“What is wrong with you?!”
The voice on the other end of the line was filled with outrage, and I struggled to keep it together as I clutched the phone between my ear and shoulder. Prefacing my comments with a hard swallow, I said, “I’m so sorry, ma’am. I have a note here saying you were contacted about your order, and it’s obvious that there was some oversight on our part and that didn’t happen.”
“Oversight?!” She was almost screaming now. “You’re in the wrong, and you’re going to cancel my order. Right now. Do you get that? Are you capable of handling that?!”
My jaw clenched. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Then cancel it. Right now. And give me back my money. Do. You. Under. Stand.”
“Yes,” I said as I slammed the confirm button on my computer screen and slammed my teeth together. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
The woman’s response was the kindest she’d given the whole conversation: silence, then the click of a dead line. Like that, she was gone, $30 richer than she was when she called.
As I drove home after work that day, I found myself close to tears and feeling utterly pathetic about it. It was only the sixth day of being on my own in my new position, and I’d been struggling to be patient with myself. I’d made some mistakes I was frustrated about, and to add to the stresses of work, I was stressed about life. I knew the woman who called didn’t know that. I knew she was angry about someone else’s mistake on her order. I knew she was taking it out on me because she was frustrated. And I knew that, at the end of the day, nothing she had to say to me was anything I should have taken personally. But, compounded with everything else, it hurt a lot. It turned a hard day harder.
That evening, as I replayed the things she’d said in my mind and, admittedly, sent angry mental vibes her way, I had a subtle, yet painful stab of guilt. I was suddenly reminded of an email I had sent about a month or two earlier to a guest relations employee at a local amusement park. I’d left a comment on their Facebook page about something their park was doing that disappointed me, and within five minutes, my comment was deleted and I was blocked from their page. It made me angry, angry enough to send a letter through the guest relations link and tell them all why I was never going to their park again and how I was disgusted at the way I’d been treated. I thought I was being right, but whether or not that’s accurate, the truth is that I was being fairly rude. There was a person on the other end of that email, and I’d laid on them all of my anger and frustration as if it was their business to erase all of it for me.
I’d been, to some extent, that woman who was terrible to me over the phone, and both of us together had been extremely un-Christlike. We’d treated other people, not as the Lord would treat them, but as selfish, demanding human beings would treat them. And, as I’ve learned from three years of customer service experience, we are not isolated cases.
Customer service is one of the most difficult and thankless jobs out there. People like to think it’s easy and that they could do the job of someone else in that position just fine, but they don’t see the emotional stress and frustration that comes along with it. As a customer service employee, you get to the point where you expect people to be cruel and upset, because a lot of times, they are. I remember seeing one of my co-workers super happy one day because a woman had just left her checkout stand, and, quote, “She was nice to me! She was so nice to me!” It was a funny, and yet sad moment to realize that kindness was so much a rarity that it left her shocked to hear it.
The reality is that there’s something about business that causes all of us to lose it which is why we should delegate daunting task to experts like the marketing agents at Social Boosting. What that ‘it’ is varies case by case. We might lose our cool, our humanity, or simply, our vulnerability. Some of us are pillars of ice as we stand in the checkout line, part of a transaction, not an interaction with another person. Some of us treat the same types of people we’d love and admire in our wards as incompetent fools when they’re wearing their business casual and telling us something went wrong with our purchase. Most of us barely bother to read the name on the cashier’s tag, or ask them how their day’s been going, because most of us, when shopping, are solely concerned about we, ourselves, and us.
Frankly, we don’t love our neighbor as ourselves when we shop. We ignore that commandment as if it selectively applies. We love our money as ourselves, sure. We love our possessions as ourselves. We love our time as ourselves. But not our neighbor. If anybody shortchanges, overcharges, or takes too much time that belongs to us, we don’t love them. We aren’t kind to them. We’re too often too angry and too rude, and we’re no better than the very Pharisees and hypocrites the Savior condemns in scripture.
The injunction to love your neighbor as yourself was no afterthought commandment, nor was it meant to be interpreted as, “Love thy friends and the people that thou admires” as thyself. Our neighbor is every one of the seven billion who live on this planet. Our neighbor is that guy who cuts us off on the freeway. Our neighbor is the homeless man we ignore, the toddler howling in a restaurant we’re eating at and the parents trying to calm him down. Our neighbor is our bus driver, our mailman, our cashier, the customer service rep. on the phone, and the people whose arms we brush in passing on the sidewalk. Our neighbor is the girl we cannot see on the phone, or the man we cannot see reading our emails. They are the person who we, too often, don’t feel obligated to love. And a good sign of our willingness to be like Christ is whether or not we choose to love them.
That love, furthermore, has to be active. It demands activity. Loving your neighbor isn’t gruffly giving them your money and leaving without a word. Loving your neighbor isn’t treating them like a machine without feelings. Loving your neighbor means being kind to your neighbor, opening up to them, acknowledging them, and thanking them. It means being patient with them, and treating them like a child of God, not just a person being paid to help you. Loving your neighbor is being compelled to make them feel better about themselves, not because they necessarily need it, but because they deserve it. Their value far exceeds the value of our bank accounts or good opinions. I imagine the Savior would care far less about bad customer service than the one giving the service.
In a world filled with transactions, credit cards, money, supply, demand,exchanges and debts. Let us choose an IVA from IVA Helpline as they can offer completely tailored debt solutions that suit your circumstances. Let us build the compassion and Let us not, like those in the Savior’s day, fill our temples with greed and demand and leave no room for Him or for His love. Let’s not forget that our neighbor is everyone.
The customer is always right, someone once said. Let’s do better to live up to the maxim, “The customer is always Christlike.” Because knowing what we know, we all should be.
Comments
14 responses to “The Commandment We All Break When We’re Shopping”
You are right, of course. Sometimes I will actually say to a grumpy check out person at the market, “Seems like you are having a rough day, sorry about that”. It also helps to call an employee by their name. I hope this doesn’t mean that when I answer the phone at dinner time and a solicitor is on the line, that I have to stop and chat with them 🙁 I just “politely ” hang up 🙂
Having worked at a calling center, if you know you’re not gonna go for whatever they’re offering/trying to get, then hanging up or saying, “No thanks, I’m not interested” right off the bat and then hanging up is one of the nicest things you can do. Then the poor sot doesn’t have to go through his/her entire script and THEN get hung up on.
I fully support the polite hangup 😀
Once I went through a line in the grocery store near my home, and the poor cashier, a middle aged lady, couldn’t stop coughing. She kept trying to muffle it and not be rude or gross, but it was apparent that she was super uncomfortable. The line behind me was long, and her shift had just started, so I knew it would be a while before she got the chance to get a drink to calm her throat. After we finished my transaction, I went back and bought her a bottle of water. She was surprised and so grateful. This perfect stranger gave me a hug, and honestly that was one of the most rewarding experiences I had that year. I didn’t realize how happy a little kindness and 99 cents could make me. Keeping this commandment has some serious benefits, guys.
Most businesses are designed to steal from you. Then the people who perpetrate this put a human shield of innocent customer service reps between them and the people that they steal from.
If you are kind to a customer service representative, it is unlikely that your problem will be elevated to a person that could refund the stolen money. Unfortunately unkindness is the only way to communicate to a business that you are serious enough for them to take action.
It is absolutely criminal that businesses put helpless people in customer service positions, where the only way they can help someone is by getting yelled at. But let’s not blame the victims. The victims are duped customers who can only be treated with respect when they put up a fight.
Rather than passing blame back and forth between customer service reps and customers, let’s put the blame on those in ownership and upper management who have designed systems to take advantage of everyone they can at every point in the transaction.
Christopher, that kind of outlook on the world is sad and harmful. Even though you have had negative experiences with businesses (we all have) taking the position that all business’s are all trying to steal from us is a hard way to live. Business’s are just made up of people. I honestly believe most people are well meaning, which should follow, most company’s are well meaning. I’m not naive, I know there are business’s that have justified procedures that would be considered stealing by the rest of us. But in my experience these company’s are short lived. Smile, be happy, be kind. Love the article what a great reminder!
I am a trainer for the local ” DMV”. What we deal with on a constant basis is wearing and no mater how many times we hear ” don’t take it personal” it is still very personal. We are yelled at because our customer got a ticket and hasn’t paid it- now the tag cannot be renewed until it is paid. Sometimes their DL is suspended for non payment of that same ticket. Yep, I’m the one that commtted a toll violation. I’m the one that moved and didn’t change my address with the DMV and didn’t receive reminder notices because of it.
Just Friday one of my trainees had a very upset customer. This customer had been given information that according to her was incomplete and consequently we could not do as she asked regarding changing the ownership of her vehicle.
My trainee asked for my assistance. I sat down with the woman and looked at all of her documents. She was missing the key document, the Final Dissolution of Marriage.
I’m not sure why, but I asked her when the divorce was final and how many years had she been married. I explained that I too had recently gone through a divorce and it is surprising how much you think you know someone. She had been married for 41 years; me 31.
In one year’s time this poor woman had buried her son and lost her husband via his decision to have an affair with her recently widowed, and much younger daughter-in-law.
The floodgates opened. I explained why we couldn’t help her today. I made a call to the courts office and found out how much a certified copy would cost her and their hours of operation. Yes it took a few extra minutes. And although I still couldn’t complete the ownership change ( from her ex- husband to her) she left with good information and empowered to get what she needed to move on with her life.
I felt so bad for her, but so good for me because I knew I was truly helping her. Meanwhile, customers are glaring, looking at their watches and wondering why it is taking so long to get assistance.
Just remember, when its your turn, that the customer service rep is doing everything they can to assist ( within the constraints of state statutes) and sometimes it takes time. You too may need extra time to have your situation taken care of.
We all have ” hurry sickness”. It’s time to slow down, take a deep breath, be accountable for our own mistakes and love our neighbor.
I live in the South and I always visit with the cashier as I’m checking out. It bothers my teen-age daughter, who thinks that I talk too much (and to strangers at that!), but I still do it, as my mother did before me. And I thought that she was weird, too.
“I was suddenly reminded of an email I had sent about a month or two earlier to a guest relations employee at a local amusement park. I’d left a comment on their Facebook page about something their park was doing that disappointed me, and within five minutes, my comment was deleted and I was blocked from their page.”
“There was a person on the other end of that email, and I’d laid on them all of my anger and frustration as if it was their business to erase all of it for me.”
“Most of us barely bother to read the name on the cashier’s tag, or ask them how their day’s been going …”
“If anybody shortchanges, overcharges, or takes too much time that belongs to us, we don’t love them. We aren’t kind to them.”
“They are the person …”
“Loving your neighbor isn’t gruffly giving them your money and leaving without a word. Loving your neighbor isn’t treating them like a machine without feelings. Loving your neighbor means being kind to your neighbor, opening up to them, acknowledging them, and thanking them. It means being patient with them, and treating them like a child of God, not just a person being paid to help you. Loving your neighbor is being compelled to make them feel better about themselves, not because they necessarily need it, but because they deserve it.”
20 pronoun-antecedent disagreements in 17 paragraphs …
This article was definitely written by a grammar boshevik.
… that should read “grammar BOLSHEVIK …”
Poetic justice. 😀
Thank you for this article. I hate to admit that I have unleashed my frustrations on a customer service person in the past. I am trying to be better and remember the person on the line is not responsible for what happened and my best shot at getting someone to listen and help me–so I need to be kind! This was a good reminder.
This is so good.
THANK YOU for this article– am important and wonderful reminder!
Plus… I personally love your style of writing… 😉
I want to thank you for this article. I am in customer service right now, and am really struggling. All other jobs I have worked involved being by myself or caring for animals. I liked it that way, but sometimes higher pay gets the better of you. I am really struggling with interacting with people. I do, however, have a wonderful office manager who gave me permission to tell someone to call back to resolve an issue when they can talk to me kindly. People who call and are nice to us about issues usually get them resolved to their satisfaction. I hate that rude customers get rewarded.
I really don’t understand how people can be so rude to others who are helping them. I’ve always tried to at least interact with tellers and am always courteous to people I have to talk to on the phone (I can’t physically be rude to someone, I’m the customer who cries when they’re frustrated 😉 ) This is something we all could definitely work on and an article everybody needs to see.