Image Credit: Alexas_Fotos
A few days ago I stopped by my nearby Dollar Tree (yeah, I’m addicted to that store like a hard drug) and ran inside to get a couple of items. Yep, this time it was indeed a couple of items (2 boxes of caramel-flavored Crunch-n-Munch…don’t judge me)!
If I am in a mad rush and if I absolutely have to, I will go to the self-checkout counter. While quick and convenient, and you can call me crazy, I prefer going to a human cashier since they seem to be replaced by an influx of self-serve machines. Oops, sorry, I digress. Getting back to my Dollar Tree experience.
So, I noticed as I approached the area to wait for the next available checkout cashier (there was only one mind you), only one customer was being waited on by a “human” cashier. So I thought I was going to be there for a moment or two and then get served. There were people behind me and they wanted to use the self-checkout so I told them to go ahead since I was waiting on the cashier. Well, 6 people later, I peered at the customer being waited on by the cashier and noticed she had not one but two completely filled baskets with a ton of stuff in them. So at that moment, I thought, “No way!” Was she buying up most of the inventory in the children’s department? UGH! All I wanted was a taste of the sweet popcorn in one box of the Crunch-n-Munch I was holding. I needed a quick, sweet fix bad.
So FINALLY, 4 more customers later, an associate came up, saw the two boxes I was holding but went to the office. Not a single acknowledgment to me or the other people behind me in line. This irritated me (and I say that nicely). So when she sauntered from the office, I asked politely, “Could you ring these up for me” in the most sincere voice that I could muster. She seemed to be annoyed but did. I tried hard to ignore her attitude without going ballistic!
I will post at another time about the customer who had the two shopping carts filled to the brim, but for now, I put a ton of punctuation marks behind GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE! It doesn’t matter how many self-service checkouts you have. What happened to making sure patrons who walk out of your store are satisfied with spending their money with you? Regardless of the jobs I ever had, part of my job description was to make sure when customers went through the spending funnel, they came out a satisfied customer. FYI, thank goodness such experiences aren’t as widespread as I feared.
So no, I didn’t go all Broom Hilda in the store and cause a scene by casting a spell on this associate who looked meaner than a junkyard dog. Perhaps she was having a bad day or maybe she was going through an issue that none of us knew about. Thank goodness I am much older and wise enough to squash my irritation to a place of empathy. I don’t think good customer service is buried in the past. But seriously though, oh where, oh where has good customer service gone? Oh where, oh where can it beeeeeeee???
Image Credit: RDNE Stock project
Source: Yo, Customer Service, Where You Be At? 🤷🏻♀️🙋🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️ | From Behind the Pen
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