So today I had a few rough customer service experiences. Nothing major, just a few hiccups, and one was actually remedied well.
I’ll start where my morning really started, Starbucks. Most of you that know me know I usually have a high caffeine intake, and this morning I had the start of a headache, which is probably the result of the crappy weather we’ve had lately. My usual poison is a quadshot on ice. Today I upped it to six. They asked if i wanted it sweetened. I said no. They asked if I wanted milk, I said yes please, just a little bit of half and half. Easy as pie? right? I received a venti cup all the way full (six shots should fill a grande cup full not a venti). First hint that something was wrong, my coffee was white. I drove off just wanting some caffeine ingestion before I took a sip. I finally pierced the lid with my straw and started drinking. It tasted like someone emptied about six packets of sweet and low into the cup, and it was way milky. FAIL. I was already on my way to the office so there was no way I was going back to make them fix it.
Second I went to Five Guys for lunch. I ordered my burger, they input it wrong. I didn’t check my receipt, my fault. Not the only mistake. They tagged two different orders on a bag and handed me the bag and said…we’re not sure if this is your order or the other order….It wasn’t. thankfully before I even opened the bag to get my burger out they told me they were remaking mine and to just keep the mistake burger which I gave to a co-worker.
I’ve determined after being a server I am extremely passive aggressive in the customer service world. If someone screws up on me, as long as it’s not detrimental to me personally (thankfully I can and will eat just about anything) I will just let it pass with out so much as a word. That is if I can tell it was either an accident, beyond the persons control or they’re just having a bad day (those things are usually obvious). If the person is just in a bad mood, or just flippant about what they’re doing then I’m gonna give it straight back to them (these are also obvious).
<pet peeve>Nothing irks me more than someone going in with a mission to make a server, or service rep’s day a waking nightmare. I’ve watched people sit down and feeling out the server. Then opting to go ahead and try and get a free meal out of the poor sucker. I have to restrain myself from yelling at the awful person for trying to pull one over on the unsuspecting person.</pet peeve>
So what are you? passive aggressive when something goes wrong? aggressive? overly aggressive?
he big trend today is podcasting. Go out and download bytes of tutorials, sermons, training, seminars etc. and listen to them for hours on end. iTunes has a great interface for you to go out and collect all kinds of aural candy. There is an entire generation that is being brought up on this self serve bite sized informational media. I am part of this generation. It wasn’t available when i was a kid but I was around as an early adopter of this technology.
Last night I was driving back from the gym and Anberlin’s The Feel Good Drag came on. This wasn’t the same song I remembered liking the band for. It was kind of thin, cold and didn’t connect. Tempo was awkward and the drums seemed to be playing catch up with the vocals and guitars. So I let the song play out on the radio and then i popped in my iphone and brought up the original version from their 2005 release: Never Take Friendship Personal. Yes, this band has been around a while, and for all of you rockers out there who don’t listen to “Christian” music Anberlin isn’t new, and The Feel Good Drag definitely isn’t their newest stuff.
Silversun Pickups: Swoon. A spectacular driving album. All of the songs sound like one another and kind of mesh into one really long song. I say perfect for driving because half of the time it’s just background noise and it’s kind of nice to have one really long song playing as you go. Solid instrumentation and vocals are a bit like coheed’s. So if you don’t like the guy’s voice then you might not want to pick this up off the shelf.
1000 Robota: Du nicht er nicht sie nicht. Yeah this band isn’t from around here. German vocals with this kind of new wave pop music. Great for creative inspiration whilst you work. Mainly because you can’t get distracted while you work because you don’t know and can’t sing the lyrics!
Patty Griffin: Flaming Red. A folk rock bliss. Some country influence but not enough to make me run away. Clean vocals with a nice grunge behind her. It kind of makes you want to sit out on the back porch and sip some lemonade.
