CUSTOMER SERVICE AND TELEPHONE.

CUSTOMER SERVICE AND TELEPHONE.

Retail industry is in a dump. What they need is customer and we are hard to come by these days. Sales, price cuts, 2 for 1 and whatever else that we are seeing these days at the malls and the creative methods of enticing us to buy.

This is all fine but I have a big issue when I am so hard to come by and they are doing all these things to get me to come in and buy, yet when I get there they act as if I am not there.

First case: Last week I took a pant in for alteration to a store in Charlotte, NC, and I have been there before and they had explained how there business is down. I walked in and the lady in charge of doing the measuring is on her cell phone talking some language that was not familiar to me. I waited awhile, she was talking and I could tell it is not business related from the tone of the conversation. She points me to the dressing room to change into the pants I wanted alteration on. I came out of the room and she is still on the her cell phone talking. I step on the platform and she is talking on the phone and holding the phone in place with her shoulder and marking my pans for alteration that I am pointing to, since she is on the phone and my explanation is not possible. With great amount of difficulty she marks my pants and we never exchanged a word. I came out of the dressing room after changing back into my arrived pants and she is still on the phone. She hands me a card to fill my information on , which I do. I asked her when the pants would be ready and she is too busy talking on that cell phone of hers. I asked her if she has 4 safety pins I can have since I was running my 5k the next day and had picked up my bib number for the run, I wanted to put it on my t-shirt before I get to the run. She could not understand what I was saying since she did not speak English. Still I wanted to know when I can pick up my pants and I asked again. No reply. At this time I got really hot and picked up my pants and walked out of the store and she looked at me wondering what had gone wrong. Still on the phone. I think they should start having people in stores that can speak english to serve us. I came from a different country and learned the language, it is not that hard. How can you deal with customers if you do not speak the language.

Second case: why is it that serving a customer on the phone is more important than a customer standing in front of you ready to buy. How many times has this happened to you. You are at a store working with a associates as they are calling them now and the phone rings and suddenly that phone is the life line of that store and the person on the other line is king and you are only a walk about customer ready to buy. They drop everything to answer that phone as if the blood flow would stop and they are on life support. Now a day they are on life support and they are all crying for business, yet when we are there and ready to hand over our cash, ring, ring the light goes off and that phone is the most important thing. This happened to me last week and I walked out the store and will not visit that name brand store again.

Lets get bask to basic and take care of our captured customers. If you have someone in your office, salesman or customer and your cell or desk phone rings, let it go to the voice mail. Your most important person at that moment is sitting in front of you.

Get your phone out of your ear and give your ear to the person in front of you. Our customers are the most important part of our business and they deserve to be treated like king, and king they are.