 11.

No nuance, no compromise, no quarter.

Miscommunication? No they lied to me!

Apology? Not enough, I want retribution!

Compromise? No, full concession!

‘Why aren’t you following up on this right now, can’t you see that this is the most important thing in the world? This… This is an 11/10.’

I’m not saying it isn’t important, but I am saying that escalating concerns like this doesn’t often get the result people want. Animosity doesn’t enhance cooperation. Anger doesn’t promote resolution.

I’m reminded of the saying, “When you have one eye fixed on the destination, you only have one eye with which to find the way.”

Further to this, I think that when things escalate to 11, the chance of reaching that destination that was the original goal moves farther away. Reactionary, angry, point-for-point volleying of minutiae doesn’t allow for solutions to be found.

I have two friends that I’ve known for decades. One of them is always having to deal with incompetence around her. It’s unbelievable how much the people around her screw up. And if you ask her how her day is going, the idiot that screwed up is what she’ll tell you about.

I have another friend who always has things go her way. She’ll have an issue with something not going well and the first thing she’ll say is, “I’m sorry, I’m really trying my best not to be a Karen, but this doesn’t seem right.” She’ll specifically say things like, “I don’t need you to fix this for me, I just thought you should know.” And she gets thank you’s in the form of gift cards, free food, upgrades, etc.

For the first friend, everything is an 11, and she has to deal with 11’s all the time. For the second friend nothing is over a 7, and by the time things are done, they are actually a 2, or not even an issue anymore.

Maybe, just maybe, short of losing life or limb, nothing is an 11… And if you believe that, maybe, just maybe, you will find that life is a little easier, and happier, when you don’t ramp things up so much.

What’s the end goal? How can you get there in a way that makes you and the other person feel good about the outcome? I doubt you can do that while you are at an 11.

Customer Service Attitude

Recently, I went to a higher end grocery store that I don’t usually go to. I went there because I heard that they put together a food basket I was interested in buying. After looking around I went to the meat counter to inquire. This lovely lady said, “I’m not sure? I think we do something like that, let me check.”

I followed her, and on route to where she was leading me, we passed an older employee, in a bright shirt with a Supervisor button. He was doing something with a small tablet device. The lady helping me said ‘Excuse me’, and asked about my request. The Supervisor looked upset and said, “That’s produce, you know I’m not produce.”

The lady responded, “Yes, I know, I just thought you might know if we have anything like this?”

“That’s produce,” the Supervisor said condescendingly.

“Thank you,” was her response, in an honest politeness that I’m not sure I would have had. She then led me to produce, asked, and it seems they no longer provide this service. The lady helping me apologized and asked if she could help me in any way, I told her ‘no thank you’, and that I appreciated her help.

Next I went to buy flowers instead. I decided to add a couple large Kinder Eggs (hollow chocolate with prizes you assemble inside) for the kids in the family. When I went to the station to have them wrapped, I was told I had to pay first. So I did. I then asked can I get the eggs added in?

“Oh, I don’t think they’d fit.” Was the response. So my flowers were wrapped without the eggs, and when I got to the car it took me 2 minutes to loosen the string on the wrapped flowers and add the eggs in without crushing any flowers. Simple.

What a contrast in service! The First lady was absolutely wonderful. She was polite even when her supervisor was a rude jerk to her in front of me. Whereas the annoyed Supervisor payed no attention to me as he verbally scolded the employee for daring to ask a question about another department. And the flower attendant couldn’t take a simple request without making it seem like I was asking for too much.

I wonder if the nice lady will remain nice in an environment like that, or will the ‘no-can-do’ culture wear her down? I wonder how a supervisor gets to the point where he thinks that behaviour is ok in front of a customer? I’m not going to find out any time soon, that’s not a store I plan on visiting again any time soon.

Some people

Today I had a funny interaction in a store. I was returning an item and an older gentleman decided that the lineup was too big and came along side me to make his purchase at the returns/customer service booth. Although he arrived just after me, I said he could go ahead of me. However Mrs. Persnickety working at Returns wanted to send him back. I was the only other person and I said it was ok, I’d wait. She rolled her eyes and let the old guy go ahead of me. When it was time for him to pay he struggled to find his Visa card and she helped him with another eye roll and an impatient tone.

When it was my turn, she curtly told me, the item had been opened, so I could only get exchange or store credit rather than a refund. I said I’d take a look around for exchange and her response was, ‘it has to be this value’ which I took as not getting store credit if it was less, so I took the store credit before looking to spend it, knowing I wouldn’t have to spend the credit all at once like I thought she was suggesting.

Overall Mrs. Persnickety was curt and a little unpleasant. She seems like one of those people who would be better off not working in the customer service department. Her exchanges with both the older gentleman before me and with me could’ve been a lot nicer with just a little bit of effort.

I went in the store and didn’t see anything to buy, so on the way out I saw that she was not serving anyone and so I asked her a clarifying question. “Is the store credit just for this store or can I use it in British Columbia as well?” I would’ve been happy with either response, if it was only the local store I would give the credit to my parents, and if I could use it across the chain, in BC, then I would take it home with me. Her response was that I can use it in any of the stores in Canada.

Then she asked me where in BC I was from, and started to tell me all the different cities where she had family in BC. We had a nice short conversation about how much she liked going there to visit, and how much she enjoyed the weather there. I said, “I used to live here in Toronto, however I have to say that the humidity is really getting to me this past week.”

She admitted that the heat was really bad this summer, and then said to me, “The worst part about the heat is how grumpy it makes some people.”

I agreed, with a little chuckle, and left the store.

Going the extra inch

I think this idea came from Terry O’Reilly’s book, ‘This I know’, but I listened to it a couple years ago and am not 100% sure? The idea is to go the extra inch, rather than the extra mile.

The easiest place to see this in customer service. The cashier who takes a little extra care in bagging your items. The waiter who tops up your water glass before you need to ask. The hot dog vendor who asks if you’d like your bun toasted. The hotel front desk clerk who asks if you’d like a city map with local restaurants, or who remembers your name the next time you see them.

So many people talk about going the extra mile, but really it’s just an extra inch that can make the difference, (or for that matter the extra centimetre). It doesn’t often take much work or effort to make someone’s day, to provide better than average service, or to simply be accommodating to someone you love and care about.

A kind gesture, a simple change in tone, a thoughtful question, a smile. It’s not about going terribly far out of your own way, it’s simply going the extra inch.

What I find interesting is that it’s often easier to do this with strangers rather than those you are around daily. We seem to take advantage of our relationships and not make the extra inch of effort with people we spend time with every day. Instead, we are quicker to snap a response, or to be snide, or just impatient. We feel like the extra inch is actually an extra mile.

It’s not. In this way, life is a game of inches, and it’s much more fun when we are able to see this and just go that extra inch for those that can do the same for us more frequently, because we are around them more often.

Batteries not Included

It used to be that when you purchased an item, a major inconvenience would be that batteries weren’t included. Now there are whole other elements that can be inconvenient in many ways.

It starts before you even leave the store! For the last 3 times that I did a self-checkout, I’ve had inconvenient delays: Additional approval for an item; An in-store discount coupon not working; A machine freezing. – This is not a great ‘last experience’ before leaving a store!

‘Some assembly required’ used to mean clicking 3 pieces together, then came IKEA’s version of ‘assembly required’. If I add a measly $15 an hour for my assembly time, I can understand why the product costs so little. And my experience with IKEA assembly is embarrassingly slow.

Online sign-ups: Why do you need my postal code when you’ll never mail or send me something? How many questions are really necessary for me to get some simple services that you provide for me in a fully digital format? And why is a sign-up to your monthly newsletter a default button that I have to un-click?

And what about online customer support? “The usual wait time for customers calling at this time is 40 minutes.”

Really? So you know volume is high at this time, and informing me, rather than solving that problem with more support, is your answer?

We’ve come a long way in making technological advancements, but I sometimes find myself yearning for the days of ‘inconvenience’, when the one thing you had to do when you made a purchase was pick up your own batteries… which now often come with a product!