Do Minnesotans Notice The Lack Of Customer Service Anymore?

I’m running the risk of being the “get off my lawn old man” here, but I’m going to jump in anyway. My question is what happened to Customer Service? 

When I was in high school, I worked in a regional big box type that sold everything. This was before we had heard of Walmart or Target, they existed but hadn’t made their way into our region in North Carolina. 

But while working at this store, we were trained to speak to each person we came in contact with and ask if there was something we could help them with. This was a common theme for a few other retail stores I worked in while trying to get my career in radio off the ground. 

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What Happened To Customer Service?

Recently, I went into two different stores, one that offers a specific type of product we only go into occasionally and another where I get my groceries on a regular basis. To clarify, I only get groceries here because buying them there is cheaper for most items. 

The first store, I was in three times in two weeks, and my wife who was with me on the first trip, we noticed something right of the bat. No one spoke to us. You see, we have purchased a few things from this store over the last couple of years, and we were always impressed with the service; always being greeted and at worst acknowledged. 

I had to generate conversation on two different occasions in those three visits and finally the second time I just asked the fellow if the place had new ownership, which it did. It was glaringly obvious that something wasn’t the same.   

The store where I get groceries is primarily dependent on self-checkout registers, but on this day, there was a younger fellow standing at the entrance a checkout line looking bored. So, I thought, I’ll go through his line. I’d rather shop that way anyway. If I’ve got to shop for it, load it in my car and then into our apartment, having someone scan it and bag it is something I prefer.  

When I entered his line, he looked at me like “are you kidding me”. I really don’t want to help you. Then while scanning my items, he never spoke. The only time he did was to say their card reader had been acting up, and that was with a condescending tone. 

Keep in mind that at least within the last 20 years, this big box store has had department managers who worked in a specific section of the store and at least pretended to care about the customers' shopping experience, now most of what we see are employees shopping for other people.  

What Can Be Done To Make Things Better?

I did a Google search on “what happened to customer service in America?” and saw several articles written over the last few years. But the opening few paragraphs from an article from The Thread Group said it best.  

The jest is American shoppers are stuck with it; companies aren’t hiring and training like they once did and that’s because they’re don’t have a deep pool of candidates to choose from.  

Often times, managers aren’t seen by customers, where they once were at least roaming the stores part of the time. I understand life has changed over the last 20 years in a big way but why has retail training changed so much.  

Covid was a big change in how we shop as a lot of people were dependent on people shopping for them. And there are some folks who still use that service, for whatever reason. But that seems to be a big reason why customer service has changed.  

And I also get it that there are some folks in the work force who think just showing up qualifies them for a paycheck and that doing the actual job isn’t something they’re interested in.  

But here’s a question for us to answer honestly, are we as shoppers part of the problem? Are we giving off the acceptance of poor customer service? 

To be honest, it’s probably a combination of the things I listed above, but if you haven’t noticed it lately, start paying attention. See if you can notice customer service or the lack thereof.