Wednesday 1 February 2012

Bitchy Customer

picture taken from Profimedia

From the one perspective of life, we've always been in front of the counter, the one making the purchase, the one acquiring the service, and the ones who demanding perfection. That's what being a customer is all about. But how many of us do actually realise that most of us (the customers) are big pain in the ass to those who are providing the service to you? How many of us notices the frowns and the sweats of the cashier requesting for your money when the total bill is cumulated? The tiredness and fatigue of a waiter waiting tables the whole day while they are taking your orders? The sound of boredom and sleepiness from the voice of your customer service call receiver as you complain about your channel been screened? Do we all notice? Do we really care?

We have spent most of our lives taking up services from everywhere; supermarkets, salon, grocery shops, auto shops, coffee shops, cinemas, restaurants, and tons more. Have you ever think what was it like, to be behind the counter, instead? What would it really be like, to be the one offering the service, delivering the service, and promoting the service instead of the one gaining it?

picture taken from here

Sometimes, a cashier can do their very best to offer a great service to the customer but sometimes it isn't appreciated it. When that happens, the cashier can be demotivated. Worse-case scenario, for some people  aren't that strong mentally, will submit to anger and dismissal behaviour where they'll get pissed off at the customers instead. And most service provider company and business hates it because ....

picture taken from here

Yup, a satisfied customer will less likely to tell people more about the great service that they've acquired, but an angry customer tell lots of people about the bad service they've gotten. And when that happens, a certain company or business will run out of customers because of their stained reputation. We wouldn't want to jeopardize another person's source of income for life now, would we?

Okay, back to the topic! Since we go through about our daily life in our hustle and bustle hectic tempo, we forgot to stop for a while and think that we're not the only ones that matter in the world. And this is why sometimes a customer neglects to appreciate the service provider for their efforts in maintaining a well performance for their customers. 


Standing behind bar, for an instance, can teach you about quite a lot of things. Again, I'm taking myself as an example. Before this last three months, I have been a fan of Starbucks and I love how homely the place and service it is I've always wondered what it would've feel like to work in Starbucks. Because it surely is looked fun. But I've realized that it is actually hard to maintain a good connection with a customer when you're busy remembering drinks, their names, their recipes, the temperatures and a whole lot of other stuff. And usually when I'm stressed about it, I tend to forget to show hospitality to my customers. I was scolded often by my employer because of my un-friendliness.

But here I've given a fair question to the situation that sometimes the customers (everyone) can be a bitch and a big pain in the ass when you're expecting a grand welcome and a spotless performance when you're expecting services. Sometimes, it's best to just stop and think for a while than you are not the only important ones in the world. There are other people too...