Here lies Customer Service, a victim to Convenience...

Here in the South, we have gained quite a reputation for hospitality and good will, so one would think that customer service here in the Great State of Texas would be among the world’s best. Well, one would be wrong! I don’t know for sure when it happened, but apparently customer service has been outlawed in most retail organizations, and is frowned upon in a majority of convenience stores. The very fact that we have “convenience” stores (which aren’t all that convenient, when you consider $6/lb. bacon) instead of “service stations” makes me wonder when it all changed.

Now I didn’t get on this soap box out of sheer boredom, but rather out of a recent experience my darling bride and I had the pleasure of enduring at the “big box” stores.  For example, one large retailer (We’ll call it Mal-Wart to avoid the slander law suit) has become so horrible to deal with that she and I refuse to enter the doors, even to go to our bank.  A few months ago we entered that local money pit of blue smocks and special low prices and were donating a decent portion of our hard earned paychecks to their retirement when I decided to purchase a couple cans of tobacco. The ever-vigilant clerk demanded my driver’s license to verify that I was old enough to purchase tobacco products. I support individuals following the law, and even slightly ridiculous store policies simply because I am a firm believer in following the rules. It is relatively easy to figure out that I am over 18 by a couple (twenty) years, but after I handed her my driver’s license,  she barked at the love of my life that she had to have her ID as well, or she wouldn’t sell the snuff to me. Now I certainly agree that my wife looks young, but I’m pretty sure that even Ray Charles could have seen that she was over 18. Not to mention, she wasn’t buying tobacco…I WAS. I asked the clerk (who I’m pretty sure was in the same graduating class as Moses, if not Abraham) why my wife (who doesn’t dip snuff, by the way) needed to show ID for me to make a purchase and the clerk said “It’s the Law”. Not “I’m sorry, but that’s what I’m told to do” or, “This is how I have been instructed to perform my duties”, oh no. She tells me that the Great State of Texas has bestowed upon her the power to demand the identification of a party not involved in the purchase. Now ordinarily, I would have let it go, and I probably should have, but…I didn’t.

 I asked her what law required her to ID my wife so I could purchase snuff for myself and she, as I anticipated, had no answer that remotely fit the definition of logic. So rather than letting it be, I began kicking that dead horse like a Venezuelan soccer player at the World Cup. I asked this fine example of human existence what she would do had I been there with my 14 year old daughter or my five year old son, who have no ID’s and she said “Nothing. I would have just sold it to you”.  When my jaw finally returned to its biologically designed location, I thought to myself “She would sell me tobacco to share with my prepubescent child, but Heaven forbid my adult wife be present”.  I was so shocked at her answer  I handed her my money, and left without burrowing deeper into the twisted psyche of this  salesperson.  

I remember working at Mal-Wart as a teen in high school and customer service was pounded into our heads. There was a story of the late founder stopping by one of his stores and teaching a company-wide lesson in one fell stroke: He fired everyone in the store. The short version is he walked into one of his stores and was not greeted by the effervescent “door greeter”, and when he asked one of the associates for help, they pointed across the store to indicate the location of the bobble or trinket he had requested. When he complained to the department manager, the founder received a less than enthusiastic reply and requested to speak to the store manager. Long story short, a bus brought in a whole, well, busload of new employees from other stores and everyone who worked at that store was looking for a new job.  He fired a whole store because of a minor instance (or three) of poor service. Now at this very same company, you might get a grunt if you ask for help from some employees.  As my dear departed (but probably not sainted) Dad would have said, “They got too big fer their britches”. Since leaving the Mal-Wart flock, my Bride and I have begun trying to shop at local stores for what we can’t grow ourselves, and if we have to go to a big store, we try to stick with Texas based stores that treat us well, like HEB, who treat me like my money is worth their time.


Until next time,