Today I was thinking about the opposite of good customer service, the dreaded BAD customer service. One of my co workers asked me to stop by a well known coffee chain on my way to work and pick up coffee for his 8:00 meeting. It was important to him that I arrive at EXACTLY 8 am. We go through this drill every month with a big whoop te doo meeting. I learned by BAD customer service last month and the month before that it takes about 1/2 hour from cash register to out the door to get one of those boxes filled with coffee.
The high brow coffee procurement establishment suggested month before last that I call ahead and order it, after I just about had a heart attack waiting for the coffee to go. So last month I called ahead 1/2 hour before I needed it, and they took my phone order. I got there 15 minutes before my meeting, and they hadn’t even STARTED the incredibly (for them) complicated task of filling the cardboard box, gathering the cream, the napkins, 3 kinds of sugars, and the stir sticks….. So as I waited, about ready to faint from stress, they said they couldn’t help it, that several other people had also called to ask for these items, and that I would have to wait!
So this month, I thought I’d outsmart them, and I called 1 hour before I needed it, while I was still at home getting ready for work. One ringy dingy…. two ringy dingies…. twenty three ringy dingies…. Well maybe I had the wrong number, so I looked it up again…. One ringy dingy… etc. no answer, hell could freeze over first. So I figured no problem, although in the last month 2 independantly owned wonderful local coffee shops have been run out of business, but they’ve been replaced by those national well known coffee procurement establishments on just about every corner, I’ll just call the other one that’s on my way to work… One ringy dingy….. to infinity. At this point I started to panic, because this has eaten up my time to get dressed and every other small thing I needed to do, such as comb my hair and brush my teeth, I’ll just have to jump in the car and DRIVE OVER THERE RIGHT NOW SO I CAN WAIT 1/2 HOUR WHILE THEY SPECIALLY BREW THE COFFEE…. Stress, panic, oh crap! So I got there, and noticed how I didn’t hear a phone ringing, didn’t see a phone, and everyone looked so calm… So I mentioned to the gal that was specially brewing my coffee, specially assembling every component of the complicated box and carrier system, and locating by taking 400,000 steps to every corner in the establishment to create every minute detail of the incredibly fussy contraption while I had a MAJOR PANIC ATTACK watching this…. that I had tried to call at 7am to place the order so it could be ready when I arrived. I said perhaps the phone number in the directory is wrong? Thinking I might help her out or something insane like perhaps they wanted more business? And she said, without looking me in the eye, that things had been busy this morning and that they hadn’t had time to…. And she never actually finished her sentance… I think at some gut level she must have realized that she would have sounded STUPID had she admitted there was no time to answer the phone… I gathered that it would have been an inconvenience for her to answer the phone, or assign that duty to someone else…. Then when they finally did hand over the coffee, they did so without a receipt. I had to ask for a receipt, which triggered the entire staff to come over and train the cashier on how to generate a receipt. As the sweat poured down the back of my neck, and my panic attack caused waves of nausea.
So, did I enjoy my experience, and would I look forward to coming back? I don’t THINK so! However, unfortunately, since the two local coffee shops now have eviction notices on the door instead of an “open” sign, I suspect I’ll be back. Next month….
