Customer service and the commercial sector
Jacquelyn Hamer
I consider it important to use this second installment of my series on Consumer Service to make some observations about everyday examples of the kinds of everyday mistreatment of customers that occur in the commercial sector. Here, it is not a question of picking on the commercial sector. Indeed, my observation has been that many of the consumer service transgressions in the commercial sector are really no different from those in the public sector. I have chosen to deal with the commercial sector first purely because it has a much larger clientele so that the effect of transgressions in this sector has a more holistic impact on the Guyanese society.
Some of the outcomes and public discourse arising out of two major and unfortunate fires the occurred on Regent street over the past two weeks point to some serious but infrequently expressed concerns about sections of our commercial sector. Some of the premises on which they operate are decidedly inhospitable to patrons, inimical to the concept of good customer service and in some cases, decidedly unsafe. Sometimes, as may well be the case in the recent fires, neglect comes back to haunt them. The physical layout of commercial premises and the attendant safety and convenience measures that ought to be put in place are inherent parts of Good Customer Service and sometimes the neglect of these considerations is cruelly exposed.
I have already said that I believe that the preoccupation with profits in the commercial sector tends to obscure the importance of Customer Service Training. . While I have heard it argued that better Customer Service Training usually translates itself into increased patronage I am far from certain that this is indeed the case here in Guyana. My observation has been – and I alluded to this in my first installment – that many if not most consumers simply put up with the shabby treatment and continue to patronize the offending business places so that business places are under no immense pressure to get their act together as far as Customer Service is concerned. In Guyana it is often the service provider rather than the service giver who is king.
Downright discourtesy to customers in downtown commercial establishments is particularly commonplace though I fear that these discourtesies are often not recognized. I have found, for example, that young store attendants have what can be described as no less than an addiction to the use of cellular phones and that the practice very often takes precedence over their obligation to serving customers. It is not uncommon, for example, to have to try repeatedly to get the attention of a store attendant who is ‘glued’ to a cell phone and when, eventually, you get their attention, they impishly insist on sustaining their telephone conversations – the subjects of which I am convinced are often no more important than what is loosely described as ‘a gaff’ – while attempting to serve you. What this means, of course, is that there is a limit to which you can actually engage them and, at best, you can anticipate a kind of disengaged ‘service’ that sends a message that you are intruding on their conversations.
I am aware that there are some business places in which the use of cellular phones during business hours is prohibited. Quite why this prohibition has not been universalized and why it seems to persist in some of the busiest commercial houses in the city is beyond me.
Giving service in a commercial environment is about doing everything in the power of the service giver to respond to the concerns of the service seeker. A few weeks ago a friend of mine went into a Regent street store to purchase a water pump. Upon being told that the pump was a dual voltage one (both 110 and 220 volts) my friend asked that it be adjusted to 220 volts so that it could be used at his home on the East Coast Demerara. He was told that that was not possible, that there was no one at the shop who could provide that service and that he was best advised to buy the pump and take it to an electrician to have the adjustment made. While I concede that I am no expert on matters of this kind I rather suspect that the adjustment to the water pump which my friend was seeking is probably no more complicated than adjusting a lever or making a minor wiring adjustment that is likely to take, at best, a few minutes. Again, I am concerned that stores would offer electrical and electronic equipment for sale without having in their employ someone who can provide the most basic of support services in relation to that equipment. In my view this is an unpardonable folly which, among other things, reflects a total lack of concern for attending to customer needs.
I have found that there is a profusion of young and apparently ill-bred employees in various commercial establishments and that all too often there are ugly workplace displays of some of the most shocking public conduct. Just last week two irate young women were shouting obscenities at each other across a shop floor in a Chinese clothing establishment, altogether unmindful of the fact that there were several customers of the premises. I mentioned the fact that it was a Chinese establishment – an increasing number of these establishments is springing up across the city – because what was clear to me was that the two foul-mouthed young women were taking what is perhaps best-described as ‘cultural advantage’ of the fact that the female Chinese owner of the store seemed to have no idea of the offensiveness of their language nor did she appear too bothered about the shouting. When a customer eventually intervened the two protagonists responded by rounding on her briefly before resuming their verbal assaults on each other.
I am not altogether certain as to what the position of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce is on the recruitment of store attendants. I believe, however, that as a matter of respect for the rights of customers commercial enterprises should be required to provide some modicum of training for their service employees and that such training should be validated by the Chamber. The fact that businesses are able to hire cheap, untrained persons then unleash those employees on customers reflects an unacceptable disregard for Customer Service which the commercial umbrella bodies and the Ministry of Labour should move to eradicate..
Part of the preparation for this series of articles included a few interviews with young women employed as salespersons at commercial establishments. These are, for the most part, early school-leavers, unqualified for higher paying jobs, some with children. They earn little, are under no illusions about their social status and in the absence of any prior training can do no more than bring their learnt habits to their workplaces. I have found that many of them are not particularly disposed to jobs that require them to do no more than answer questions about colors, sizes and prices and that the repetitive nature of their jobs, coupled with bosses whom they fear rather than respect makes their lives miserable. In their failure to understand what their real functions are and how to make the best of what they are required to do they tend to see customers as the objects of their frustration.
For all my criticism of poor customer service among young, untrained store attendant types, I have sought to understand their attitudes and what drives their often unacceptable behavior. Part of the problem derives from a recruitment policy that is often exploitative in nature. Poor pay, uninspiring work and tough bosses make for frustration. I have found too that the antics of some of these unfortunate employees are often the only way they know of expressing themselves, of drawing attention to their persons.
The problem is that we live in a society where both the commercial culture and the wider social culture take people like store attendants entirely for granted. As one of our interviewees bluntly enquired “what else do people expect us to do?”
Nor does the workplace culture do much to help. There is a particular downtown store where one of the owners sits at the counter in front of a lap top computer presumably shopping on the internet or monitoring prices or some such pursuit. You cannot fail to encounter him the moment you enter the store. If you seek to make an enquiry of him, however, he neither answers or even bothers to raise his head from his computer; and if a store attendant does not intervene quickly enough he voices his irritation in no uncertain terms. Surely, he cannot expect not to be engaged by enquiring customers if he chooses to situate himself and his lap top just behind the store counter.
It is easy not to care much for the local commercial culture. It is the arrogance of ownership rather than the humility of giving service that informs the psyche of many of our business owners. It is they who, more often than not, create the environment in which poor customer service is bred and is allowed to flourish. Personally, I do not believe that it ought to be left up to them to change the culture. There ought to be enforceable laws, regulations that compel these businesses to earn the right to serve the public.