Let’s not mistake faux-intimacy for service. When I am dispatched to a customer service
agent in a far-away land who asks my first and last name, seemingly to
authenticate my account for the fourth time, but uses it merely to address me
as “Ellen”—this is not customer service.
It is annoying when the agent fumbles through a script unknowingly,
inserting my first name like he is reciting a MadLib. Recently, I stopped a customer care agent by
saying, “Stop calling me ‘Ellen.’ You
don’t know me. You may call me Mrs.
Dodson.” Audibly rattled, he limped
through the rest of his script, continuing to trip over my first name as it
came up again and again on his prompter.
As we replace people with infrastructure, interpersonal “skills”
are becoming less and less valued in our society. Total strangers call my house and feign
friendship only to trap me into a conversation about lowering my interest rates
or cleaning my chimney. No wonder when I
ask my friends “How are you?” it is regarded as a rhetorical question.
Nonetheless, I made the trip downtown
and wandered into the new store—seeing the many garments from their catalog
come to life before me. I quickly found
what I was searching for and a nice sales lady asked if I would like her to
start a dressing room for me. When I
told her I was ready now, she politely showed me to the back and unlocked a
door, gesturing me in. Then she did
something I have never heard before. She
said, simply, “Would you like me to check on you, or do you prefer to be left
alone?” Pleased, I turned to her smiling
and said, “Thank you very much for asking.
I think I can take it from here, but I’ll let you know if I need anything.”
For the first time in my recent memory, I was at peace in a
dressing room. No one was hovering over
me, trying to open the door or to demand that I let her see how awkward I
looked in a garment. I took my time and
I was not interrupted. Still, I had
doubts about the outfit but was inclined to purchase it, a quandary that forced
me to walk around the store as I considered my options.
Bumping into the salesperson, she asked
kindly, “Did that work for you?” I began
to explain my reservations when another saleswoman burst upon us. “I would have liked to have seen that on you!”
she demanded, looking me up and down with critical eyes. Taking the hangers from my hand, she asked, “Did
you try the Parisian swing top?” Looking
back and forth between the two women, I said, shrugging, “No, I just came in
for this.” “Well,” she said, “you would
really like this—come here.” She then
walked to the other side of the store, carrying the items I had just tried on. I had no choice but to follow. Then, she picked up something bearing no
resemblance to what I had selected or wanted.
“Try this on,” she ordered. “You
will love it.”
I felt bad. I had no
interest in this other item, and I told her so.
It was not the kind of thing I would wear, it was too long for my height,
the fabric was to clingy, and it was hardly a substitute for the sweatery choice
I had already made. Then she took an
aggressive tone. “What’s-a-matter,” she
shot at me with direct eyes, “don’t you trust me?” “I don’t know you,” I said, sheepishly, “but
I do know that I don’t want that top.” “But
you have to trust me,” she said,
emphasizing the word trust as if it
were a requirement for shopping there. “Try
it on.” Firmly, and leaving no doubt
that it was the end of the conversation, I spoke the words tersely: “I don’t think so.”
I walked away, making a pretense of shopping the rest of the
store until I found my original salesperson.
“I want to buy those items you helped me with,” I said, “but that other
woman took them from me.” I wanted to
make sure that the polite woman got proper credit for the sale. It turns out that the rude woman hung my
selections back on the rack. The nice
lady found them again and escorted me to the register. While I was standing there, sorting through
the accessories designed to catch impulse buyers, I was suddenly thumped hard
from behind. I turned to see that rude
saleswoman, carrying three colors of Parisian swing tops on hangers, making a
beeline—apparently through me—to the back room.
I would have complained to the manager, but there were only
two women working in the store. What if
it turned out that the aggressive woman was the manager? I let the nice lady know how impressed I was
at the way she handled the dressing room.
I do not like to be stalked or fawned over while shopping. She discovered a very nice way to offer just
the right type of customer service, responding to my needs and my tastes
appropriately.
I may be a vanishing breed, but I have a lingering hope that
the “customer” is still an important ingredient in “customer service.” I am not a unit, or an address, or a node, or
a sale—I am a person with tastes who exercises her discretion to buy or
not. We have not yet succeeded in making
everything a commodity. Until that time
comes, I am happy to punish poor behavior by denying a purchase. I will insist on my privacy and my dignity by
demanding an arm’s length between me and the person who processes a
transaction. And I will continue to
insist, when interrupted to be offered cheese on my Whopper, that I would like
it exactly the way I ordered it.
And for the record, “How are you?” is not rhetorical. If I ask it, I really want to know.
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