To wonder why service is SO bad?

[donutdunkincoffee]

Just a few examples of things that happened to me recently

• Messaged two women on Facebook about an eyebrow treatment. Both ignored me and they both claimed they’d been on holiday (didn’t put a post up to say this.)
• Had a hair consultation and I was sat in the waiting room for 29 minutes. Until I was told front desk hadn’t bothered to inform the hairdresser I’d arrived.
• Called up to book a consultation at a different hairdresser. The girl answered and said why don’t I just do it online. Then claimed the Wi-Fi was really and and she’d call me back to book and then didn’t bother.

This was just this month. I’m genuinely nothing but nice and polite.

Maybe it’s just me who gets bad service but you’d think self employed people would want customers.

I had a bad experience with my bank, had to hold for an hour before getting to speak to anyone. Even worse is my ongoing dispute with easyjet refusing to recompense me after a cancelled flight and the cost of two days travel to get to our destination. Corporate policy default seems to be to screw people.

I went into a barbers to get my hair shaved. I usually avoid them and go to regular hairdressers but they were highly recommended. I booked online and in entering was barely acknowledged. My appointment time came and went and the barber didn't turn around and let me know he was running late or that he was nearly finished etc. I had a pedicure booked for later. It was a rare kid-free afternoon for me so I had planned them both. In the end I waited for 20mins before I spoke up to the barber. He was really apologetic and asked if I'd like to rebook etc but that experience put me off them for good. Pedicure was bliss though.

I'm noticing this more and more. Messaged a sports club that I was looking at joining about something. Said someone would call me and they haven't.

I'm noticing more and more in restaurants that service is poor. There's staff waiting around in an almost empty place and there's me wanting to pay the bill. (I would have stayed for dessert but as I had to wait a long time, I didn't bother)

Perhaps people are feeling a bit pissed off that hard work means nothing when you still can't even manage to pay your bills.

I have an ongoing claim with my insurance company from an accident in 2019! Fairly simple, other side admitted fault straight away. Haven't heard from them since early last year.

YANBU.

We are remember in the age of TikTok where I constantly see young people pissing and moaning about having to work in a job where they deal with customers. I see it all the time and often it’s morning about things that are really non-issues. There was one girl who does not v funny reconstructions and did one of a ‘Karen’ asking to use the toilet for her DD. I thought what a ridiculous thing to get upset about, a child needing a wee. Everyone thinks they’re above doing jobs like this and it shows - it seems to be that a lot of people don’t think they owe it to their employer to work hard.

It’s not just retail either - my male friend was the victim of an assault recently and was given an appointment to report it to the police. He sat for 1hr 20 minutes in the custody area (waiting room was closed apparently) all for an officer to come down and tell him a load of bail conditions. He said “I don’t know who you think I am but I’m here to report a crime I haven’t perpetrated one”. The officer never even gave an apology. Imagine if he’d been a victim of rape - not fucking up basic things like who you’re actually speaking to seems to evade even the (allegedly) smartest of professionals

I’ve totally gone off eating out because of terrible service. I agree that customer service is poor in hairdressers, gym, utility companies etc too.

I’ve noticed more and more places are hard to get hold of in person and it’s all Facebook messenger to book and then they take days or weeks to return the message. But they don’t answer the phones when you call either.

I think this is a huge part of it. Must admit that I'm not very motivated at work right now because of everything going on and a shit pay rise. Still get the essential stuff done, but don't feel like going above and beyond only to be worse off.

I think years of austerity and the simple fact that home ownership is totally out of reach for young people has made people not want to try and those that have been lucky in life get complacent.

But yes, I'm seeing this too. There is bad service because of staffing and products are of poorer quality (posted about toiletries being shit some days ago). Packaging is shrinking too. It seems to be a race to the bottom with everything now.

I think it's a perfect storm of understaffing, new staff who are not yet experienced/fully trained, staff who are working from home and not properly supervised, businesses being so busy that they don't currently have to work hard to gain or retain custom (short sighted), a culture whereby younger staff feel that many jobs are beneath them/temporary/they can walk out and into another job the same day (see tik tok).

I do also think that customer-facing roles are more difficult since covid. Customers are dysregulated, impatient and often also rude and entitled too. Staff now treat every customer as if they are going to be an arse, because so many are.

The recession will correct a lot of this.

I don't get why people advertise their services on local neighbourhood sites then when you message for a quote they ignore you. Perhaps bombarded but I had one who actually sent a standard message to say not taking on any work at the moment as busy which I thought was a lot more professional and I would contact then again in the future. There was an a bit of a kick off one board where someone said don't use this person as never turned up. The tradesman went mad saying bad publicity but you could see why the person was fed up.

Oh don’t get me started on the bank. Had a fraud notification and it took me 24 calls and 4 hours to get through.
Spoke to a very bored young man who supposedly corrected it but didn’t.
Tried numerous times to contact them again but couldn’t get through, lines constantly busy so I put in an online complaint.
The complaints woman phoned me back but was rude and offhand, so I emailed the CEO. Obviously someone gave her a bollocking because she then wrote a creepy apologetic email and they gave me compensation.
Now looking for a new bank that isn’t Nat West.

I think it’s because minimum wage is hard to muster up enthusiasm for. The £ doesn’t go far. To help explain the situation imagine if after your food and roof over your head was paid for, you were earning the equivalent of an apple per hour. Or worse were getting into debt to be able to afford to live (whilst working ft). Imagine having to pay to work in a service job 😟 my friend had this - after she had paid bills and childcare she was actually paying £1300 a month to be able to work, it’s crazy.

I agree about poor working conditions and so on. I also think the things that used to keep people motivated, even in shit jobs, have gone. One was having people you knew to work with, nowadays with irregular shift patterns you might never work with the same person twice. Also people used to at least feel they knew the ropes, now increasingly no-one knows what's going on in organisations and so there is little job satisfaction.

But it is very weird that people don't bother to respond to clients when it is their own business.

Since the pandemic, customer service seems to be largely non-existent

Then don’t take on bookings?

I’m not expecting the earth, but to walk into a salon and wait 15/20 minutes over my appointment time because they didn’t bother to notify anyone I was there is just lazy and unprofessional.

So it's ok to take it out on the customers?
Ok, then.

I do expect it a bit more from small/self owned businesses because managing things/other people is a specific skill on its own - just because you are a good hairdresser/electrician etc doesn't mean you're naturally organised with good people skills. There's a reason most companies have separate people who do the actual job, and then support staff who do the organising element.

On the other hand, you would think that running your own business whereby the level of customer service you give will have a direct effect on how much money you personally bring home would be an added incentive to do better!

Both the women I messaged about the eyebrow appointment and one to the hairdressers are all self employed. So it really has nothing to do with minimum wage at all.

If I had my own business then I would respond to potential clients because I need them for my business to be successful. If I wasn’t looking to take on new clients then I would have that on my social media page. It’s honestly bizarre to me.

‘Someone will ring you back’

No they won’t. They never ever ever ever ever fucking do. Never.

I think its a combination of a number of things

There is a narrative in some people that you 'bring your whole self to work' and sometimes that whole self/personality is not cut out for service or hospitality. I dont want to be served by your personality or 'whole self', just bring me the coffee or meal Ive ordered. All of this 'be yourself' has been quite damaging to society because the reason that people have to behave a certain way is due to social cohesion and social presentation. Lose that, and you get a load of people that act like they dont give a toss

Secondly, I was a big advocate for a NMW but since it came in, Ive noticed a real sense that NMW is a bad thing, in that if you 'only' earn NMW you are not earning enough or its a bad wage from the employer, its not worth working for that, or Im not going to do a good job for that, why should I. Im not quite sure why this is, is it about the name?

Thirdly, companies really couldnt give a shit, customers are at their mercy to some degree. Im with an energy company for example that have phone lines that only open 9-5. Thats it. No thought that Im at work during those hours and cant phone during then. The 'online chat' facility for so many companies just doesnt work or its not operating. No one replies to emails. They dont seem to care if they piss you off or not. You might change to another company but they're all the same. I blame technology to some degree, particularly the position that its 'progress' to have everything online and if you disagree you're some sort of luddite, it silences those who struggle. It also disguises poor service because you cant even get through to speak to someone to complain. The amount of services where there is no 'contact us' page or the 'contact us' page sends you round in circles with a list of pre prepared problems that are not actually solving your problem. Useless the whole of of them

That’s not relevant to my post though. Self employed people where I’m asking the basic minimum of a response to an email to book a treatment.

I’m not referring to huge corporations where people are earning minimum wage.

I guess it’s basic economics - supply and demand. If they are in high demand they don’t need to worry so much about keeping customers happy. You seem very angry about it all, maybe you should try going self employed and make a better businesses than the competition…