You never get to talk to a PERSON!!!!

All different now my friend

Yes. And why do service people answer the phone and don’t ask the person to wait? As they are already serving you?

Yes it certainly has and no the customer is never right anymore. There is not respect anymore, no curtesy and no manners, just 'l am' attitude

Yes, customer service has declined but this is only one area in which we are loosing respect to each other. Starts from school, sports events, work, restaurants and government parliament time talks.

NOT ALWAYS

Depends on the customer and the customer services personnel. I feel you should treat staff how you would like to be treated in there situation

Generally customer service has declined, but there are areas where it has improved

most definitely declined, and cannot see that it will improve at all.

in some cases since hard to get real personal service-only digital?

The Government Departments and Telephone/broadband providers are often the worst. Sometimes after a very long wait to get through it is hard to understand the person because of their accent, really bad for people with hearing problems.

They have put people on people on that talk wnflush

Occasionally but then if i get poor service i ensure that the manager knows.

Depends I think bigger stores don’t really give a crap but I think smaller independent stores still want to see their customers happy and well looked after .... unless of course you’re a crappie customer ??

Retail ideas may help this loss

I really appreciate knowing that 'Your call is important to us' and then you understand that the company doesn't give a shit as you're redirected to a convoluted decision tree while you wait for the next available human'

It has declined .So have the customer's attitudes .They are not always right & they have no right to be rude & abusive to staff .I find being polite & respectful brings the best out in most people & I get excellent service

what about non face to face. I got the run around from a car insurance mob. Finally got payout and promptly cancelled policy and NEVER EVER again use them

Yes, I think the customer service definitely has declined when I tried to get hold of Vodafone to sort out some problems. I was put on hold every time when I called its call centre and I had to wait for 45 minutes on one stage. They seem to enjoy transferring me to different departments and promising the next department will help me. I ended up having to speak to 4 different people in one occasion and I was told different stories by those 4 people. There are no email addresses to contact Vodafone. I could only use the online virtual robot option and eventually it still requested me to call the same toll free phone number that I could never get help with. The problems were never solved and I have given up.

Yes, but in the time of Covid, they do seem to be making an effort to keep customers.

Definitely.... If I am on the phone why can't I speak to a real person and not a computer. If I am shopping I always thought it was supposed to be an pleasurable experience as it was many years ago. Sometimes I think to myself "if they were working for me - they wouldn't be".

Cannot understand most. They are rude, defensive, and does not even know what the term means. That is if you can get a live person!

It has during Coovid, but that's understandable, they're so overworked

Yes in some ways, but I've also been on the other side and seen customers try and abuse the fact that they are "always right" in order to get free benefits/ products or discounts.

Yes, when I was working it was a priority, these days your lucky to get service with a smile.

That old saying went out years ago. In my opinion it is mainly because of big companies lack of staff. This causes stress with the staff and also the customers when someone cannot be found to help you. I find the little stores are wonderful to go to as they cannot do enough for you. Reason being they NEED you whereas the other big stores do too but are not willing to pay a decent wage or hire the right people. You get what you pay for when hiring.Edited 13-Dec-20 12:33pm

The customer is NOT always right . Sometimes the customer is an arrogant, unreasonable, rude, abusive, entitled moron who wants something for nothing. The ones who think they can laud their supposed status over young, inexperienced staff make my blood boil. Then there are the ones who look down on retail /hospitality staff and the 'finger clickers' are a special breed of arrogant idiot. Not that it is always one sided. Some customer service staff, just like people in any industry can do the wrong thing and can lack manners.

I think the main theme of Great Customer Service is to quickly and efficiently resolve what the customer is really after. This resolving should not necessarily take a long time, and shouldn't be focused on making way for the next customer quickly. At the end of the day, finding a best fit of what the customer is after - never falls short - or drowns - awesome Customer Service :-)

I have increasingly found CS to be filling up with young people who, in most cases, (not all, it should be stressed), are only too willing to make us seniors feel like morons. (I speak in the plural here, 'cause my parents have had exactly the same problem). Young'uns expect us to know what they are, (often very rapidly), talking about, when we contacted them because we did not know how to work a certain item, on a computer (the off/on switch, for example (;}), or what a particular button on a new-fangled phone is for. My niece, whom I love dearly, tried to explain the menu at a KFC joint, a while ago. She was working there, so at least one of us knew what the heck she was talking about....I ended up getting something from McDonald's.

YES YES YES

“Customer” and “Service” no longer go in in the same sentence. The customer is not always right but they should Always! Be Your customer

But the customer is not always right. Rude abusive customers are in the wrong, customers who are aware they have done the wrong thing and refuse to correct whatever they have done and expect to have things waived are in the wrong. The list goes on. On the other side of that, I used to work in a call centre and would give good customer service but the call would take longer. I was told that if I didn't keep the calls under 2 mins on average I would lose my job and they told me to only do what the customer asks. So for example if a customer didn't ask what their balance was and I could see they were in arrears and were about to be suspended I had to keep my mouth shut. $ over service.

it has declined big time but on the other hand the customer has also become quite rude and offensive,I volunteer at the salvos on saturdays,just yesterday a customer {female} had one of the other female volunteers in tears,she was demanding that a dress that was $7.00 be discounted to $2.00,now this dress was brand new as it was donated that morning with original tags on it,the price,$35.00,so when my collegue refused this woman started screaming all sorts of abuse,calling her all sorts of things that cant be repeated here,so all i can really say is there are two sides to the coin

Yes I feel that sometimes the staff are to lazy to help especially when asked a question they just point and say over there!

A lot of it appears to have gone offshore...

Yes, it has. But then the customers must take most of the responsibility for that, particularly in Supermarkets like Coles, Woolies and the Independents where customers, despite their lives being basically unimportant, ignore the chek-out person & chat away on their mobile phones then behave as if the check-out person has had the temerity to interrupt their inane chatter when she/he wants to get paid and serve the next in line. Call Centres, particularly those of commercial giants such as Telstra & Government Agencies such as Centrelink, ,are possibly the worst. Once you get through they are mostly OK but it is the utter gall of Telstra etc. who, despite making billions in profits, refuse to a) Site their Call centres in Australia and b) Think their customers have nothing better to do with our time than to wait 10 minutes or more before they can be bothered to speak with us. Centrelink is possibly the worst of all! Despite the Morrison Government etc. telling us how concerned they are about the million-plus u

Haven't noticed any steep decline. In a shop I don't expect special treatment from someone just doing their job and trying to get through life. Who knows what people are going through? As others have said, very often it's customers who are rude to workers.

I agree with you Johana C you are so right. The lousy customer service you get in stores makes me walk out quite often

I worked over 50 years in retail before retiring and can tell you two of the rudest actions nowadays: staff who talk together while serving a customer, and customers who carry on conversations on their mobiles while expecting a staff member to complete the sale in silence.

I don't like that saying as customer right alway so if a customer bully a work is right no. I see most customers get what they want.

you bad

I do but I also think customers are rude to staff also. The customer is not always right.

Yes for sure ,

If it wasn't for these darn customers interrupting me I could get on with my work..smirk

I do not know about customer service but I can tell you that I have certainly declined in the last decade.

It depends on the company. Some go above and beyond, some don’t reply.

Yes customer service is not the same as it used to be as now there is only recordings, and not the real person.

DefinitelY it comes down to how much money they can save.

In some stores, yes.

Yes it has as now it mainly as it phoned based and it been our soured to overseas. Also ask some staff where would I find an item and been told don't know I busy go to the front counter

yes it has declined no body cares anymore and not enough staffEdited 13-Dec-20 07:44am

How do you define service ? The customer is expected to do for themselves, Would be great to show good customer service to the younger generation because most of them have never experienced someone who is willing to do the extra. Service is now linked to quality assurance and productivity goals not the customer

You’d better believe it. Try walking into a Telstra shop one day ...

Bloody Bots....!!

YES

I think it depends on the company and their culture. The professional companies will generally have good customer service.

The customer is not always right and it's ridiculous that they were ever treated as though they were. I still get great customer service where ever I go, even if it's for a problem. It all starts with being polite especially when the other isn't

Yes and you are talking to someone overseas instead of locally! You are either put on hold for 20+ minutes (your call is important to us....yeah right!) or send an email and wait for at least three days for a response which is typically a generic automated one! Businesses haven't clicked yet that reviews are public online, if you don't treat me well I have no problem spending my money elsewhere.

customers used to be put first now staff get upset with them if they get in there way good example is super markets cleaners and people stacking shelves getting in the way

Yes they dont seem to know what customer service is they give you the run around,talk to you like garbage ,dont seem to want to fix whatever situation is ,they,re rude etc etc

Yes. It is now all about profit & self service

No I have found its getting better. More knowledgeable assistants is helpful and improves the whole service atmosphere. Customer service is a better appreciated job.

Ha! What customer service?

Farmers in Whanganui NZ are not too friendly

No! I still get good service from most places!

wasting my time.

Agree. In the City I live in service is generally excelent or rubbish with little inbetween.

Yes getting a human that you can understand is almost impossible and you spend a long time waiting even for that.

Oh yes I do. They talk to each other whilst serving you or they completely ignore you and leave you standing waiting for service. Phone customer service you just seem to get robots all the time. I don't expect to be fawned over but a bit of politeness goes a long way

Some people don't even know what manners mean. I had a colleague who was hell to work with and was constantly rude to customers over the phone.

Very few places have good customer service anymore

For sure.

I am asked to press buttons...by robots...who then play me a lot of bad music...broken up by spoken adverts that sometimes fool me into thinking someone is answering the phone... then, just when I am about to give up and slam the phone down, someone comes on the line...sadly they seldom speak English...and when they do, they pass me on to others who ask me lots of questions, again and again, before getting cut off...customer service has ceased to exist ..so far no-one has managed to outsource customers....I'll be very glad when they finally do....I don't like being one....

A huge decline