What Has Happened to Customer Service by Retail Staff?

In these economically trying times for both businesses and individuals wouldn't you think that protecting our jobs would be a main concern?

Take for instance the situation with post offices in the UK. Over the years there have been thousands of closures of sub-post offices, mostly in the rural areas. This has been done in an effort to cut costs to the Post Office as many branches are losing money. So that local residents wouldn't lose out some post office services have been made available in such places as libraries and pubs. Sadly some postmasters have spent some of their own money in making changes to their shops to improve trade only to be told the post office side is to close. That means they no longer receive a wage from the Post Office along with help toward their premises, so it has resulted in a lot of staff losing their jobs.

Now, without going into the rights and wrongs of post office closures, I would have thought that those who work in existing post offices (and the same applies to all kinds of retail premises, especially those under threat of closure) would do all they can to keep their customers. But that does not seem to be the case. `Customer service` seems a thing of the past.

An example of this is when I went in to my local sub-post office recently. I live in a rural village, so I assume this particular post office could be under threat of closure at any time. There were two customers in front of me, both being served. When one of the customers had finished being served he left, so I was next in the queue. As I was just about to walk to the counter the woman who was then free to serve me answered a phone call. I can understand a business call coming in from say a customer, or their head office. But no, this was a friend (or relative perhaps) asking about the ingredients to put in a cake. The assistant never even acknowledged me, just stood there talking about the cake while I waited. Meanwhile, the other assistant became free so I had to go over to her to get served. Even more annoyingly, while she was getting what I`d asked for, she is then chatting with the first assistant about this cake! I actually got the feeling I was more of an irritation being there as a customer, getting in the way of their social lives.

And even at the end of the transaction the assistant put what I`d bought on the counter without a word, and returned to her conversation with the other worker. Not even a `thank you` or `goodbye`. The first woman ought to have told the caller she would phone her back later when she had no customers waiting. The second assistant should have given me her full attention while I being served by her. Needless to say it isn't somewhere I would choose to go unless I had to on the odd occasion. Yes, I would miss the fact that this post office is convenient and I have to use it sometimes, but if it did close I know that a part of me would say that it serves them right for their lack of good customer service and common courtesy.

What I would say to anyone involved in retail - or in fact any other industry involved in contact with customers - is treat people how you would like to be treated. Bear in mind that people will go elsewhere if you upset them. It takes a long time build up a good reputation, but only a short time for you to get a bad reputation.

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