Customer Service At Its Worst

When I'm out shopping, there's nothing I like more than good customer service. When I worked at the spa, it was constantly drilled into me to be sugary sweet to customers and give them the best customer service experience ever had. So that's what I did. I answered questions promptly and fully, I smiled, I was polite, I made conversation. Even when I was furious and had the worst customer ever, it was still instilled in me that I need to be as nice as possible. So when I left the spa, everything I had learned about customer service stuck with me and that's how I expected to be treated when I walk into an establishment. It drives me crazy when you walk up to a register at check out and the clerk just starts ringing you up without so much as a hello. Usually I am the one who with attitude stands there and goes "Why hello! How are you today?"kill them with kindness right?

One of the worst customer service experiences I have ever had was on Monday. Mrs. Bow Jangles had an appointment to be groomed at 11:15 at Petsmart. Mind you, Petsmart is already about a 40 minute drive away so I was ready to drop Mrs. Bow Jangles off and get on with the rest of the day until she was ready to be picked up. When I arrived at Petsmart I walked her back to Grooming and waited to be checked in. A groomer came over and asked me my name and dogs name and began to look for us in the book. As luck would have it, she couldn't find our appointment anywhere. The groomer spent the next fifteen minutes flipping through pages of her binder appointment book looking for our appointment that clearly was not there. While she flipped mindlessly through the pages, she also ignored that I was still standing there, answered three phone calls, had three lengthy conversations, and scheduled three future appointments. All while I was standing there waiting for her to figure out my situation. Seriously? I was flabbergasted. Oh, did I mention I was holding a very squirmy Baby A who kept whining to get down. Finally the groomer turned back to me and said "well, I have a lot of dogs already today so...", I immediately cut her off and said "I just drove 40 minutes to get here, I have an appointment, it's not my fault if your co-worker lost it, you are taking my dog". This girl literally was shocked that I had just stood my ground. She half rolled her eyes at me and said "well then I have to treat you like a walk in so we probably won't be done until 3". Reminder. It. Was. 11. I told her that was fine and she took Mrs. Bow Jangles into the back.

I was blown away with the horrible customer service I received while at Petsmart this week. I firmly believe that if you are going to work in a public job you need to take a semester long class on customer service and how to work with people. I learned a lot from working at the spa and a few of the biggest main points I learned were:

• The Customer is Always Right
• Never focus your attention on anything but the customer while they are in your presence
• If a phone rings while you are with a customer kindly say "excuse me", answer the phone and immediately place them on hold.
• Never make the customer feel like they are not valued

Along with those main points I learned a lot more but those always seem to be the ones that come up in my mind most office. It is so frustrating to be treated poorly while you are spending your hard earned money at the places where these people work.


What's the worst customer service you've ever experienced?
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