Service

Posted by Chris Campbell at Monday, March 02, 2009

Where have the days of good service gone? It's pretty unreal that some businesses can survive with such god awful treatment of their customers. We now come to expect adequate service at best at restaurants, stores and so on, and such mediocre service is usually met with, "Wow, they were very nice." Well, no, they weren't.

The most common treatment seems to be very rushed service. I guess that's a sign of the times as folks no longer have time to be in the moment, or to allow a moment to extend beyond four seconds. Everyone's on their phone, getting in quick exercise, at a meeting, twittering about the weather or making plans while they're at dinner with friends.

There's a local fish restaurant that Noreen and I go to and the girl who usually serves us is incredibly sweet. She doesn't necessarily go out of her way, but she always has a genuine smile, never rushes us and always returns to check on us. We're always so happy with how we're handled.

Right now I'm sitting at a shop having my car serviced. I checked out a number of places via Yelp and this location got rave reviews. The consensus was that the service is unmatched and you won't be ripped off. I've now been in twice and although the service is good compared to most dumps, I'm not impressed. For one, they are always eager to get you out of the way. They have that, "Man, I have to get to something else NOW" look at all times. I mean, what would that extra twenty seconds cost you? They are nice guys, but it's the constant rush that's just unnerving. And this is what we now call good service? How hard would it be to say, "Have a good morning" or "You seeing Buckner at the Independent?" I mean, give me something. As I'm typing this, one of the owners just asked me a question and before I could respond, he was out the door.

So are the times, I suppose. I was hopeful that this downturn in the economy would lead folks back to caring about service, community and back rubs. Maybe if the dow hits 1500 folks will start to come around.