Longing for the Customer Service of the Past

 

customer service - noun - the assistance and advice provided by a company to those people who buy or use its products or services (Google). 

I didn't think I would be Googling the denotation of customer service. I didn't think I would have to, but I did because the dearth of it, particularly lately in retail stores, is so terribly obvious in day-to-day reality that I found myself needing to check an online dictionary just to make sure my own understanding of it is compatible with everyone else's, including Google's. It's not. My conception of customer service is more precise than theirs and much more demonstrative. "Assistance and advice" seem a bit vague, yet perhaps purposefully.  

For example, in Home Depot yesterday, there were a half dozen clerks standing in the vicinity of the self-service, check-out kiosks, waving customers to machines so that they, the employees, wouldn't have to serve the purchasers directly. Is this what is meant by "assistance"? Probably. Is it the kind of assistance most would expect? Probably not. Was there advice given? I guess so. One former cashier brusquely differentiated between the machines for me, ensuring that I would wind up at the one that greedily sucked in credit cards rather than cash. So, I guess there was "advice" available. The whole disappointing experience left me a bit nostalgic for the past.  At that moment, I found myself yearning for a whiff of the musty fresh air of a lost era that defined the definition I carry around with me, that which includes adjectives such as "personal," "friendly," "caring," "prompt," "motivated," "dutiful," and "appreciative." Clearly, Google's definition includes only one adjective, "those" that can hardly be considered a descriptive word probably because customer service is so generic now that adjectives appear to be extraneous. 

After leaving the store, I couldn't understand why all of the Home Depot employees couldn't have just stepped up, taken the initiative, and offered authentic "assistance and advice" by going through the simple motions of greeting each customer with a pleasant smile, directing the cart to an open register, checking out the items, accepting means of payment, and sending each buyer off with a quick creative quip.  Okay, maybe not the quip. That would be asking a little much. 

If big retail is wondering why people are relying on Amazon too much, it is because they experience the same lack of genuine care there as they do in stores except Amazon is a lot faster, and you don't have to use your car now that gas prices are through the roof. 

Can we go back to the days when bonafide service distinguished customer service? Pretty please?

#word-to-words, #spilled thoughts, #vocabulary, #good advice, #personal essay, #vocabulary