Imagine a world where you would visit your local bank teller every week and withdraw a little cash. She might ask how your grandson, Teddy, is enjoying grade 1 and of course, you would absolutely know her name.
Imagine a world where you could walk out of a store carrying virtually any purchase with nothing more than a carbon copy of your bill and a promise that you will settle up at the end of the month.
Imagine a world where your milk man would know whether your kids are off at college because your milk order is lighter than usual…and the fact that he knew this, would not cause a second of panic.
Imagine a world where companies would go out of their way to make sure your experience was a positive one. Every time.
They would provide something called customer service. Say it with me.
C-U-S-T-O-M-E-R S-E-R-V-I-C-E.
Now, fast forward to a world where there is no listed telephone number for a service you receive, and your only option is to “chat” with a “bot” online, named Jennifer (no offence to the Jennifers we know and love) who gives you a total of 3 possible questions, and if yours is not among them…you are out of luck.
Or, perhaps you have found a telephone number, but YOU have to listen to 17 different options before you are put on hold for 45 minutes to speak to someone who does not like their job…at all, and is not afraid to let you know it – AND you are told to behave YOURSELF on the line because that person has every right to hang up on you if you tell them you are frustrated.
Now, put yourself in the shoes of an 85-year-old person without a smart phone welded to their fingertips.
The only person who will spend any time speaking to you, is the scam artist prince of Nigeria who just needs a few hundred dollars now so that he can share his enormous fortune with you.
Or the CRA calls and will send you your refund check if you just provide a little more personal information – like your social insurance number. At least they are kind and patient with you and will spend all the time in the world teaching you how to enter your bank account information.
Why wouldn’t you? I mean, you spent a large portion of your life assuming that other people were working to help you, to make your life better…AND you were doing the same thing for them. When did everything go so wrong?
Maybe it was progress when the grocery store cashiers could scan the items instead of entering each price, and it was even okay when your favourite teller was replaced by machine that would hand out money on Sunday.
But do people have to be so mean?
I mean, there have always been mean, rude, even evil people. But you would think, that at the centre of our capitalist society…at least the companies who wanted our money would offer consumers a passing sense of respect. Right?
Nope. That is rare.
We have to research, read google reviews, pore over Home Stars and pay to join Jiffy on Demand to find companies that will do what they actually claim to do. We have to check references. Our neighbourhood Facebook pages make it their business to celebrate the good stuff and warn against the bad. Thank goodness for all of them.
It’s also so nice to know that there are great companies still out there. Companies and services that care for their clients. We work with a few of them – companies like us that put their clients first and understand that a transaction is so much more than that – it is an opportunity to interact and to get to know their clients. Call us when you have questions about care needs for yourself or your parents. We have found the best people and we know they care.
This extra step is just the new normal. Dig up the good…weed out the bad.
Hey, that’s not a bad idea. We are on it. Hold please.
(Illustration credit: Original artwork by G. Gellman)
