If Unorganized Territory readers are paying attention they know that I do not suffer from triskaidekaphobia—the fear of the number 13. In fact, I have always considered 13 to be my lucky number. However, last Friday the 13th was not a good day. It was one of those days when everything that could possibly go wrong did just that.
Perhaps it is because Friday, June 13, 2014, was also a full moon. I’m a firm believer that people get a little cranky when the moon is approaching fullness and some folks get downright bonkers when the moon is completely full. So perhaps it was the combination of the dreaded Friday the 13th and the full moon, but last Friday was a disappointing day.
It was especially frustrating because it wasn’t stuff that made the day miserable. My car didn’t break down and my computer didn’t freeze up. No, Friday the 13th was made gloomy by poor customer service.
I am not going to retaliate by writing a column naming the person or persons who offered this inadequate customer service. I don’t think it’s fair to use this bully pulpit to do that. But I hope the folks that were not only not helpful in my time of crisis, but downright rude are reading. I hope they take this message to heart.
I know that in the grand scheme of things my “crisis” was not that big a deal. It wasn’t life or death. As a military wife, I’m quite familiar with the old adage, “Your failure to plan does not constitute an emergency on our part.”
However, when a person is facing a problem that was not of his or her own making—which was the case here—a little kindness goes a long way. In fact, even though I’ve heard the “your failure to plan” quote, I don’t agree with it. No matter the circumstances that bring someone to you for help, that help should be extended.
And if it can’t, which in this situation might truly have been the case, at least the frantic person should be treated respectfully. Condescending lectures and denigrating fellow employees are not helpful. Reading off rules and regulations before listening is not helpful. And finally, if a person can’t be helped, a simple, “I’m very sorry” can go a long way.
Friday the 13th was not a totally disastrous day. I had an entirely different customer service experience with Larry at The Print Shop in Grand Marais. I will publish his name here, because I do believe in using Unorganized Territory to give credit where credit is due.
I approached Larry with a very similar situation. Although in this case, my “emergency” was completely caused by my failure to plan. I had a printing job that had to get in the mail and time got away from me. When I called Larry about the job he said it would be Tuesday or Wednesday before he could get to it.
I didn’t have to beg. I didn’t have to listen to a lecture. Larry heard the unspoken panic and told me to get it to him right away. He juggled his crazy schedule to fit in my print job, even taking time to look at my project and tweak it, lightening a page and adjusting some text. Larry could teach a class on customer service.
I know that it’s sometimes hard to provide good customer service. Our office gets insanely busy like any other. We have a weekly print deadline that we have to meet and we have people who don’t understand that. Nearly every week we have a customer who failed to plan ahead and who pleads with us to take a last minute ad.
Sometimes we can help and we find a way to rearrange a page to make it work. Sometimes it’s really not too late, it can be published the next week, so we reassure the customer and send them on their way. And in the cases where it truly is too late— when the paper has been sent off to the Duluth printing press—we commiserate and sincerely say we’re sorry.
I’m happy to say I don’t often encounter poor customer service in Cook County. Most of the time people in our businesses and government offices go out of their way to be helpful. Maybe that is why it is so disheartening when something like my Friday the 13th experience occurs.
Let’s work together to continue to help one another out, whether our life crises are major or minor, whether they are our own fault or the fault of others. Let’s all try to go the extra mile like Larry at The Print Shop. Thanks, Larry!
Let us be kind to one another,
for most of us are fighting a
hard battle.
Ian MacLaren.
Leave a Reply