Customer Service

Hello guys,

Hope you're having a good day so far. Thank God It's Friday, even if you have no exciting plans for the weekend. I'm having a restful day, school has closed for the Christmas holiday, I'm on my annual leave from the office, so, it's been good spending time with the lil munchkin.

I wanted to write about something else today, but an encounter with the cashier at a departmental store this afternoon made me change my mind. Tomorrow is my daughter's birthday, she'll be 5 years old (still remember her kicking me furiously five years ago, on a Friday afternoon like this too), so we went to buy a few drinks from the store to go with the cake and other finger-foods I plan on buying. With the way she's been looking forward to this 5th birthday, one would think that once she turns 5, she'll become an adult or something like that. Ha, she's been counting down since september, no joke! She already has her day planned, swimming in the afternoon with her friends, cake and drinks later in the evening. Okay, not much, we can do that. At the store she wanted to buy this and that, virtually everything she found interesting, in this recession, not gonna happen. 

We picked the things we wanted, went to pay at the paying point. I guess that particular cashier made up her mind to leave after checking my stuff, as another customer came and joined the queue behind me, and she immediately snapped her fingers at him and told him to join another queue. At first, I thought she was snapping her fingers to beckon a colleague or someone she knew, I had to turn to discover that she was actually addressing a customer. Now, why would a cashier snap her fingers at a customer to signal him and tell him to join another queue?? Am I the only person who finds it extremely rude to snap your fingers at somebody? Is the person a dog? 

It's not new actually, a lot of cashiers and customer reps are actually rude and lack the requisite skills required to interact with people. From their squeezed faces, to snappy, horrible attitude; as if they're angry at something and it is your fault. Hmmm... I try to ask sometimes if they're okay, or tired, once I notice that in the person attending to me. Some cheer up immediately you ask that, while some scowl deeper. See, it is not compulsory for you to take up that job and behave as if you're angry with the customers. Their patronage actually pays your salary. I can frown for Africa, even when I'm not upset; but now that I'm in PR, I try to consciously wear a smiling face more often, but the frown descends on my face once I take my mind off it, which is also often. However, beneath the frown, once I need to interact with someone, the smile is back. 

If a cashier or customer rep is rude or unprofessional to you, do not hesitate to reprimand him/her, at least we do not have to wait for the government to do this for us. Employers of labour, not everybody is fit to be a cashier or in customer rep. Your sales person can turn customers away from your store. I remember telling a woman I patronise in the market that I didn't like the way her sales- girls attended to me whenever she wasn't around, and that was enough to dissuade people from patronising her in her absence. That you're not making sales in your shop could be attributed to the sales person you employed in your shop. Look closely, watch his/her attitude, and salvage your business. 

Enjoy your weekend, as you have most likely deduced, I intend to have a blast tomorrow!! Sometimes I can't believe how fast the years have flown by.

Hugs...