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By Little Mummy, September 8, 2009 5:32 am

*High Horse Warning*

At the risk of sounding 40 years older than I am, whatever happened to customer service? In the current climate you’d be expecting businesses to go the extra mile to make the sale, and staff to be putting in the extra effort to get ahead and stay in a job. The news last night reported that young people have been the hardest hit with one million now unemployed, but that’s another post.

Last week I had three bad experiences in one day…

T K Maxx

I’m not really a fan and have only shopped there a couple of times, but with the lure of occasional bargains and a flat to furnish (my mum’s) we decided to give it a go. We found loads of stuff and ended up with an overflowing trolley.

Problem number one, a broken lift. There was no way we were getting the trolley down the stairs so I reported the lift problem to a member of staff who promptly said “Are you sure?” Eh…no…I’m just pretending (you idiot). Lift problem sorted, we headed for a checkout.

Problem two; Amongst our loot was a Marilyn Monroe box set, you know the ones where you get three boxes of differing sizes which stack inside each other, like those Russian dolls. Well the checkout lady scanned the price that was on the large box, she then opened the box and said that she thought that each box was priced seperately, even though neither of the two smaller boxes had a price tag. We asked for the manager who said that the other boxes should be priced seperately, and that the tags “must have fallen off”. The manager demonstrated no customer service and at one point adamantly exclaimed that he “would not be selling us these boxes today”. He didn’t try and cut a deal or even inform us of what the price was supposed to be, I got the impression he didn’t know, he was more interested in throwing his managerial weight around. We ended up walking out of the shop leaving over £100 of stuff at the checkout.

Sainsburys

Usually excellent on their customer service with their ’smile and pack two items’ policies they fell a bit short when at the cigarette/lottery counter I purchased a couple of items and requested a bag. I was busy putting away my change and receipt while the member of staff just dumped the bag on top of the items, making no effort to pack the items away. Now I don’t expect my bags packed for me all the time but seeing as I was busy and he was standing there like a fart in a trance it wouldn’t have been much to expect a little help.

KFC

Fast food joints aren’t exactly renowned for their customer service so no surprise really. We spent a while deciding on a couple of box meals, the only request was that we could exchange chicken wings for a corn on the cob on one of the meals. The member of staff refused point blank with no explanation and no effort to ask a senior member of staff it could be done. There seems no reasonable explanation not to fulfill such a simple request, it’s not like the food is already allocated. It left a bad taste in our mouths (literally).

………………………………………

After all that moaning I feel like I should end on something positive….

I tried to join Graze a while back, it’s a new company that provides healthy treats delivered to your door. As I was signing up I had difficulty registering my card and eventually gave up. I happened to tweet that I was really keen on the idea but was having trouble signing up.

I couldn’t believe it when the next morning a member of staff contacted me and fixed the problem (which I think was my own stupidity), well I ended up successfully signing up yesterday and I’m happy to spread the good word about their service I’ll let you know how the treats taste.