I hate that phrase “the customer is always right.” In fact the customer is frequently wrong. If I did everything my customer “wanted” I’d be out of business. Now that is not to say we aren’t accommodating. We are very accommodating and have a hard time saying no. But it goes both ways. I can’t give what I don’t get. Want good customer service, then be a good customer.So, referencing the subject of this thread, we are bouncing around 3 different subjects. The subject of "COVID Customer Service" is what was started. However, Customer Service has been dying for some time now and long before the pandemic.
Prior to retiring 6 years ago I was a Corporate Trainer for about 15 years. I worked primarily with service-based companies or said another way, companies that provided a product or service(s) to other companies or individuals. In most cases, these service companies had competitors that provided the same product or service for a comparable price. The only real thing that kept their customers coming back was how the customer was taken care of.
In our industry we defined great Customer Service as, "Service that exceeds Customer expectations". But, a number of years ago, as businesses were forced to operate leaner, Customer Service training was one of the areas we saw reduced or eliminated. As a result, there is a generation or 2 that truly do not know what the saying, "The Customer is Always Right" means. And they don't give a shit. However, in their defense, (and I hate defending them) it's their employers, and parents, that have failed them. If a company has price-comparable competition, and the only thing that makes a customer want to return is how they are treated, you'd think they would be doing all that's possible to make that buying experience pleasurable.
And we used to evaluate employees. If you didn't follow the company policies, you were coached, retrained or processed out. We don't do that anymore because (A) people are too hard to find and (B) we certainly don't want to offend anyone because if you do someone sues for wrongful termination and blames everyone but themselves.
Now that I got that rant out, I wish I knew what the solution was. I read the other day that the problem with the generations that have come after us (I'm 72) is they have never truly experienced hardship. No war, no depression, no cell phones, no instant everything, only 3 or 4 TV channels, no "downloads". If we wanted to listen to music we got on a bus, went downtown to the music store and bought a record that we took home and played on a record player. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for technology but we screwed up by wanting things to be too easy for our offspring and theirs.
My time on this rock is drawing to an end but I truly fear for the generations to follow and hope they can get it figured out.