Tag Archives: service

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.

Everyday Hero

When I think of a real life hero, the first person that always comes to mind is Terry Fox. This young man ran a marathon a day on one leg to raise money for cancer research. He wanted to raise a dollar for every Canadian, and although his Marathon of Hope was never completed it has raised hundreds of millions of dollars. He attempted something extraordinary (‘EXTRA’ ordinary) for a selfless reason. He is one of my heroes.

Recently, a family member had to perform lifesaving actions on a man that was unconscious and not breathing. It was a rather traumatic experience, and when fire crews and paramedics arrived, they all said the team that worked on this man did a great job. Amazing. Kudos to them all. Then yesterday they learned that the person later died in the hospital. That doesn’t change the fact that they all did a great job, but it was devastating news to get.

This got me thinking about heroism. We tie so much of heroic acts to the outcome of events, not to the act itself. Isn’t that interesting. This isn’t always the case, and I think the pandemic highlighted this. We started to give praise to nurses and other frontline workers. We showed greater respect and admiration for people who work in service of others.

And so now I think more of the silent heroes. The teachers who are the only significant adults in a child’s life. The single parent that sacrifices personal wishes to chauffeur multiple kids to all their expensive activities. The volunteer that brings meals to a seniors. The older child who steps in and stops a kid from being bullied. And the nurses, 911 operators, firefighters, lifeguards, and doctors who do everything they can to save a life… heroes all, whether or not they save the person. It’s not the result, but their service that’s makes them an everyday hero.

Good-Cheap-Fast

As the saying goes, you can only pick 2:

Cheap and fast won’t be good.

Fast and good won’t be cheap.

Good and cheap won’t be fast.

Of theses I think fast is the most challenging. You can pump a lot of money into something to make it happen faster but it won’t necessarily be good anyways. When it comes to implementing change, time deadlines are important, and budgets are always limited. But going too fast undermines effort and cost.

Systems need time. People need time. And rushing deadlines quickly becomes counterproductive. Faster isn’t always desirable or attainable without sacrificing quality.

This doesn’t mean you can’t launch a beta product that isn’t quite ready. It does mean that nor everyone will be happy with the results. Even a beta product can be rushed and launched too early. It has to be affordable/worthwhile. It has to be be good (enough). It can’t be rushed… there are few things in life that can be rushed and good, no matter how much money is thrown at it.

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.

‪Incessant reminders are an annoyance, not a service.‬

I’m sure that I’m not the only Apple user fed up with the repeated ‘invitations’ to use iCloud for backup.

I know I’m not the only one that opens an app and gets the request to rate it, and the choices are to rate it or click ‘Not Now’ only to have to face this question again in the near future.

These ‘reminders’ and ‘invitations’ are annoying when they keep coming up. I understand an initial invitation for feedback. I’d be ok if I got another one 6 months later, after I’ve used the app for a while. But the window of time before the next time I’m asked is too short… Well here is a solution I just found after starting to write this little rant:

You can go into the iPhone settings under ‘iTunes and App Stores‘, scroll down and toggle the ‘In-App Rating and Reviews‘ radial button off.

This won’t stop the annoying iCloud reminders but it will go a long way in making my app user experience better!

If you are an app developer, or someone that is creating a service, remember that asking for feedback or selling a product are interruptions, so use these sparingly. Or, imbed these options in a way that isn’t a pop-up that forces a break in the flow of using the app. For example, 3 highlighted features/buttons to click to use features, and 2-3 more that are greyed out, but still work, taking you to a page to upgrade to use these features. (Take note Apple iCloud.)

Incessant reminders are an annoyance, not a service.‬