SERVICE SHMERVICE

This is more of a rant than a musing but is just me or has customer service  gone to crap? I'm not asking to be waited on hand and feet (although, it would be nice) but I've noticed from several recent experiences (across different areas of business) that customer service has gone seriously downhill.

Take for example an experience I had the other day at my favourite store. I won't mention the name but lets just say it rhymes with *cough* Farrah *cough*. I approached one of the sales reps and politely inquired if they had a particular item in my size. She immediately told me, almost mechanically, barely looking up from the shirt she was busy folding, "We don't have anymore". Now, I know sometimes stores run out of merchandise so it's not completely far-fetched that that item was sold out but..let's just say the super sleuth in me knew better. So I proceeded to the cash where I told the cashier that I was told that they were sold out of my size but I just wanted to make sure. The cashier then tells me "If she said we don't have anymore, we don't have anymore.

(Right?!)

To which I responded, "Okaaaay, but can you actually check? Thaaanks!" (Make sure to read 'thanks' with an upward Valley Girl inflection).

So she calls over another sales rep who then scans the bar code and disappears into the back only to come back with, surprise, a whole pile of the item that was supposedly sold out. Sales Rep #1 then  smiles at me foolishly, mumbling something like "Ohhh, we do have more". Well had you just taken a modicum of initiative and scanned the stupid bar code, you would have known! Heck, when I was a sales rep at 16 and a customer asked for a size that wasn't on the floor, I actually had to drag my behind to backroom and actually, physically check. 

On a separate occasion at the same store, as I was making my transaction at the cash, the cashier says to one of her friend's, "She is such a bitch", presumably about a colleague. I was standing right there!! Is it me or was that a complete inappropriate exchange in front of a customer?

Sigh. Kids these days.

Love and Light,

Alicia