Today With Patty – Jan. 3, 2007

by Patty

This morning I went to the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce 2007 economic forecast. I have been going to these things for years, and they are usually like a big pep rally with no substance, but this one was excellent. They had an economist from Wachovia come to speak about the Triangle, and he explained that North Carolina does not really have an economy – it has 12 economies, because the economy in Raleigh cannot be compared to the economy in, say, Jacksonville or Rocky Mount. The other thing that was very interesting was, and I wish the News and Observer would write about this – and this blog may get me in trouble with Dudley Price – was he talked about how while the rest of the country may be experiencing concerns over the housing market, the Triangle is reasonably exempt from that phenomenon due to the diversity of our industry, as well as the influx of people coming to our area. He said that bright young kids in Michigan and Ohio have figured out they do not need to freeze their arses off and are moving to the Triangle. If you want to learn more about moving to the Triangle, check out RelocateTriangle.com.

I am going to start blogging about customer service, because one sign the economy is good is that customer service starts to suck, as evidenced by my little foray to Staples today. The good news is that Staples is having a killer sale on some basic “staples,” if you will (har har!), and we decided to take advantage of that. So, in between the economic forecast and my visit to my gum graft doctor, I decided to swing by Staples for a quick stop to pick up some highlighters, file folders and notepads. I have decided that Staples’ motto is “If it were not for all these customers, we could get so much work done.” Of course, I cannot find the stuff, and when I do, I go up to pay, and there are no less than five store employees hanging around the front desk and no less than eight people in line with Rain Man operating the register. The manager, Jenni with an “I,” is standing there, chatting with four of her girlfriends over at the Turbo Tax display, which is right next to the register. However, Jenni with an “I” is completely oblivious to the situation. Finally it dawns on somebody to open up some other cash registers. So, I move to another line where the cashier is even slower than Rain Man. She decides to leave her register for some reason, so I notice that another register now has cleared out, and I go over there when the man shoos me away because he wants to close down and tells me to go back to my original place, which I do. But Rain Man decided he is going to leave the register and help somebody. The shoo away guy then decides now he is going to wait on customers, but I go back to the slow cashier number two, who has returned and is highlighting things on customers’ receipts before she also leaves her register, but I assume she is coming back because the customer is there. By now, I find this rather exhausting to save 10 cents on some highlighters. But I am no quitter, so I am going to stick this thing out.

The shoo away guy then says, kind of angrily, that I can come over to his register now, but I am not going to fall for that again. No way. I decided I was staying where I was, and eventually the world’s slowest cashier returns to ring up my purchases. So she rings up my items, and they came to $41, and I said to myself, “Wow, that is kind of high!” and I ask the world’s slowest cashier if all the sales prices had been rung up, and she said “Yes.” So I receive the receipt, and don’t you know, the $2.33 file folders have been rung up as $8. At this point, I was thinking, “Do I really care?” I decide to go for it, and I explain to the world’s slowest cashier that these are supposed to be on sale and am chastised that I have picked up the wrong ones. So now, I am apologizing because the sales sign was on the wrong set of boxes. The line is now piling up behind me as the world’s slowest cashier does not know what to do, and I advise the people in line behind me to abandon the line and flee to another checkout. “Save yourselves!” I tell them. Then Jenni with an “I,” our oblivious manager, finally breaks free from her friends to come over and solve my problems. We decide we are going to refund me for the wrong ones and re-ring the right ones.

Amazingly, I never lost my cool through this whole thing, because one, I knew it would do me no good, and two, I was smiling inside as I was thinking how I could get to blog about this. So guess what, folks? It ain’t so “easy” to shop at Staples (get it – the “easy” button?). By the way, nobody there says “Thank you.” Instead, it is replaced by “Here you go.” To which I respond, “You’re welcome.” They did not get it.

So by now, I am running late to see the gum graft doctor, who pronounced my gums as “okey-dokey.” I assured him that while he was a lovely man, I never wanted to see him and his instruments of pain again.

Now I am back at the office, where I know we have good customer service. So look out, Triangle, if you are going to provide bad customer service, I am going to be blogging about it!

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1. I agree with your comments on the forecast, it was the first one I attended and it was great. Your customer “noservice” (label courtesy-Clark Howard) story was wonderful as well..great job on keeping the cool. But please continue to blog on. By the way gum grafts are no fun but the best man for that job is a very lovely country gentleman in Wendell…who talks with the slowest drawl in the south but is so pain free it is amazing.

   
   — LESLIE    Jan 4, 01:24 PM    #

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