Why Your Customers Go Elsewhere
 by: Jennifer Jordan  

These days, many similar businesses are in competition with each other to win the crusade for the customer. With the construction of each new restaurant, supermarket and department store, people are offered more and more options on where they can go. Many stores and restaurants carry or offer alike items and thus, there is little that can distinguish one venue from the next.

However, one thing that does offer distinction is the level of customer service and, more notably, the level of customer disservice.

When I first stared this article, I asked several people I knew what kind of experiences they have had with poor customer service. While some of their experiences were extreme – with one instance where a photo lab cashier punched an irate customer – most relayed occurrences consistent with my own experience. I narrowed it down to four behaviors of customer disservice. When these behaviors are continually maintained, the ability to drive customers away will surely be in the bag.

People who act as if their customers are invisible – When I was in high school, my father sent my friend Jenny and me to a hardware store to fetch a plastic tube for the senior physics project he was building for us to pass off as our own. Because this tube didn’t come in the form of a top, nor was it filled with gloss for our lips, neither Jenny nor I knew where to look. Thus, we sought help at the customer service desk.

Standing in line behind a man with a plaid flannel, blue jeans, and a prevalent butt crack, we waited for our turn. Once he was done asking where he could locate a better fitting tool belt, Jenny and I inched closer to the counter. Assuming that we would be helped next, as we were next in line, we began preparing a monologue that wouldn’t scream, "First time in a hardware store". Instead of being helped, we were passed over for a man standing behind us. We stood by patiently, thinking that it was a simple oversight, until we were passed over again and again. For fifteen minutes we waited until virtually every man within a five-mile radius had been helped. Finally, after inquiring as to whether or not we did in fact exist, we were helped by a pair of rolling eyes. After this experience, I vowed to never return to this hardware store. Being that I have since been to other hardware stores at least twice, I am sure my business at this particular venue is sorely, sorely missed.

Ignoring the customer is not limited to women in hardware stores, it can happen anywhere. Men are often ignored in clothing stores, kids are ignored in restaurants, and poorly dressed people are ignored in jewelry stores. Anyone at anytime and anywhere has the potential to be ignored by an oblivious salesperson. In some cases, the oversight is overtly intentional and the salesperson isn’t oblivious, just rude.

There is a pivotal scene in the movie Pretty Woman that attests to this very notion. Julia Roberts, dressed in her prostitution-esque street clothes, is ignored by a snotty saleswoman at a posh Rodeo Drive store and asked to leave. After spending several dollars in other shops, and adorning clothes laden with wealth, her character returns to the store and asks the lady who previously ignored her if she worked on commission. After stating that she does, Julia’s character bellows a strong, "big mistake, big mistake…..huge", and storms out, leaving the stunned cashier to dry her eyes on her Gucci dress.

If this scene taught us anything, other than the often-overlooked fact that sometimes hookers do finish first, it taught us that one never knows what a customer has to offer and thus, no one should be ignored.

People who are too pushy – On the other end of the spectrum is the merchant who is overzealous in getting a sale. One thing people do not like is pressure, or the feeling that someone is standing over their shoulder with bated breath. While it is good for the vendor to be near and receptive, in case someone wants to try on clothes or needs help finding a plastic tube for her physics project, no one likes the idea of being stalked while they shop. Stores where people are pushy, I always avoid: the clothing store with four cashiers per one customer I don’t enter, the electronic stores where the retailer tries to get me to buy things I don’t need – things like a lifetime warranty for my obsolete computer – I steer clear of, and the shoe store whose best salesperson is a man with a gold tooth, checkered jacket and slicked-back hair, I routinely pass up.

When people are shopping, they want to browse, take their time, and relax. They don’t want to spend their time having to say "no thanks" to every salesperson they see nor do they want to be made to feel guilty for not conceding to the "wonderful deals" many stores claim to have. It is a conundrum for the salesperson, as people want help nearby if they have a question, but they don’t want to feel pressured to purchase things. Customers don’t want to be bothered, they just want to do the bothering; it is very much, for the purchaser, a "don’t call us, we’ll call you" relationship.

People Who are Rude to Children – When I was ten, my two sisters, my mom and I were dining at a local pizza joint near my grandma’s house. Spending all of my allowance on games of ski ball, I was content to stay at the pizza joint until I won enough yellow tickets to purchase a Chinese yo-yo that would moonlight as a weapon when my siblings were annoying me. My sisters, having no appreciation for my ski ball talent, asked my mom if they could run next door to the drugstore to look around. Upon getting my mom’s approval, they headed over.

After being in the drugstore for just a few minutes, the cashier approached and told them to leave reasoning that it looked as though they might shoplift. My sisters, both in tears, came back to the pizza joint and told my mom what had happened. This infuriated my mother and she promptly went next door, asked to speak to the manager, and told him that she had been a patron at his store for twenty years and would never come back. And, she never did.

The only reason my sisters were singled out was because they were kids. They weren’t filling their pockets with candy, they weren’t about to grab a toy and make a run for it, they weren’t even wearing panty hose over their head. They were doing nothing wrong and still, they were asked to leave. My mom never even questioned my sisters as to whether or not they were shoplifting; she didn’t have to. None of us would have ever stolen anything from a drug store. We were raised better than that; if we were going to steal, we knew well enough to do it from someplace more expensive.

I don’t think that my mother over-reacted. Conversely, I think she simply reacted the way many parents would. A person’s child is an extension of him or herself and a parent will rightfully put his or her kids before a salesperson, a manager, even a CEO of any store or venue. This fact often evades people who work in customer service as they have no qualms about acting annoyed or bothered by children acting like (gasp!) kids. A great way to lose the patronage of parents is to alienate children. And, a few customers of the future may also be lost in the process.

People acting like you are bothering them for asking them to do their job- The "sigh" and the "eye roll" have little value in the customer service realm. Yet, it is surprising how many cashiers, and various salespeople, partake in this kind of behavior when simply asked to do their jobs.

Just recently, I was at a music store where a multi-tasking cashier showcasing both the "sigh" and "eye roll" helped me. I had gotten in line behind a woman who was purchasing a CD set of holiday music. The cashier, when it was my turn to check out, acted irritated and loudly said to the saleswoman adjacent to her that she shouldn’t have to help me because she was going on break. The aisle light that tells patrons which aisles are open was brightly lit above her counter and thus there was no indication of her idle plans. Being that my psychic powers were turned off for the day, I had no way of knowing that her register was closed and so I found her attitude to be unwarranted and rude.

Along these lines, there have been several occasions where I have asked people for assistance in finding items or checking to see if items are stocked in the back. More often than not, people happily oblige, but sometimes people act annoyed or bothered when I am simply asking them to do what their job entails.

For example, I was once in a retail store looking for a jacket. I found a jacket I liked but I needed a smaller size and was unable to locate one on the rack in front of me. After finding a salesperson on the floor, I asked if he had any similar jackets stocked in back. Before I could even finish the sentence, he interrupted me to say, "no". When I asked him if he could look to be certain, he stated that he didn’t have time and went back to the truly ever-vital job of folding sweaters; it was, after all, nearly winter.

I have also seen people get annoyed in restaurants when patrons put in odd, sometimes anal, orders that take simple dishes and turn them into complex cutlery . People can be very picky about what they eat, sometimes too picky – "I need the onions diced, not sliced, and make sure that the potatoes aren’t touching any of the green beans". While I typically do not engage in these kinds of demands, because of the fear that my dinner will be spit in, there are people who are quite particular in how their meals are prepared. Ultimately, those who work in the restaurant business just have to understand that this kind of thing comes with the territory. Giving the "anal retentive eater" attitude will only result in decreased business, not to mention a lower tip.

These four types of behavior make up a paradoxical realm. There is irony in the customer service worker who acts bothered upon being asked to service customers, or who fails to maintain tact when doing so. It is similar to the fire fighter irritated by fire, the doctor irked by sick people, the cop annoyed by donuts.

Poor customer service has no place in business and can be remedied with one simple solution: if one doesn’t want to deal with or flat out doesn’t like people, don’t get a job in a restaurant or store. Instead, become a postal worker.