Keeping the customer serviced

My dentist is a lovely guy.  He looks a bit like Des Lynham, always has a calming word and every visit is a physically painless experience.  He is however now way too expensive to keep using, so I need to register with a NHS dentist.  

Being basically an idle bastard, I went to the practice literally around the corner from our house.  It's in a Victorian end of terrace house that's little more than a two up two down.  Reception is in what would normally be the front room and I was greeted by the receptionist, a girl in, I would say her early 20s.  I asked if they were taking new NHS patients and she said yes but the dentist was about to go on holiday for three weeks so he wouldn't be able to see me for a while.  I said that there was no rush and asked if I could get registered in the meantime.  Without leaving her chair, she twisted 90 degrees to her right, took a form from a letter rack and passed it to me saying "There you are, all done for you today."

I don't know where to look when people talk to me like that.  I really value good customer service and make a point of thanking people when they're helpful or do more than they strictly needed to.  But this type of customer service Newspeak just makes me cross. It adds nothing but is designed to give the appearance of having been super helpful.  I'm genuinely worried that people in service industries believe this is how customers want to be spoken to. 

There are of course many and various variants on this theme: the train announcements welcoming us onboard YOUR SouthEast train service to London Charing Cross; the call centre staff with their carefully scripted greetings, and the greeters at your local supermarket asking how you are and whether you found everything you were looking for today.  I'm sure you can think of others...

The Cult of Personality

The first in an irregular series of posts illustrating my capacity for being a bell-end.

My trainspotter-ish collection of concert tickets tells me that this happened on the 11th of October 1990, but to tell the whole story we need to rewind just a little further.

Sometime earlier that year, I'm going to guess in August, I read in the NME that Living Colour were due to play at the Marquee Club in London. There were no tickets available in advance from the box office so me and my gig buddy Mike decided to turn up anyway and see if we could pick up tickets outside. As we emerged from Tottenham Court Road tube, we spotted a girl from work that we recognised but didn't know. Yes she was also on her way to the Marquee Club, and no, she didn't have a ticket either. Her name was Ruth. All three of us completely failed to get into the gig, shared a pizza and caught the train back home. I got the feeling that she liked me.

When more Living Colour tour dates were announced a month or two later, I asked Ruth if she wanted to go. She said she did. I said that me, Mike and a couple of others were going to drive up to the gig and there was room for her if she wanted a lift. She said she'd make her own way there but a lift home would be great because it was a bit hit and miss as to whether you could make the last train back to Hastings without leaving the gig early. We arranged to meet out front after the show. Come the evening of the gig, strong drink was taken and we had a rare old time, but no sign of Ruth. After about three minutes of waiting around out front after the show, I slurred 'forget it, lets get going'. Simon, the driver, asked if I was sure and I said that there was plenty of time for Ruth to get the last train and we made for home. It's decisions like this that resulted in mobile telephones being invented.

At work the following morning, I had an horrific hangover and at about 9.30 Ruth rang me. She didn't care that I was hungover and feeling delicate. She was considerably more concerned about having had to spend the night freezing her arse off sleeping rough in Charing Cross station before catching the 5.30am train to Hastings. I apologised but of course she was having none of it - and quite right too. I got the feeling she didn't like me any more.

I never spoke to Ruth again and I still feel bad about my shoddy treatment of her. Living Colour were excellent though.