Thursday, June 26, 2008

Guest Blog Contest

This week's contest is for a $5 Stuffmart gift card. To enter, simply post a comment about your most horrible-est or funniest customer service experience. Please make a fake name up for the company or business, because I don't want to get sued and neither do you. If no one participates, I get the Stuffmart card, since I spend our entire paycheck there anyway.

3 comments:

pita-woman said...

Gee, as much as I'd love to participate, as I could always use an extra $5 to spend at Stuffmart, I don't think I could narrow down which story to use, as there have been too many experiences over the years. I think I've posted a few of them already on my own blog. But I look forward to reading others stories, just so I know I'm not alone in the shopping-zone.

beeguy said...

Okay. Once Upon a time there was a restaurant in North Carolina; it was a nice historical restaurant, as well as an inn. It rather prided itself in keeping up its tradition of great food and even greater customer service.
A certain person on the wait staff also prided himself in his own great customer service. He was very good with his customers, getting even the grumpiest old couple to smile and joke with him, hopefully resulting in a good tip as well. He dealt with customers that the rest of the wait staff was too intimidated to wait on. At one occasion he was the only person working in the whole restaurant that has the courage to kindly ask a party of rather well dressed business people to move their conversation to an adjoining room so we (the wait staff) could clean up and leave since it was over an hour after our closing time and they had been sitting there forever.
Anyway, this waiter was pretty experienced with the different types of customer that frequented the establishment and was getting perhaps even a bit too haughty and proud about how well he could communicate with and keep even his most conceited and picky customers happy. One day he was seated a six top (six people at one table). When he brought out the traditional biscuits and butter he greeted them with a cheery “Hello! How are you all doing today?” When none of the people responded to him in the least he decided to meet their evident bad moods head on with some sarcasms “Wow, your day has really been that bad!?” still no response. He tried a little more sarcasm but it wasn't working. At this point the sixth member of their party returned, he quickly gave me the 6 drink orders for the party “Everyone just wants water”. The waiter got the water but also tried to think of a way to get these costumers to talk to him, if a customer doesn’t even notice the waiter they won’t be giving out much as far as a tip goes. The waiter tried again while delivering the drinks to get the people to talk, but other than a few brief words from the “6th man” no one would say a thing to him. As he moved to another table nearby that he was also waiting on he couldn’t help but notice some of these costumers’ smiles, they seemed to know something he didn’t. It wasn’t until he finally took the “6 tops” food order that reality hit him, actually, the “6th man” finally informed him that all of the rest of the party were deaf and mute, he took them on a weekly shopping trip from the home they lived in and today they had decided to stop here for lunch. Suddenly the waiter felt guilty for the sarcasm he had been using on them, they hadn’t even heard him and yet he was getting upset at them for ignoring him! He felt rather foolish and stupid. Later he even caught the other table of “smiling” customers trying not to laugh at him several times, his red face probably gave away his great embarrassment. He did get a good tip though and he learned something, even the best costumer service people mess up sometimes, don't get too mad at them :D

Junosmom said...

Ooh, I like that, Beeguy. A great story and from an angle I didn't expect - from the customer service person's perspective. Very creative thinking!

Pita-Woman: Links to a story you've already written on your blog count.

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