Unbelievable how bad it is. It is nearly impossible to get a live voice on the phone, and when you do it’s usually some incompetent foreigner who can barely speak English. Very frustrating.
shareTelephone customer service has always been godawful, but it's gotten worse in the last 10-20 years as voice mail trees and overseas call centers came in.
You're right, for once.
I’m usually right, whether or not you want to admit
shareBWHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!
Sure. [Snigger] You're right about everything, especially the fine details of heterosexal courting rituals.
Started 20 years ago when all such service started getting exported overseas. I wouldn't say it was all that great before that. Them damn automated menus and not being able to talk to people is when it really started going to hell.
shareI have found getting help online isn't much better. I remember waiting an hour online for someone from my internet company to message chat with me about my internet being down. I was on my phone's internet waiting to chat.
Them damn automated menus and not being able to talk to people is when it really started going to hell.
More often than not I know more about what my problem is than the service reps do to. I'm calling them for help and I end up explaining their freaking job to them.
shareI recently had a very frustrating experience trying to activate a new credit card. I couldn't get into my online account because the site wouldn't recognize any of the info I provided: account number, security words, even my social security number. Yet, I'm getting e-mails from the site, one of which provides my current balance. I tried 3 different 800 numbers with customer service and the automated system also wouldn't recognize either my account or social security numbers. Now I'm going to have to go to a local branch of that bank the next time I go out and try to fix this through a human being for a change. I had almost the exact same experience with my cable provider earlier this year.
shareI worked in customer service early in my working life and I can confidently say that 99% of customer service reps do their best under extremely trying circumstances.
You try being positive in an industry where you face verbal abuse on an hourly basis. It takes a lot of cool and composure to remain professional when Joe Nobody is screaming at you for something that is entirely not your fault.
The general public is frustrating.
Uncharacteristically, my last two CS encounters went very well. Polite exchanges and problems solved. I had to wait for nearly an hour for a person but hey ... it went well.
There is hope.
No worst customer service than in stores where they expect you to bag your own groceries.
shareWhat's wrong with bagging your own groceries? I like bagging my own groceries, I can put them tidied and categorised as I'd need later which the cashier can't possibly know.
shareI think many people believe as prices go up the service you receive goes down.
shareWhich is them marketing people want people to believe. It's actually not exactly true.
I still remember when I was a kid, I would only eat a cake when it's my birthday. Or at other people's birthdays.
If you compare, a cake 30 years ago was a lot more expensive. You could eat many many other things for the price of a birthday cake.
Nowadays I can see many people consume cakes anytime anywhere. Of couse thay cannot be all eating good quality cakes considering how often they do. They would rather eat cheaply made cakes often, then eat an expensive excellently made cake once a year.
I think this is actually the root the problem. We simply consume tooo much, too often, and too haphazardly. We just don't care.
So the truth, IMO, is still that the cheaper the product the worse the service will be. They just seems expensive because we buy them in larger quantity and way more often.
The problem is that nowadays cakes are cheap, that's true, but vegetables and fruit are quite expensive.
shareFruit and vegetables are way better now. You can import terrible quality fruits and vegetables from China for cheap. But nobody would want that. People would rather eat cheap cakes than cheap veggies.
shareImporting cheap veggies from China???
China has an endemic lack of productive land. That's why Chinese cooking barely uses meat: productive land has been always so scarce in that country that you didn't use land to grow cattle.
That's why China has been buying lands in Africa as crazy (that seems to be the new African deal, btw, China gets the lands and western countries get the blacks, isn't it wonderful?)
No, China doesn't export vegetables. Quite the opposite. What you probably mean is that Chinese companies sell vegetables, but those vegetables weren't produced in China. They were probably produced in their farms in Africa.
Ok. I did not know that.
Still, the point was people who actually eat fruits and vegetables they only care for quality veggies. People who don't care about quality food prefer to eat cheap cakes anyway.
So fruits and vegetables being more expensive is because they are high quality products.
Also if I compare fruits and veggies today, they are way better, bigger, juicier, tastier, more hygenic than fruits and veggies 30 years ago when everybody simply sprayed insecticides all over them. It's only logical if fruits and veggies are more expensive now.
I'm reading right now a cookbook called 'Every grain of rice'. I highly recommend it.
https://www.amazon.com/Every-Grain-Rice-Chinese-Cooking/dp/0393089045
The title actually refers how you had to make every grain of rice count in Chinese cooking.
http://image.slidesharecdn.com/zhang-150925143447-lva1-app6892/95/legacy-soil-data-from-china-national-soil-survey-by-weili-zhang-4-638.jpg
Bigger fruits and vegetables don't mean that they should be more expensive. Indeed, it's quite the opposite. Genetic modifications has created bigger vegs, which increases the production per land surface unit. If something, that should drive the prices down.
That's not my job. The store should pay me, then I'd have no problem. Meanwhile, the last cashier gossiped with a colleague, played on her phone and looked annoyed while I bagged $75 worth of food. You better believe I took my time. The good cashiers always ask if they can help. Or get kids who worked for tips like they used to do (after covid).
Another pet peeve is ringing up my own items especially with their crappy machines which don't work properly. Again, show me the money!
Maybe they pay you by selling the stuffs slightly cheaper. Usually places that're more expensive give more services.
If not, then why do you buy your groceries there? You can choose other stores that bag your groceries for you. Or just do online shopping and get them packaged and delivered to your front door.
Good customer service is free. I literally just returned from a small grocery store where the cashier asked me for my bag so she could pack my items while I swiped my credit card, then thanked me and said have a pleasant day. Very professional.
Cashiers packing groceries is normal where I live. It changed recently because there's a push for customers to bring their own bags.
Part of the problem is poor training. The large supermarket with the bad workers isn't going to last long with lazy workers, high prices and brutal competition. They replaced a better supermarket two months ago and I notice fewer customers. They should be fighting to keep me and bring back their fleeing customers.
No worst customer service than in stores where they expect you to bag your own groceries.
Cashiers usually bag groceries where I am. Now and then, I would see a cashier and bagger. Or used to.
Stores are replacing cashiers with machines where I am so customers are both cashier and bagger and they charge for each bag while the store employee stands by greeting people as they enter the store.
I fear that may happen where I live in the next few years due to the stupid raise of minimum wage to $15 an hour. Even if I am able to keep my job I will probably be making minimum wage the rest of my life.
shareI think it depends on the area. I notice poorer high crime areas don't use technology because it's easier to steal. Also, some people (like me) resent being forced to do free work.
Civil service? Pay can be good and there is a wide range of jobs.
Well, smaller businesses can't afford $15 an hour minimum wage. Also nobody here in Illinois was working for nothing. In fact from what you said, you don't seem to know what minimum wage is. Here in America it's the least amount someone can be paid legally for a job. Every state's minimum wage is different.
Depending on how much it is, most businesses will pay you above it but to get a substantial raise, you have to work 40 hours a week in most businesses.
The problem with it being $15 an hour is that smaller noncorperate busineses can't afford to give their newest part time employees $15 an hour and then give $20 an hour to their employees who have worked there longest. It's also not good for rural areas.
With minimum wage increasing so does the price of everything in stores. Farmers will be raising their prices on their crops since they'll have to pay their farm hands more money to make up the raise of minimum wage. Minimum Wage here in Illinois is now at $10 an hour and it will be raised a dollar a year til 2025 when it will be $15 anhour. I had finally earned a raise of $5 above minimum wage right before it was approved in 2019. Neither me or anyone else I work with are getting raises to go with it.
The company I work for doesn't want to give fulltime employees $20 an hour in 2025. From what I have heard other states with $15 an hour had stores and restaurants cutting employees and doing you scans in place of them. Also highschool and college students won't be able to get as many jobs because employers won't want to give people with limited availability $15 an hour. But the liberals reject this because they are living in a fantasy world where they think everyone has an unlimited amount of money to do everything.
The topic is bad customer service. I was referring to stores making their customers work for free by forcing them to ring up their items, bag them and then charge them for the bag instead of telling the "greeter" to work the cashier.
shareYou're talking about you scans. I personally don't think it's that big a deal to have someone scan and bag their own their own groceries. It is also more convenient if you only have a few groceries. But a lot of older people don't like it.
I hear all kinds of complaints from older people about how they don't like them and think the people in charge shouldn't have them.
What I was getting at though is you are asking for nothing but youscans if you vote for any politician that supports $15 minimum wage.
Older people spent a lifetime with cashiers bagging groceries and saying thank you so the changes are considered bad service.
Technology is replacing doctors, migrant farm workers, lawyers, cab drivers, truckers, messengers, factory workers, stockbrokers, bank tellers, book stores, movie theaters, etc..
Business owners will always want to increase their profit margin and they will replace workers with tech since it's cheaper, doesn't get sick, works 24/7.
A customer packing 50+ items is slow and makes no sense since it slows down the line and the cashier isn't doing anything, anyway.
Another lost service is movie ushers showing latecomers to their seats, but that one doesn't bother me. I was entertained when they kicked out rude moviegoers, though.
That's just it though. For large orders it makes sense to go to a regular checklane. But for a small order it makes more sense to go to youscan. Also a casheire does run youscan.
I am not even for getting rid of my job as a bagger. But raising the minimum wage does lead to stores and restaurants having more youscans. Because employers don't like paying their newest part time workers $15 an hour. So they will cut staff and put in youscans to save money. I don't like it but people losing their jobs is part of $15 an hour minimum wage. Not every business can afford it.
Also I dislike the way theaters have been the last few years. For a few years now you have to buy your seat with your ticket now at my local one and you have to order your ticket days in advance or else you don't get a good seat. It's why I never go to a movie on it's opening day anymore.
Because to do it you have to order your tickets and seats online months in advance to get a good seat.
No store in my neighborhood has self -checkout. People would steal.
Stores in business districts use them and that's where I do most of my shopping. One store has two greeters at the door and no cashier. I go to their competitors when I can.
The theaters were starting advanced seating where I am before shutting down because of covid. Now, everything else is reserved including boat rides, zoos, museums, etc. No thanks!
Well my theater has been like that for around 2 years. Like I said any time in the past 2 years I went to see a movie at the theater I had to order the tickets online a few days in advance to get good seats. You can't just go straight to the theater the day of cause all the good seats will be taken by then. Honestly, they may need to start just doing drive in theaters again and nothing else until COVID settles down. That would be safer.
shareMost theaters had a few screens for reserved seating and the rest for walk-ins. Now, it's 100% reserved except in my neighborhood theater.
I'd rent a theater if they'd show something worth the extra cost.
In England we usually get support and (also conmen) with thick Indian accents that are sometimes hard to understand, they usually use fake Anglo-Saxon names too. 🤔
shareI have taken to using online chat these days rather than hanging on the phone. Its far less frustrating, believe me.
And its just as easy to get your point across, and get your issue resolved.
I think sometimes you just need to move with the times and the technology. Why frustrate yourself hanging on the phone, waiting ages, pressing buttons etc?
I also believe there is an element of the general public that just want to pick up a phone and rant at someone. Which in itself contributed to why companies don't want their staff abused and tied up for ages on long phone calls.
Online chat works for me.
here's how it works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTOQNnwc_Z0