Customer loyalty love is not something I always remember having been around. I would argue that, as the money increases, so does the degree of your Oscar-winning portrayal of The Person that Most Loves Customers in the World. I can see the point of good customer service: people making sure things are easy for the customer, that they have all the required information, that they get good value and efficiency for what they want. The difference is that now, it all has to be done with a smile. But not only a smile: an it’s all my/the company’s fault, you’re the best, can I help you more after you’re done screaming, Batman’s Joker-esque cheesy-grin smile. In amidst our circus act of listening and trying to solve the most unreasonable complaint, we are supposed to care.
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| No Clowning Around in the Customer Service Circus |
I remember the days before customer service became a part of the part-time student working week. Cafes, shops, bars were teeming with who would be my future compatriots. Some held their head high, shunning the world in a defiant glare; they were the unbeatables: no amount of complaining could bear them down. The oblivious ones were always safe, thinking about some lover or other that had whisked them away the night before; these were much the same as the hung-over ones, who were simply struggling to get through the day. Yet the ones that always stuck in your mind were the ones that were beaten down: the ones who received “I-want-a-new-coffee/refund/person serving me”, that were in fact the ones that went out of their way for customers who only greeted them with a superior, the-customer-is-always-right glare. These were the ones that wanted to help, and they own a special place in any customer services representative’s heart.
Don’t get me wrong: there are always those customers that you do shed a little, semi-caring, retail tear for. The ones that (actually) got ripped off, or lost a dog, or a family member, or something other heart-wrenching affair. Your heart does go out to the ones that got shunted around. But it is not those ones that you remember. The ones that lied to you about being ripped off, or losing their dogs or family members are. After a while, you look back on your customer services career and reflect that you have become a sort of turtle: a soft, squelchy sentimentality that used to be the whole of you is now covered with a thick, retail shell. You now very seldom care. It is a beautiful thing to care about the plight of a stranger. The question is: do we have to care for them all?
The last ten years have seen the technological availability of everything, the call-centre-ization of even the most frivolous businesses, and the recognition of customer service as an exquisite art of cunning and emotional trickery. These have all required customer-service suckers to become more loving. The reason: because we have become so much more visible, and the visibility of corporations has shown what many believed to be some kind of fair, honest working organization to be a Medusa-head of snakes. Customer services people are expected to rectify this ‘misconception’. No, this product is not bad for you. Yes, this product is good value. How will we show you that this is true? By always presenting a wonderful image to you. And what is your first port of call through to this wonderful image? Customer service.
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| Medusa: Livin' the Bad Hair Day Since 490BC |
Being a customer-service representative changes your personality. Retail kills your soul (unless you are a particularly high-minded individual, with a touch of bitchy), but customer service mellows you down. ‘Oh, how ARE you?’ you purr to a customer only introducing himself as ‘John’ (as if you are supposed to know who they are). Complaints are responded to with a soft, Grace-Kelly voice that is ever so gracious and ever so poised – you do tend to wish you could inject a bit of this relational beauty into your real life. Voices screech and shout like the products they claim are malfunctioning. They are extremely bothered about the slightest thing, but not enough to hang up the phone on you when another slightest thing comes their way. If this was a boyfriend or mate, they would’ve been out of your phonebook long ago. But for some screeching fogey called Audrey? You could never give enough.
The time when you really start to think about your situation is when the fantasies start rolling in. You remember Audrey and the way she treated you. You want revenge. She kicked when you were down. You were working in retail at the time and you couldn’t fight back. It was so unfair. You bleated to all your friends, and they all laughed at her pathetic ways, but it wasn’t enough. The time for pity is over. A torrent of violent attacks and insults hurtle into your brain, bringing out the worst in your usually-so-lovely nature. The scale of violence increases as another Audrey sound-alike disrespects your intelligence. It is all too much. Is this reality the result of the buyer-BFF relationship we are expected to have every time we pick up the phone? The words ‘ironic’ and ‘paradox’ spring to mind.
The complaint about complaints, to finish, is this: why are we the ones that are supposed to care? Sure, we’re paid to – but no amount is ever really enough to butter up some foolish Joe that came off the street with no shoes on. Is it really too much to ask, on both sides of the retail counter, for customers and corporations themselves to be a little bit nicer? If the systems within companies worked better, we wouldn’t get so many complaints. And if the Audrey’s of this world could forget about their impending divorce, bad hair day, and general lack of happiness before they picked up the phone, perhaps the whole of society would love them that little bit more. Hate breeds hate. I am a person. That customer service person over there is a person. And all people, not just haters, deserve civility from civilians.
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