Service Industry

ok, i work and live in the service industry. my particular company has certain commitments and standards to guests, employees and all those involved with our operation. a few things that i think we do well and that i think should be standard in the service industry are as follows:

hospitality... giving for the sake of giving and making people feel welcome and comfortable

courage... doing what's right (in the customers eyes especially!) and admitting when things go wrong

quality... providing consistant service and products


those are just a few of the things that i live and breath everyday whether at home or at work. i also find that i come to expect it from others. however, this does not always happen. the following are real life happenings that were NEGATIVE customer service experiences:

so a few weeks back zak and i ordered pizza. when delivered i accepted the box and when i opened it, it was the wrong size. so i called and let them know about this. i was too hungry to wait for a new one that night and the person i talked to stating that he was very sorry for the inconvenience and offered me a $15 credit (which more than covered the cost of my pizza) so that i could get another pizza and add some breadsticks or a little something extra too. i was more than happy as all i wanted was the credit for my pizza. now fastforward to yesterday. i go to order another pizza from the same location for lunch and their system is down when i call in so they can't look up my info at the time of the order, but could "hopefully help me when i come in to pick up the order." ok... no biggie, i understand their method of documentation is unaccessable. it happens. i go to pick up the order and this woman comes out and doesn't say anything other than "just to let you know, i pulled up your ticket from your last order and all you ordered was a $10 pizza. there is NO WAY one of our managers would issue a credit for more than what the problem was for!" now excuse me, but the last time i checked i never INSISTED that someone DID. i told them what i was told and would have been happy to pay for the extras i got had she just said so nicely. but instead she gave me attitude and essentially told me i was wrong.

a little background for the next post... zak is in the market for a new phone. he is up for his upgrade next month. he wants a pocket pc phone so that he can use it for work. he went to 3 different verizon stores and they all told him different things. he came home very upset and he wanted to write hate mail to them... i reworded the obsenities for him and put it into an informative letter (the next post)...