I once lived about 33 miles from DC. Manassas was a small city, quiet. Most folks seemed to work elsewhere, either in DC or in the cities closer to it that had businesses with ties to government. When I lived there, it was the Reagan years. 1986 and 1987, to be exact. And I worked in a hole in the ground. Behind blast doors. Right near where Ollie North lived, actually.
But this has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with economics and service. I thought I was alone in this observation but then I read the following...
With a hard economy thinning the supply of ready consumers, shouldn't we expect businesses to do more to keep them happy?
Yes, says Lopo Rego, a marketing expert at the University of Iowa, who has studied customer service in strong and weak economies. During the boom of the late 1990s, he observed that the quality of customer service had slipped badly. The tight labor market had drained the pool of good workers at the wages that stores and fast-food restaurants were paying. Businesses that hired lazy, careless and rude staff found that offended consumers were quickly replaced.
You can read the whole opinion column here.
I made a similar observation in the DC area during the 80s. You see, the DC area is pretty much recession-proof. No matter what happens in the rest of the country, the federal government just keeps going. Unemployment is low. Business is always good. Hotels and motels are in demand, housing is expensive and in demand. Stores were always full of shoppers, restaurants were always crowded, streets were full of cars going here, there, and everywhere.
Customer service stank. Cashiers were rude and impatient, salespeople couldn't be bothered, waiters were in no hurry, smiles were rare.
In 1988, I moved to Jacksonville. The economy there was not so good at that time. Housing was cheaper and readily available. Stores weren't so crowded. Smiles were readily available and service was fine. It wasn't just southern hospitality. It was a desire to keep the customer happy and to keep the boss happy because, if you didn't, it was easier to replace an employee than it was to replace a few customers.
There may be a bright side to this economic downturn...
A Night Unremembered
13 years ago
3 comments:
As you are aware, I was in the law firm business for many years. I describe it as the law firm business in that I was with 135, 400, and 1,000 attorney firms at various points in time. Prior to the 1970s, legal secretaries were very sharp, and the profession was occupied primarily by women. Once women started medical, business, and law school in greater numbers, you saw a change in the caliber. Fewer people had undergraduate degrees, and there were dramatic changes. It's always interesting to see such transitions take place.
About 10 years ago, one of the magazines tracking high growth companies had a cover story entitled, "The Myth of Customer Service." I have often thought of that article.
As a practical matter, I'm not quite sure whether companies need to have good customer service any longer. When consumers will buy the goods and pack the stores regardless, then arguably there is no need to do so from a business perspective.
If there is little or no competition, arguably companies are not sufficiently motivated to have good customer service, especially if they are hurting economically.
I came up with the hypothesis during the days when I had to fly over 50 times a years. Poor customer service became the norm. Individual customer service reps distinguished themselves, but overall, the companies were not highly motivated to care about the customers.
Inspector - The best service I have ever had on commercial airlines were on next to empty planes and on new airlines trying to get a foothold. Same thing tends to happen with new stores and restaurants. Once a business has established a "baseline", service begins to deteriorate until an economic downturn forces a new emphasis on serving the customer. This is why a company such as AT&T can run a study, find that over 70% of the people dislike voice menu systems, and promptly institute one.
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