Service, schmirvice...pleah...

Long ago when I was at SJSU-dang that was a long time ago-I worked in the electronics/computer dept. of the Spartan Bookstore. One day out of the blue the dept. manager decided that the male employees in that dept. needed to wear ties & the thinking was that selling Mac's to students & teachers was like selling cars to someone. They wasn't cheap & customers were making a huge investment. So the sales persons should look appropriate for such a sales environment. Why do I mention this? Because good service is just not very dominant these days. Restaurant service & food quality is not so great more often than not. Terra went in to a store to get a very specific shampoo product to make sure cat Emmitt doesn't get any fleas as the temps warm up. The person helping her just basically gruffed at her & said something like "It would be over there" and just pointed. I've emailed two different guitar body/neck makers to inquire about some specifics of what they offer as well as seeking some suggestions. Not one reply. And so now I take you to the journey of this week...

So I get a newsletter email about a particular item & the provider mentions ordering by May 1, by midnight. Yeah, it is a marketting ploy to get people to buy now rather than later. They are mostly a net of inter seller & therefore want & probably expect most people to pay via PayPal. I Try to call on May 1 & no answer. No replies to emails I sent. That is very confusing...You want customers to hurry & buy your something so you can get it out of your warehouse, but you're not available by phone or email for customers on the day you advertised as the "Come & get it day." So I create an email stating what I want, the billing & shipping addresses & such, with a request to call so as to give the payment information. The reply I get the next day, yesterday was, "Call us after 9:30 am EST." Hmmm, so I have to try & chase you down in order to buy the item I'm interested in that you want people to buy sooner than later. So I try to call & email on May 2. Nobody avaiable by phone or email again. Boy they really must want to sell stuff to people. They didn't even return a voice message I left yesterday. So I constructed, basically a resend with some ranting included, of what I sent the previous day. Reply I got this morning was "We're in the warehouse packing things all this week. Call back & blah blah blah or use PayPal, etc. HELLO, Not everyone wants to use the all powerful PayPal system or has a PayPal account to use for every purchase in their lives. Yes I do have a PPal account but for this one matter I didn't want to use it for private reasons. I can understand possible treatment for a cheap item. But for something that's not as cheap you'd think the seller would do whatever they could to make things easier for the buyer. The net of inter has made things very strange. Computers & e-commerce systems have become the sales people. Or should I say Big Brother is becomming more prominent, only about 23+ years later than the book.

I've made it a point, & not just for tax write off guitar painting biz reasons, that when I go into a Starbucks or whatever, that when they ask for my name to write on the cup or what have you, I say something like "But now you have to tell me your name." They usually tell me & laff & probably find it odd that someone would do that. I then s'plain something about how people are becomming more & more disconnected. Then I show my biz card really quick & happily write the person's name on the receipt so I can write off the food stuffs & miles. This reminds me of the story circulated many a time about a nursing teacher querying her students in class to see if they even knew the name of the lady, the students saw day after day, who cleans the floors & such in the hallway just outside of the classroom door. Not one of them knew the lady's name. The teacher's point was that ya gotta connect well with people & get to know them if you're going to be their nurse in their health needs.

I guess it becomes if you want to do something or know something specific, about what is offered, it's probably easier, faster, & better to just pick up the phone & call as emails & electronic blah-de-blahs can so easily fall into the ether of their realms & go unanswered. But I wonder how many customers go elsewhere because some bizness didn't reply to the customer's email or electronic communication in a timely manner. My motto, if you don't want to or cannot reply to someone's electronic inquiry, don't provide an email address or way for customers to communicate with you that way.

Until later comes, turn it up to people & the internet are strange.