Serve always, with a smile

OASIS

Last week I had two experiences with the service providers. One, as always, was dependable, innovative and most responsive, even when problems arise. The other was difficult, uncooperative, unwilling to find solutions, clearly adopting a take-it-or-leave-it attitude, blaming it all on the customer. In one case, I was left thinking that they are such a blessing, while a finance company accepting investments raised my hackles and drove me up the wall.

And although I know that this is how things are most of the time, I couldn’t help wondering why people are so unpleasant when offering any kind of service — the services they get paid for. The I-am-doing-you-a- favour kind of approach does no good for either party. I am not suggesting they must romanticise the concept of service and how noble or how privileged or lucky they are to serve.

All I am saying is, okay, it might be a job like any other most of the time, maybe even one the person doesn’t like, but shouldn’t one try to at least perform it decently and if motivated enough exceed expectations and delight the customer? Perhaps it is asking for too much.

As Vince Lombardi said, “It takes months to find a customer and seconds to lose one.”

Could it be that the companies that adopt this attitude have rarely experienced a happy customer or had a taste of what it is like to bring joy to someone by going the extra mile?

That said, throughout this pandemic and earlier natural calamities like floods, we have seen dozens of heroes not stopping to think twice, even putting themselves and their lives online to reach out to someone in need whether it is a man, woman, child or pet.

Is it a lack of sensitivity, empathy, pure selfishness or pent-up emotional baggage that is responsible for poor service or is it a question of attitude that I couldn’t be bothered, the customer can go take a walk mentality?

These are values that can never be taught. The lesson will most likely only be learnt when the service providers themselves are at the receiving end and realise that the customer is not always wrong as they tend to believe!