Can I Help You?

         

Maybe it was the complete chaos of Black Friday (and Saturday and Sunday) and the televised wars between shoppers that got me thinking about customer service.  Or, in the case of many stores, the lack of customer service.  And I’m not talking about “I’ll Give You a Black Eye Friday” here but the regular weekly shopping days.

          Oh, there are sales clerks.  Plenty of those…usually found guarding the cash register…but actually helpful people with a pulse to assist in the purchase of an item?  Not so much.

          It used to be that when you took a couple of garments into the dressing room, a sales person would hover outside the door to see if you might require a different size to try on.  Now, if a garment doesn’t fit, you have the choice of getting dressed again, stumbling back into the store, or trying to catch someone’s eye at the dressing room door while hiding your underwear only clad body behind a rack of someone else’s returns.

          And how about wanting an item sitting up on a top shelf?  Signs prohibit you from actually lifting the item off the shelf yourself…you need to ask a sales assistant for help.  Well try to find one baby.  I’ve practically grown roots waiting for someone to arrive after being told ‘I’ll get an assistant for you,’ by a cash register guard. Then trying not to burst out laughing when the ‘someone’ turned out to be a young lad who was about six inches shorter than me and about half my weight.  I wondered if I was strong enough to break his fall if he dropped to the floor under the weight of the box of fuzzy slippers.

          There are stores however, who obviously hold ‘customer sensitivity’ training on a regular basis.  This seems to be to show customers that their store’s employees really want to help you.  You can tell which stores have just had their yearly dose of this training by the number of sales people who greet you with a huge smile and a ‘good morning,’ the moment your foot steps inside their territory.  That’s very nice…albeit a little offputting if you’ve had to respond to nine ‘good mornings’ by the time you’ve traversed the first floor and you’ve still got two floors to go!

          But the one I like best is ‘did you find everything you needed?’  This is usually asked by the cashier at a grocery store checkout, while busily scanning your groceries into a bag.   Rarely is there any eye contact.

          This was my experience last week:

          ‘Did you find everything you needed?’

          ‘No, I didn’t.’

          ‘Oh, that’s good.’

          Huh?  Obviously, that store’s customer service training includes asking the question.  It doesn’t appear to include listening to the answer, and then making sure the needed item is made available.

          I don’t know.  Back in the day, ‘Can I help you?’ was the standard request from most sales assistants.  At least with them you knew where you stood.  Today’s sales people greet you with a smile, inquire about your health, and then disappear back to their inevitable guard dog duties.

          What about you?  ‘Are you being served?’