As the people here grow colder
I turn to my computer
And spend my evenings with it
Like a friend.

I was loading a new programme
I had ordered from a magazine:

“Are you lonely, are you lost?
This voice console is a must.”

I press Execute.

- k. bush

To offset my post yesterday I should mention a good customer service experience. Thinking about that email yesterday really makes this one shine. Nothing more than a kind email from Reed. When I sent out my order for my new cag last week my silly browser blocked the confirmation page so I could not be sure the order went through. Ok. Well, off goes an email to Reed. Can you believe I got back a very cordial, detailed email to tell me the order went through, they have my measurements, and that hopefully they will get it out to me in just a couple weeks. Oh yes, and it was signed. Thank you, Heidi. I appreciate do that!

Customer service is a touchy thing. I’ve worked in all sorts of retail over the years. There is this odd thing that happens over time. You start wishing you could find a way to run a retail store without customers. Is that strange or what?? But anyone with retail experience can tell you the only thing making the job complicated is customers always stopping you from getting your work done! Lots of woolly experiences can make you a bit jaded, especially in BIG retail. You start looking at customers and thinking, “what now??”

So how do you have a retail store without customers then? Well, online shopping has sort of done that. You just look at an emailed order form and ship stuff. No need to even smile or say thank you. Hey, it’s printed right there in stark black and white on the receipt after all, “THANK YOU!”.

We all know, if we stop to think about it, that “Thank You” means nothing once it’s been mass produced. Once it’s on a slip we don’t actually have to “think” it any more. When we stop thinking it, we stop meaning it. Not because we are cold, we’re just distanced and distracted. How can there be truth in thoughts we haven’t thought? “Thank You” is just a long past sentiment of someone who designed a receipt. Probably a printer. Even money does not exchange hands, just data flowing un-seen from one bank’s data center to another.

In the American old west they spoke about having to “Look ‘em in the eye”. Sort of arcane really, and it can sound silly when spoken by a president. . . but the concept is good. It was an issue of trust. If I personally take money from another and say thank you while we look at each other it must, for most of us anyway, have meaning, sincerity. As you bomb around this weekend take time to notice how many clerks actually look you “in the eye” when they say “thank you”. Is it real or trained? Do they mean it, or have the already moved on? Now take that to the next step. Online.

I can imagine it must then seem like quite the interruption these days when you get an email or a phone call from a customer. Personal interaction is not part of the new paradigm. Customer service online does not mean talking to customers, it means “product fulfillment”. Which is nothing like greeting a long time customer and friend over a cherry coke at the old drug store. How do you teach customer service to people who never actually SEE the customer? Especially if these are young guys who’ve spent their formative years at LAN parties?? In addition, if the order went well, almost no one ever emails you to say, “great job”. So you just KNOW the only email you get is going to be a complaint or some overly picky lunatic. (Someone wanting a black pfd, say) Yeah, I understand that.

I have a feeling that the advent of online shopping is going to put the last knife in the back of customer service. Over time I fear we will become even less ‘real’ to companies as they sit in their little offices and we sit in our little cells all pushing buttons, shipping and receiving with never a word spoken. No faces, no eyes, no smiles. It’s pretty stark when you think about it. I can only hope that in paddling at least, we’ll still get together on the water. We’ll have it to ourselves after all. We’ll drive down empty streets to abandoned beaches. The world will be quiet and empty.

Everyone else will be interfaced.

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