I like going to a shop where I know I will get good customer service, I even like going somewhere, where I might or might not have a good customer experience, the sheer pleasure of being surprised by the high standard is sometimes enough to make my day, but I hate going somewhere where I should get good service and finding out I have been robbed!

Let me explain, last week I went somewhere, somewhere that really should be looking after their customers, they have competition and it would be oh so easy for me to have chosen their competitors over them but I didn’t I chose them, so to find out they first couldn’t help me in store was a blow, not a problem it could be solved but it wasn’t ideal.  I was given a phone number and told that I needed to call and that whoever answered would be able to help me, fine I can live with that but the story then nose-dived on a downward customer experience spiral.

There was nothing for the member of staff to write the telephone number on so I waited and waited for the assistant to come back with some branded stationery, why was a supply not on the desk to begin with or in a drawer I wondered, why hadn’t the assistant checked before the stationery ran out, 10 points lost in my opinion but still 90 in hand.

The telephone number when I got home was odd, I couldn’t quite read it, was it a 5 or was it an 8 right in the middle of the number?  If you are giving someone a number make sure they can read it, 30 points lost but still 60 remaining.

I tried the number with putting a 5 for the number I couldn’t read, nothing a dead line, so I tried the number using a 8, no luck, another dead line, so all the effort of getting the number, waiting for the stationery to write the number on was lost and so were the remaining 60 points.

Customer service doesn’t only involve being polite, it involves being competent in your job, surely with all the competition on the high street there is no place for careless members of staff.