This story reminds me of how people who work in IT or software engineering are often treated by customers and users. It's worth reading, if for no other reason than it'll amusingly reinforce certain stereotypes and the fact that 99% of the commenters actually got that when the originally Brazilian or Portuguese CSR said "born again" she was really saying that they guy would have to start his life all over again in order to fix his problems. You know it's bad when one of the first comments at a site like the Consumerist is one saying that it's a great argument for homeschooling your kids!
The customer isn't always right. In fact, customers can be total jerks whose paltry business isn't worth the chaos that they can sow in one's business. Adorama got this one right when they blew off the customer; unless he bought an incredibly large volume of goods from them, there's no way his business was worth hurting their relationship with a good employee. This is a problem we face in consulting and contracting businesses. Too often, managers just don't realize that if you have an impossible customer, it's time to kick your business development people in the ass, and tell them to start beating the bushes for new business.
The customer isn't always right. In fact, customers can be total jerks whose paltry business isn't worth the chaos that they can sow in one's business. Adorama got this one right when they blew off the customer; unless he bought an incredibly large volume of goods from them, there's no way his business was worth hurting their relationship with a good employee. This is a problem we face in consulting and contracting businesses. Too often, managers just don't realize that if you have an impossible customer, it's time to kick your business development people in the ass, and tell them to start beating the bushes for new business.
Working with the public is hell. You CAN NOT BE PAID ENOUGH for dealing with fucktards on a regular basis.
No wonder there is such a need to hire people for these types of positions, and equally so delegating a career to 'not English as a first language' people.
Shame on us!
If more employers would start standing by their employees by telling people like this to piss off, I think things would get a lot better. The fact is, if you side with the average asshole over a good employee, not only do you stand to lose that employee and the benefits they can bring to your business, but it can create a negative work culture that will bring the rest of your workers down.
Working with public employees can be hell too.
The public is not their customer, the people who sprinkle money on them from above are.
I think another issue with so-called customer service is that it often seems like an afterthought to widget-making. You do it only if you have to, and then you try to outsouce it.
Clark Howard calls it 'customer no-care'. Boy is he right.
That can definitely be true. In my experience, though, it's a mixed bag. Certain agencies have very good work cultures that tend to promote people who at least mean well and try. At the federal level, those tend to be the agencies associated with the military because the higher ups will actually bust a bureaucrat's nuts if they're caught messing up work for the tax payers. Not saying it's perfect, or even close to it, but there is a spectrum in the government that is so wide it's analogous to the EM spectrum.