Walk into most department stores and you look around for the sales staff, what do you see. Sales staff that look like they have been infected with some strain of the zombie. The dead pan face and the stare into galaxies far far away. Then if you have the audacity to dare ask them for some help. That zombie, dead-pan face with the eyes glazed over turns into a scolding look of disapproval.
Purely asking a simple question generates, if you are lucky, a response of a mere finger pointing you in the right direction or for the screeching to call some other hapless colleague because it is not there department. For as you know when working in a department store it is very difficult to know where products are. It isn't like they work there or anything so how can they possibly know where anything is besides there allocated space and sometimes even in the allocated space they still dont know what is happening.
If you have had the pleasure of being served by one these highly enthusiatic sales people and managed to elicit a response over than a pointed finger count yourself lucky. It is also most likely that the said sales person has promptly turned around and continued their conversation with another colleague and summarily dismissed you.
You expect this to come from government service desks but the lack of service is getting worse in the private industry. The biggest issue is the disregard for the customer. I do not agree with the saying that the customer is always right but the customer must take priority over catching up on the previous evening activities with your colleagues.
I was in a major brand name store in New York trying on some clothes, it was about 11PM and the size I needed the store did not have. Thinking to myself that is a pity, I'll give the clothes a skip. Next thing the sales staff is on a radio to another store a couple of blocks away and they biked the correct size over and in two different styles just in case. This is fantastic service and because of it I am forever using that as my yardstick for comparing service. It has been three years since that day and I am still to receive service of a about a tenth of that elsewhere.
Customer service, especially in South Africa has a long way to go before it compares to general service levels internationally. The attitude of workers is shocking and the worst part is that they just don't seem to care, they have a job so who cares. It seems someone needs to explain to them that they should care and start doing it now before the customers do talk with their feet and stop going to the store, then there will be no job and they will have to care.
