Warning: long and rambling post ahead :)
I'm not really sure what's been going on in the world lately but customer service is definitely on the decline... And customer service doesn't necessarily just mean "a customer has a complaint so deal with it" - it should be throughout a business' dealings with a customer no matter what the
The most recent occurence I've seen of this has been in my dealings with a local golf course. My group at work had a golf tournament there a couple of months ago and during the tournament I accidentally damaged a golf cart. When they asked who used that cart, I took responsibility for it and got ready to pay for some repairs. Makes sense right? I damaged the cart, I should pay to fix it. They said they'd get back with the replacement cost the following week, show me the invoice and it seemed like it wasn't going to be a big ordeal.
Fast forward a couple of months and I've just now reached closure with them and that closure is basically because I ran out of patience trying to understand the cost of the repair so gave up and sent them a check. That "we'll get to you with the cost next week" was really me calling them a few times that week and the next before I left town for a couple of weeks - with no one returning my call. Of course they did finally call me back while I was out of town :) and so I found a couple of voicemails when I returned with an amount to send them. A few more missed calls back and forth later I finally just left a message asking them to mail me the invoice - two weeks later no invoice has arrived but I've gotten another voicemail.
Honestly, the whole thing got off to a bad start by my calls not getting returned - that gave me the impression that this isn't a priority for them. Which it probably wasn't because it wasn't a large amount. It also means that since everything has some lag and they didn't seem to care, I don't really have a good amount of time for "if they haven't called back w/in X days, try again" and they haven't been setting expectations like "we'll mail the invoice you should get it in X days" or "Just calling to let you know the invoice is in the mail, you should see it in 2 days", etc. And even if they had, they've already blown it once with telling me they'll do something and not following through. One of the things the course didn't seem to realize is that they are the group with the bigger incentive to get quick closure since they are the party that needs to recieve money from me.
So why am I writing about this? The whole thing has left enough of a bad taste in my mouth that I when I emailed them to say the check was on the way, I included a bit about how I was really frustrated and going to tell the organizers of the tournament about my experience and recommend that we find an alternate venue in the future (boy it would have been a lot easier to just deal with this in email had I realized they had it!). I'm not really sure how I expected her to respond, but what I got back (paraphrased) was "you broke the cart and I'm not sure where else you'll get to host becuase you damage stuff, so good luck"... Which means she completely missed the point of me including it in my email to her. I agree that someone who damages something should take responsibility but customer service didn't end at me saying "yes, I'll pay for that." One possible outcome of this was both of us walked away feeling good about this - her that it was taken care of responsibly and me that the course was reponsive and helpful in a situation not of their making. Instead we're both frustrated with how long it took to resolve and I'm walking away trying to steer what I presume is thousands of dollars worth of business away from them. Perhaps other things happened and they would have turned us down had we come back for next year but there weren't stories floating around about other incidents - add in the fact the course anticipated some level of mayhem and I'd be shocked if they didn't turn a tidy profit by having us here. Was this situation really so bad that they wanted to sacrifice it moving forward?
Maybe that's the difference between a business and a great business - a great business recognizes situations like this as an opportunity to work with the customer and have them walking away telling everyone they know how how understanding and responsive the business is and recommending it to friends and colleagues. A so-so business drops the ball and doesn't realize it or doesn't care and ends up being the subject of online rants and lost business. All I know is that I certainly won't bother heading back there.