Where has customer service gone?

much of it was never there.
Years ago I went up to the desk with a huge sign that read information at Lord&Taylor. The woman there ignored me so after a full minute I gave the a-hem cough. She looked at me in a hostile way and asked what I wanted. I told her I was inquiring about the umbrella in the window and where I can find it. She snapped, why are you asking me? I responded, your sign reads: information and walked away, they lost a sale.

Key word: gone...

Customer service has gone the way of:

Manners
Civility
Subtlety
Decent public behavior
Boundaries
Ethics

I am putting on Native War Paints going to Florida. A rather expensive hotel, should be good service, right? WRONG!!

While making reservation on-line, typed all info myself. Never got a confirmation e-mail.

Called the front desk. Got the confirmation e-mail with the name misspelled, different city in the address with my zip code, wrong check-out date (now corrected) and I don't even want to go into the price.

It will be one fun stay! The problem is, to get a great rate I pre-paid. On the website (that is changed by now, by the way) it says non-refundable.

I cannot believe the confirmation e-mail saying I can cancel 3 days before arrival. Or can I?

I am not posting the name of the hotel, will certainly do that after the visit.

A few years ago we went to Disney Grand Floridian and baggage storage lost my kids TAGGED bookbags... when I stopped at the front desk, the staff accused me of making up the loss for some sort of free claim or additional free service... I was very angry but bit my lip and left it at.... You Find those Bags.... an hour later they were delivered to the room, no apology, no nothing!!! even Disney dropped the ball...

I have seen instances of excellent customer service and instances where it was just missing. I have to say that on my recent trip to China I was blown away by the level of service, hospitality and the many kindnesses shown to us. Australia; not so much.

You're complaining about customer service at MOTEL 6??? You're lucky there weren;t drug dealers in the lobby. Can;t imagine who would leave anything of value in a room there never mind send packages of valuables ahead of them. You're VERY lucky you got anything back.

About 5 years ago one of my aunts had to stay at a motel 6 when she had a problem with her car in FL and after she came back from dinner (across the street) her room had been entered (by someone with a key) and her raincoat stolen. When she complained to the manager he said you should never leave anything in the room. She went to the police to complain (it was an expensive raincoat and she wanted to claim on her insurance - and they said she should NOT stay there - it wasn.t safe).

One day we came back to our hotel and found the door ajar with the night latch holding the door open. I called to the front desk and asked if the maid had finished in our room, what was going on? Within minutes the manager was knocking at our door, to tell us how sorry he was and he gave us two coupons for free drinks in the hotel bar. (seemed a little skimpy but I wasn't that upset nothing had been bothered it looked like an honest mistake.)

We went to the bar to get our "apology drinks" and ordered calvados. The bartender said, "no, only beer or wine" I said so, "the manager was only beer sorry?" We pointed out that this was an apology and we would have the calvados. By this time even my husband who wanted a beer in the first place decided it would be a round of c.

The bartender kept us waiting for 10 min while she checked. We were getting ready to blow it off and she came back. Turns out she was calvados sorry. Sheesh how silly. After all of that the management should have been “free breakfast” sorry.

Went to our local Fry's this week in search of an ergonomically correct chair to use in my home office. The chair department was within the view of several salespeople, but not one of them was in the least interested in approaching me to ask if they could be of help. I realize I could have approached one of them, but I figured they'd be useless. I'm voting with my feet, and don't ever plan to return.

Perhaps businesses could get away with bad service in the booming economy of the past several years. Perhaps leaner times will force them to change their ways and act as if they actually care about their customers.

The trouble with hotels and airlines is that they know they don't have a loyal customer base: people buy the best-priced room or ticket based on their needs. So excellent customer service is not rewarded by the marketplace, and therefore not prioritized by the businesses.

(I know some of you will say "Not me, I will pay more for good service!". But studies show it ain't so, not in these areas, anyway.)

Photodog: Sorry you had such a negative experience. On hindsight, it would have been better to have paid the airline for the baggage fee - or fly Southwest Airlines, Las Vegas is one of their major hubs in the West. Thanks for posting this as a warning!

Placename: Great list!

Grasshopper: Yes, service is still a key word in many parts of this world.

OTOH, I find that there are parts of this country where service/courtesy is still observed. By and large in the better hotels, courtesy is still there.

NewbE: We can all hope that with a failing economy, service will improve.

Sorry that you had a bad experience.
Placename nice list. Trouble is that the same list applies to "Customers" too.

I have seen absolutely horrible Customer behavior..no excuses but it does make it difficult to be "Customer Service Oriented".

Sadly it is human nature to treat people at the lowest common denominator of Customer experience...some of the previous Customers must have been real dirtballs....

It is harder too to acknowledge good servcie: I recently missed my LA hotel exit while freeway driving due to an almost road rage incident: I called the LA Downtown Sheraton & the Concierge stayed on the (hands free) phone with me the whole time until I drove up to the front door. I tipped that Sheraton staff very well and wrote very nice Customer Servcie letters to Management

This is an interesting experience. Thanks for sharing it with us. One thing I've learned is to ask for the name of the person who is giving you the ok to ship it to the motel. Ask her if she/he is always at the front desk. If not who will be, then make sure the package is addressed to them and that they have to sign for it when it arrives - and they must call you to let you know where it will be kept until you arrive to pick it up.
Sometimes it's best though to not count on others for such an important package. Maybe you could have had the postal service hold it until you could have picked it up.

At any rate I'm sorry for your horrible experience.

I think you misunderstand the term "service".

A farmer calls a man to come to "service" his cows and you know what happens to the cows then! Keep that it mind and you'll understand perfectly what's happening to you when you use "customer service".

Another thing to do is to write the president of the company as well as the manager of the Motel 6 Tropicana in Las Vegas. Tell them you are planning to write up a terrible customer service report based on your experience about their incompetence, and poor service - on as many travel sites as you can including Trip Advisor. In addition
tell them you plan to tell all your friends and family members and include that they travel to Las Vegas frequently.

I've found that this works better than any other recourse you can take.

How's this -- I bought a wireless telephone, from a national company, that qualified for a rebate. I sent in all the paperwork, the company sent me the rebate check, I deposited it and the check BOUNCED. My bank debited the deposit from my account and charged me a "returned check" fee. Hours of phone calls and letters later, including sending copies of the check that clearly shows their bank returned the check unpaid, and no one will call me back or send me the rebate. They keep saying "our records show we sent you a check." YES, but it was BAD CHECK. If I wrote someone a bad check I'd be breaking the law and get penalized -- how is it that here they get to write a bad check and I'm the one getting penalized?

I have just written the president of the wireless phone company, sending copies of all prior correspondence. If I don't get the rebate after all this I'll post the name of the company. It starts with a "V", ends with an "N" and has a Z somewhere in there.

Patrick but in this case, shouldn't I be paid instead of them taking my money?

Not really, Dayenu. The ones getting "serviced" always have to pay the money. LOL