Service With A Smile

Ever since man began trading and bartering to obtain needed goods, there has always been a minimal level of service that was expected during the transaction.

In the middle ages, it was assumed that a blow to the noggin with a mace would not conclude a trade for rice or grain. In the times of Columbus, it was commonly expected that one would not receive a rapier swipe to the ear at the completion of a transaction. In the early 20th century, a gunshot to the forehead would certainly have been a disappointing end to a deal for Prohibition era booze.

Now that society has made it this far with this loose set of ground rules, it was time for corporations to get involved. With all the gusto & planning found in a boiler plate Dilbert comic strip, Big Business has surveyed, studied, and analyzed us to determine what kind of service we expect from them.

They learned that the customer expects to deal with a knowledgeable, compassionate human being who understands our needs and sympathizes with our frustrations.

They also learned that the chances of finding a large team of people fitting this description and willing to work for $7/hour is about as easy as finding a website without commercial sponsorship. [This paragraph has been brought to you by BidFinders, a non-profit organization (although we hope to turn a profit some day).]

Since the average human being is not knowledgeable, compassionate, understanding, and sympathetic, they did the next best thing – just short of fitting a square peg into a round hole, they have taught their service staffs to follow a script with their customers. The idea makes sense if the customer service reps make a semi-human attempt to be sincere – sadly, most have the acting chops of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

For the sake of this blog, it would be handy to have an example at this point. Fortunately, I bought a defective dishwasher last week (!) and had to place a call to customer service at a big box appliance store. (I would reveal the name of the store but have no vendetta against them – besides, they did offer the best buy on this fine appliance.)

After the expected maze of incorrect transfers, I was eventually connected to the right department. My call was picked up and I could clearly hear someone laughing hysterically, as if watching an episode of Arrested Development, or more likely in this case, America’s Funniest Home Videos. There was a period of about five seconds in which it was clear to me that the rep who was tasked with answering my call was taking a moment to compose herself.

The woman finally regained control of herself long enough to ask me how she could help me, using all of her will power to get through the canned line without cracking up. I felt like a part of a Carol Burnett skit with Conway, Korman, and “Katie” trying to get through a scene.

My explanation that my dishwasher wasn’t working was met with silence – she was again trying to regain control of her involuntary laugh reflex. She was able to ask me how long I’ve had the problem, in an apparent attempt at small talk. I let her know it’s been a few days and mentioned it’s a bit inconvenient having to do the dishes by hand.

She read this as a disgruntled complaint, scrambled the F-16s, and went immediately to page 13 of the handbook: “I’m very sorry for your inconvenience, sir. I will do my best to help you today.”

This was said with all the sincerity of a Lindsey Lohan commitment to sobriety – if a robot could speak while trying to hold back a laugh, it would have sounded much like that.

She was skillful enough to drop these lines into our conversation two other times as we scheduled an appointment to have the dishwasher fixed. I was on the verge of calling her on her insincerity but figured it just wasn’t worth the hassle. Let her go back to the water cooler and regale her cube mates with the latest adventures of According To Jim before clocking out to buy lottery tickets.

The key to good service is hiring good people – without them, the customer service scripts could be written by Oprah Winfrey and Mother Theresa and I’d still feel like I took a rapier to the ear.


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