Jerk Doesn't Look Good On You

I couldn't agree more! At least show the customers that you care a little bit. If the customer sees that you are showing that you appreciate their business.

I couldn't agree more! At least show the customers that you care a little bit. If the customer sees that you are showing that you appreciate their business.

I couldn't agree more! At least show the customers that you care a little bit. If the customer sees that you are showing that you appreciate their business.

I couldn't agree more! At least show the customers that you care a little bit. If the customer sees that you are showing that you appreciate their business.

Great concept, but this must be one of those "bizarro worlds" - where I've been living, NOBODY works in customer service...

My summertime job all throughout High School (and a little bit of college) was working at my Town's Swim Pond. Even at a small position like that, customer service was probably the most important part of the job. Example: You've been out in 90 degree weather for six hours. Despite the hot July sun, you've raked the sandy beach countless times. Now, you're working the snackbar and some kid who can't make up his mind between an apple and a grape Blow-Pop is inadvertently letting the queue to stretch down the beach. Basically, you want to tear the place up. BUT, as I've learned, controlling your anger and putting on a smile has its long term benefits, as opposed to the shorter one (i.e. barraging the indecisive kid with blow-pops, etc.) You keep the friendly family atmosphere and you leave for the day knowing that you handled the situation in the most mature way possible. It shows professionalism and self-control, which are excellent characteristics to employ wherever you continue to seek work.

Thanks Chris! Title cleverness brought to you by Mr. Foster. Surprise, surprise :)

GREAT title. Dragged me right into the story. : )

Thanks, Tyler!

Amen, Carla! Your late-night work session definitely paid off. :) I completely agree with your sentiments here. In fact, you may even want to check out this post that I wrote this summer after a bad flying experience: http://bit.ly/b1ro6

Good post Carla.

@Nicolas I have definitely been the person serving and dealing with disgruntled, rude customers (when they have no real reason to be). In fact, my current job deals with customers all the time where sometimes I want to scream!

However, to maintain our brand and business I usually have to be flexible with the customer and work around their anger. Just as fire begets fire, it's not a good idea to get upset at a customer when they're upset. They will walk away with an even WORSE idea of your company, service, etc. It's part of the game, I suppose.

I think the bigger issue is wage discrepancy. Minimum wage is actually a really inefficient way of raising the standard of living because as you raise he minimum wage, it also kicks up inflation for low cost goods. Whether the minimum wage is $5 or $100, it's still at the bottom and the wage gap would still exist.

You can't really blame someone earning a minimum wage becoming frustrated at someone earning $500 million +. I think forcing companies to "limit" their highest salary to X * the lowest salary would be a much more efficient way to reduce wage gaps and bring up everyone's standard of living. As the living standard increases for those at the bottom, they'll be happier and provide better service to the rest of society.

Again on the flip side, I often see total jerk customers (typically with a strong sense of entitlement, or perhaps otherwise projecting from a bad day at work or something) absolutely berating a service rep for no reason. I'm both impressed by many employees' ability to take that abuse without cracking, but also depressed that they have to.

Grace- TOTALLY agree about the little things. I think they make all the difference. I always remember who, where, and why I had a positive experience at a certain place. I think it makes all the difference.

I totally know what you mean. Even if it's a basic job like a cashier at a convenience store or a Customer Service Manager at a large company, you must always treat the customer with respect and understand they are why you are in business. It blows my mind that people can be so rude when I have done nothing.

I'm so into customer service, that I'm always on the look out for it. I've posted before that I believe it's the little things that count in customer service, not some HUGE giveaway but rather a hand written letter, or a personal email from a customer service rep, or just that you know your favorite company is listening. Great post!

Haha! Just asked a question and didn't receive the kindest answers. I had to go back a couple times that day to get some things and received a lot of attitude. Let's just say it could have been handled better :)

You bring up a great point about treatment from employer and this cycle due based on compensation. Is the customer service better in other countries where the minimum wage is higher? I would be interested to see more about that.

In my opinion, customer service is so incredibly critical to the way a business is ran, that simple customer-facing actions cannot be overlooked. Especially in the social media world, where blog posts, tweets, and videos are at our finger tips :)

What happened in the convenience store!? You left us all wondering :)

I wonder how much the prevalence of bad customer service experiences is linked to the way we handle minimum wage (and related benefits) in the US. With the exception of wage slave citrus farming labor, many of these jobs are among the worst-paying in the country.

Contrast with Western Europe, where the state requires or guarantees significantly better cost-of-living-based minimum wages. Even if the job seems to be zombifying on the surface, such as managing the customs lines in Charles de Gaulle Airport Terminal 2E, that worker is compensated appropriately, which has a cascade effect of reduced financial and work stress.

The flip side is that as customers we might be more likely to write off a worker who is treated poorly by their employer, so we end up with this vicious cycle where the customer service employee (whether that's in their job description or not) puts in the minimum of effort relative to their compensation, the typical customer treats that employee based on that perceived compensation, and both people have a frustrating interaction typified by rudeness.

Note: I don't have any particular hard data to back this up, just cursory observation; but consider that the minimum wage in France is u00e2u0082u00ac8.82 ($12.64) for 35 hours a week while in the US it's only $7.25 (unless the state has a higher one) for probably way more than 40 hours a week.