The American Spectator : It Can't Be Done

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It Can't Be Done

By Reid Collins on 7.2.09 @ 6:06AM

Our out-of-service economy, lacking the personal touch.

I have a T-shirt emblazoned in large letters on the front, "It Can't Be Done," which I have found to be the watchword of our new century. It didn't come easily.

I was wearing it one day while waiting for a prescription to be filled and a woman in the pharmacy similarly waiting questioned why I would wear something like that. An hour later she was told the medication she sought would be in later in the week. She asked where she could get such a shirt.

It becomes more appropriate on the phone. How many professional people do you know, physicians among them, who have recorded menus on their business phones, menus with lengthy subsets that suggest everything you might want to know with the exception of that which you want to know.

The same is true of phone companies, travel reservation offices, with sets of numbers that may or may not wind their way to a human being who, more often than not, sounds disappointed that you finally discovered their hiding place. Hollering "representative!" every few moments hasn't helped.

Doesn't have to be a phone call. How many people waiting behind the counter of a place you would like to spend money in are truly helpful? Where does the manager hide? Credit card? How much are the card companies planning to charge for the privilege of getting your business these days.

Not long ago I called the 800 number listed on one of these television ads offering something for $19.95 (shipping and handling in agate type down below). A month later I called the number back to find out why it hadn't arrived and was told the 800 number didn't handle such matters, but there was a home office number in Connecticut I might call if I paid for it. I did and after some rummaging around was told the ordering folk had misprinted the code number on the order and it could be sent right away, adding wasn't I glad they hadn't charged my credit card yet? Gosh, was I glad.

Much of this impersonal derring-do is due I think to our loss of the personal touch. How can I relate all day and part of the night to my computer and the Internet and still relate to my neighbor who is doing the same? Do I really know those people who moved into the house down the street. Will I ever?

But enough grousing. A child smiled at me today. The car started. The weatherman was wrong again. And for my birthday they gave me a new T-shirt, saying "It Still Can't Be Done."

About the Author

Reid Collins is a former CBS and CNN news correspondent.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (22) | Leave a comment

Robert Rosencrans| 7.2.09 @ 7:20AM

That's what you get for watching TV.

Curly Smith| 7.2.09 @ 7:46AM

I had a boss once who when told "it can't be done" always replied "are you saying it's impossible or that *you* can't get it done" with the clear implication that he didn't need people on the payroll who couldn't generate the desired results. It was amazing how many "impossible" things were accomplished. Of course, that was many, many years ago when a work ethic still existed. Now bosses seem to be content if the employees show up more-or-less on time and somewhat ready to do their jobs.

But I think Mr. Collins is wrong in his assertion that "Much of this impersonal derring-do is due I think to our loss of the personal touch". I think it stems entirely from an over abundance of self-esteem. Those manning the sales desks and registers simply can't understand that the customers are vastly more important than they are. If you've been told every hour of every day for your 18 formative years that you're special then you're rather ill-equipped to enter a world where you're not the center of attention.

Siegfried X| 7.2.09 @ 8:21AM

The problem is cost completition in a bubble economy, leading to a total lack of quality. It is very common to buy a product in a store, and have it be either dead right out of the box or die within a few weeks. People used to talk about "customer service" and realize that I was doing them a favor by buying their product; the 21st century version is that they are doing me a favor by taking my order, so I should thank them and put up with their bad attitude.

Darin| 7.2.09 @ 8:38AM

Better idea for a t-shirt:

What part of Duh don't you understand?

Tom| 7.2.09 @ 8:40AM

Given time and resources anything is possible.

Jack Olson| 7.2.09 @ 9:28AM

Whatever lies a business tells its employees, particularly those who serve the customers, about customer service, they quickly learn and obey what the business rewards or punishes them for doing. Tell them that their job is to solve the customers' problems but reward them for how many calls they handle, and they do whatever they need to do to get each caller off their line ASAP. They'll forward your call to another operator, tell you to look it up on the company website, or simply hang up on you, anything to cut the call short. This is crummy customer service but you can hardly blame the operator for conforming to the incentives his employers offer.

The supervisor of my company's telephone service operators proudly claimed that the average response time to each call was now down to fifteen seconds. I pointed out to her that she had accomplished this by forcing each caller to spend a minute and a half per call entering a string of ID numbers and account numbers. No doubt this also reduced time-per-call for each operator, too, but only by shifting more of the work to each caller. She didn't care; she had accomplished her goal of reduced response time and time-per-call.

LAST| 7.2.09 @ 9:58AM

I'm an independent contractor, and I've worked for several successful businesses who have taught their workers this simple acronym for good customer service: LAST. Listen, Apologize, Satisfy, Thank. I'm sure it's taught in many businesses, and it should be, because it works.

Former Customer Service Rep| 7.2.09 @ 10:21AM

Way back over 50 years ago when I went to work for a company, the first thing we were told was"The Customer is NOT an iteruption of your work, but is THE PURPOSE of it"! How many place feel that way now?

scott | 7.2.09 @ 12:27PM

Not only can it not be done, the "warranty" usually has airtight, yet vague language covering the company's behind for just about any failure.

Pat| 7.2.09 @ 12:49PM

Great article, keep em coming. Between the government agencies, a blizzard of payroll related regs, taxes, benefits and the firm's Human Resource department, hiring a living, breathing employee to help customers is an expensive proposition. And the amusing irony is we have 10% plus unemployment but the price of employing live human beings doesn't seem to decline - so much for capitalism and supply/demand theory.

And the "whatever, I could care less" incompetence of the average American customer service employee is amazing - maybe we should be doing more outsourcing to India. Then there are the websites designed by 19 year old computer nerds and refugees from an X-box.

When your point of contact with your customers is through your website, you'd think no expense would be spared to design screens that save the customers' time, provide maximum flexibility, ease of use, intuitive links, the whole nine yards. But with few exceptions, many retail websites are designed for the convenience of the company's computer geeks. Imagine if "the greeter" at Wal-Mart had bad breath, hadn't shaved for 4 days, wears a soiled tank top with his chest hair showing through the holes and scratches his crotch reflexively about every 5 minutes - that's the first impression you receive from many retail websites a potential customer may visit.

America has invented or developed so many technologies we no longer seem competent to maintain, everything from manufacturing cars to designing websites. For every Amazon or Nordstrom site, there are a host of poorly designed sites backed by bored employees who could care less if you get your order - and the universal solution is always an email saying: "we're very sorry, blah, blah, blah". Mabye we should collectively tell American business "we very sorry" but we're not buying your stuff, ask the Feds for a bailout or please do us all a favor and go out of business.

Old Texican| 7.2.09 @ 2:08PM

I'm the VP Operations and CFO of a national company with 42 affiliated, (joint venture type), offices across the country.

Every afternoon...and especially Fridays due to the weekend........OUR PHONES ARE TRANSFERRED TO MY CELL PHONE.

It is SO delightful to get a call and hear the near tears and big smiles from persons seeking help...with a problem...or (smile, an order or an order inquiry).
They get the guy on the line that has the interest...and the power..to make a decision on the spot....to solve the problem or expedite the order/inquiry and answer questions.

Our customers love us thereby, and keep coming back...
So yeah.........How does one pronounce the word "Duh".

Grzmlyk| 7.2.09 @ 3:56PM

Being an evil conservative, I patronize the occasional fast food joint.

Not only do most McDonald's franchises get the orders wrong most of the time, but the food is very often cold or half the fries are missing.

And on top of this, you are very often greeted with attitude - as if you are imposing on them by asking them to, you know, do their JOBS.

And ever try to slightly change a standard order, as in, "I'll have a number 3, but hold the mayo"?

The world grinds to a halt and you get a little piece of cold, overcooked eternity dropped unceremoniously into your lap.

Howard Hirsch| 7.2.09 @ 5:30PM

Silly me. And all along I thought the governing principle of our New Age was "Yes, We Can!"

Old Texican| 7.2.09 @ 5:51PM

Hey GRXMLX
Go to Burger King or better...Jack inTheBox!
Their double meat sour dough burgers ought to be against the law. (Grin)

On our corner, the manager/worker wears a crutch instead of a leg...and is a local quiet celebrity.

Dave Lincoln| 7.2.09 @ 6:40PM

I have seen customer service decay over the last 20 years. Now, maybe it's me getting more tired of dealing with people, but part of it is real.

I understand the push to cut costs by adding voice menus, but not for a dang auto parts store. It can go to far. Keep in mind, there is usually a way to get a live person on phone with the right sequence of keys. Many times, the sequence O - "OK, before I transfer you...." - O - "Thank you, I will need ...." - O - "OK, I'll ..." - O works pretty well. These computer programs are pushovers some times, and they seem to not mind being verbally abused. I haven't tried physically abuse yet.

Anyhoo, what I really wanted to add was that I think now that there is 9.6 % (official) unemployment with a bullet (i.e. much higher to go), people will care more to hold onto their jobs, bosses can be more selective in hiring, etc. The low unemployment rate Americans have seen since the mid-80's might be part of the explanation for the poor service we have come to know.

Or, maybe it is that these people are just tatooed, nose-pierced, smelly, air-headed, tree-hugging dorks - that is the simpler explanation.

Ted| 7.3.09 @ 10:30AM

I moved to SE Michigan 20 years ago and observed the disregard for service in a unionized-induced entitlement culture. Orders wrong in fast-food restaurants, indifferent bank tellers, unclean flatware in eating establishments, and rude convenient store attendants were commonplace.

Entitlement mentality, whether created from unionization, government interference in the marketplace more generally, or otherwise, produces strange results like what I experienced in this State decades ago. It appears to have spread to the rest of the Nation. Welcome to Michigan America!

D.| 7.3.09 @ 10:59AM

I am dealing with Dillards right now over an article of clothing that gave me both 2nd degree burns and formaldehyde poisoning. (No, I didn't know there was such a thing either before experiencing it.It appears this not uncommon in clothing made in China. They use formaldehyde to make the apparel shiny...Let's just say the 2nd degree burns felt better than the internal illness.) So far, I haven't even been asked my name, much less had an apology though I have made no threats and only asked that they research this to keep it from happening to someone else. The disregard to my plight has been rude at best, though I buy thousands of dollars of merchandise from them a year. I wish they would be trained in L.A.S.T.

mindnumbedrobot| 7.3.09 @ 2:02PM

Curly Smith and Old Texican have it right.
Curly: self esteem- workers actually think they are so great that the customer is an inconvenience.
Texican: the cell phone- most people either do not answer cell or turn em off. They are too important to be reached.
I am an attorney- I have an office number, but my cell number is on my card. I tell people that if I don't answer it is because I cannot. Just call back, or I will call you back. Nights, weekends, OK. My clients are not an inconvenience, they are what I am there for.

Appleby| 7.3.09 @ 3:20PM

Recently I bought an extension (I thought) to an expandable shoe shelf from the same store where I bought the original shelf. When I got it home, and opened it up, the instructions said the pegs that held the two pieces together were "sold separately." Guess what I found when I got back to the store? They don't carry the pegs! They can't get the pegs! They didn't even know there WERE any pegs! (This took the little girl behind the "customer service" counter several phone pages and two very grouchy supervisors to discover.) Finally the Supervisor of Supervisors came to the customer service desk and told me basically to get lost. She said I could return the piece; I told her that I didn't want to return it, I wanted to use it. I asked her why they would sell something advretised as an extension to another piece and not sell the pieces that put them together. She said it wasn't her job and stomped off.

In this case, duct tape and McGyver ingenuity was my friend. But I like the response given above, "Do you mean it is impossible or that YOU can't do it?" Because if they say it's that they can't do it, I will reply, "THEN GET ME SOMEONE WHO CAN."

Yaakov| 7.5.09 @ 1:49AM

I found a solution that sometimes works for websites which offer everything but help.

I email the people in public relations or stockholder services. At one Fortune 500 company I called the head of stockholder relations and asked how I could get help short of taking an ad out in the local newspaper.

When I get the help desk in Pakistan, and I get a questionaire about service, I tell them that I can't understand their operators. I ask to speak to someone who speaks American English.

And one more thing, don't believe what they tell you at customer service unless they will put it in writing. I have been lied to frequently.

If you are still buying from companies which treat you like dirt, you are part of the problem.

Anonymous| 7.5.09 @ 3:38PM

Ah, yes, the folk who think and explanation is a solution. (Don't just tell me you can't do something, explain the situation to me like I'm stupid.) "Do you work?" I'll ask in response. "I'm so glad you understand the problem and I came to you because I need your assistance to fix it, so can you do your job now?" Panicked anger usually results. Sale of a broken product or refund is usually a more common mentality then making profit and getting more business from the proverbial "better mousetrap" these days. Take you business to folk who'll deliver.

KyMouse| 7.5.09 @ 4:27PM

Grzmlyk, just about the only fast-food place I go to now is Chick-Fil-A. At most places, when I say "thank you" to the drive-thru attendant, all I get is a "mmmhhh" or at most, "No problem." At Chick-Fil-A, I always get "It's my pleasure" or "You're welcome -- thank you for your order." I've never gotten a wrong order there, and the food's always great and fairly priced.