Customer Connection

Customer Service has the potential for many major screw ups – but this takes the cake!!   We’ve all heard stories about customer service reps doing their nails on the job, and this is a serious grooming “no – no.” But, even my jaw dropped when I saw this one.   Read on for the rest of the story. . .

I was walking into my favorite gym – and I say “favorite” because they seemingly do everything right.  They have pictures with a little bio of their trainers on the wall, they have the manager’s name prominently displayed, they recognize me (even when I haven’t washed my hair for 2 days and wear no make-up and dark sunglasses), greet me by name and wave goodbye when I leave.  I’m really sensitive to good customer service, and I like this experience.

So, imagine my shock and awe when I swung open the double doors expecting the usual “Hi Verena”, and see my friendly gym rep, hovering over the check-in counter, with an eyebrow tweezers and a mirror in her hand.  Okay, I want to give her every benefit of the doubt, so I say to myself, “Self, she must need those tweezers to perform some helpful, technical maneuver on me that requires a teensy, very sharp, needle-nosed implement.”  (Yikes!) Or perhaps she’s just giving me a hint that I need to watch the “How to tweeze your eyebrows” video on You Tube.

Nuh uh.   There’s no doubt what is going on here.  This girl assumed the tweezing posture.  And if you don’t know what that is, imagine chin in the air, whilst gazing into a magnifying mirror held approximately three inches from your nose, arm gracefully arched above the head like a ballerina, with tweezers grasped firmly between the thumb and forefinger, poised to pluck the offending – whatever!

And as she continued her grooming ritual – totally ignoring me, (but continuing her conversation with another gym employee!) I punched in my ID number, scanned my fingerprint, and got the “Enjoy your workout!” message.  I scurried away, flip flops flapping, and couldn’t wait to tell everyone in my Yoga class what I had just seen.

I expected an “Oh my gosh!” reaction from my gym rat compadres, but they were not at all shocked.  It’s sad to think that when it comes to customer service, they expect nothing.

So the moral of the story here is simple – never, ever, think you’ve got this customer service “thing” nailed down.  You can check and re-check, observe frequently, but you have to talk to the staff about what is and is not appropriate in your work place. Don’t assume that they know what you expect – or when your back is turned, your front desk can turn into a beauty parlor!