In other areas of my life I’ve started to realize that what I always thought of as decency, helpfulness and fairness is fast becoming obsolete. As a customer you should be able to expect you will be treated fairly and equitably throughout a transaction and if you are not happy, you are compensated accordingly.
Perhaps it’s my OCD relating to my attempts to make my own customers happy that makes other business processes so positively annoying. Seriously, how bloody hard is it to treat someone with enough respect to at least admit it when you have made a mistake!
I’ll be the first one to admit that perfection is pretty bloody hard to reach. But it IS an acceptable goal and you need to be striving for something! Striving for mediocrity isn’t an option. There’s no doubt I have made mistakes in this business, whether it’s sending an order with an incorrect size or getting a design so wrong that I would rather give it away than deal with the guilt of possibly selling something not up to my high standards.
But although I always try and look at the positive side of people, there will always be some halfwit wanker that wants to treat you like you’re an idiot and do their best to make your life harder. But to what end I wonder. Really, a simple phone call, email or sms with a dash of honesty and humility can go a long way to addressing a problem.
Rather than start an argument over a petty issue, I think some people should really learn the phrase ‘Hey, sorry mate. I just f**ked up’. Wouldn’t that be a nice change.
