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Sunday, November 25, 2007

Want to enhance your customer service? watch the smallest actions

I went to Starbucks (City Stars branch) yesterday and I ordered an Earl Grey tea with milk. First the Starbucks employee told his colleague who was supposed to prepare my order “tea with milk”. I had to remind him that I ordered it Earl Grey. He then said “yes Earl Grey”. Then I paid him and he was supposed to give me back my change (10LE). He did not and moved on to the next customer, I had to tell him that he did not give me my change. He said “ah yes Oops sorry” and he gave me my money. Then his colleague, who was supposed to prepare my drink, spilled some milk while pouring it in my mug. He did not even bother to clean the mug; he just gave it to me dripping!!!! He did not even apologize.
This morning, I went to Starbucks again for my morning cup of tea but this time the branch beside City Center. I ordered it take away and I asked him to add extra milk because he usually puts very few milk. What happened is I regretted asking for the extra because when I got into my car and we started moving, the cup spilled on me. He filled it too much till it became too close to the opening in the lid. Once we moved it started spilling. I had to drink as much as I could very quickly ,and it was extremely hot, to make it stop spilling!!. I have to add here that the employee on shift is also not friendly at all. Every time I go, he never smiles and he replies back in a rude way. Once before I asked him to heat my croissant for an extra amount of time than he usually does. His reply was astonishing: “It is ready khalas”. Is that a reply to what I said?
I wonder if there were branch or shift managers available on shift, what would they have done in both cases. Would they have noticed and took action or not? How would they rate this quality of customer service?
If I were the shift or branch manager in the city stars branch event for example, I would have apologized and changed the whole mug before giving it to the customer. I would never have let the employee hand in a dripping mug to a customer. And definitely I would have deducted from his salary for such an action.
Want to really offer your customer a high quality customer service? Watch your employees’ smallest actions.

2 comments:

Jose Sandoval said...

Simple: stop going.

Doha said...

Good idea! Thanks
I wasn't looking for a solution to my problem; I am just showing a real life example of how bad customer service can make a company lose its customers. Even if you lose your customers on a very slow pace because of your bad service, eventually you will regret it.