Greetings and salutations, my fellow readers, listeners, and the like. Once more, I have the need to rant some about that problematic journey, from the late 20th-century to the early 21st-century; also includes major observations.
Today’s transitions primarily focus on customer service: what was then, what I grew up with, and how I perceive said concept today and beyond.
When I was growing up, the customer was always right. Also, the customer was trusted, honest, and more; earned a second or fifth chance if a mistake was made, due to customer trust and respectability. Now … not ready to say yet.
I remember a corner store up the hill from my family home in Oakland, California: short walk from home, full of many things and items, and possibly quite fun to visit. Do remember that my parents did most, if not all, shopping at the Berkeley Co-Op; this was a relatively large operation. Oh, in those days, I lived in Oakland from, roughly, Kindergarten to the 1st grade, there was a milkman who hand-delivered milk.
Upon moving to Davis in 1963, we had a grocery store, locally run, that was near my family’s neighborhood. Do remember doing some personal shopping there; and: the ability for my mother to do some family shopping. She would go to a large-chain store to get major items, when we could afford said items. Oh: there was also a downtown, very local, clothing store; eventually there were a couple larger stores, later on.
Overall, overarching, thoroughly running over and through all these shops, markets, or grocery stores in my growing years was: a sense of right, a sense of honesty, and, most important: the customer was vital and was treated with care. Now … once more, I am not quite ready to admit.
Now, some of you may be saying or thinking to themselves: what country, century, or the like did I grow up in? Glad you asked: I grew up between the years 1955 to 1974, when I graduated from high school. People were in smaller numbers, streets were not clogged with tons of cars, few sales occurred, if at all, and, once more, the customer was valued, highly regarded, and supported by the store or grocery market; after all: return business was the primary goal back then; right?
Now having visited or described the past, my past, let us jump to the early 21st century. Ready? Are you prepared for this? Or, are so involved in the 21st-century, that my past is something beyond any and all comprehension; if the latter, I am sorry to take up your valuable time.
Today, customer-based businesses are all driven by the dollar; excuse me: by the multitudes of millions and billions dollars made, and little in the way of expenses. Am I correct? Yes, dear reader, I know that there are still some mom-n-pop shops, repair shops that still provide that “the customer is to be served” attitude, and the occasional large retail business, that hangs onto very old, ancient, values of the faraway past.
Do I even have to provide examples of insensitive sales people, of clerks and staff that insist on following scripts that have been analyzed and evaluated to achieve the highest, if not higher, profits for the company, or the down-right banks of people answering impersonal phone calls to a call center? I did not think so; we have, right, all experienced this.
For a man of the fifties, who was punished when he did wrong, was raised with very high morals and ethics, and who, when the time arrived to take on a job, career, or both, knew that he represented the company he was working for. Today … I doubt I have to say much more; or do I?
So many times, in the very recent past, I have been reminded that: the customer is not to be trusted, transactions must be thoroughly monitored by outside agencies, and, if someone dares to return an item for any reasonable reason, that person must jump through, what feel like millions of hoops. After all: who dares return an item, raise a consumer-related issue, or desire some advice from what was once a customer-based operation, instead of today’s profit machine? Oh, transition, transition, and again I say, transition; from a true customer-is-right approach to one, today, that declares the customer is to be considered fraudulent, or dishonest. Enough said.
Ranter Peter 