Is There Such A Thing As Customer Service Anymore?

 For me, as it may appear to be a rhetorical question, the answer to my question in the title, is a resounding “NO.” Company executives attempt to promote, pitch or position concepts such as “self check out aisles,” “automated teller machines,” “conversant or automated voice response systems” as improved customer service options, when in reality the jury is still out. While these systems are gaining favor, there is still a significant percentage of us who would rather have the human experience, i.e. to check out at a grocery store with a cashier and not scan our items ourselves, or to talk with someone live when we call a company if we have a question or need to express a concern.

While the executives are pitching these systems as customer service improvements, the reality is, they are a cost savings for them. And to add insult to injury or salt to a wound, these savings are not passed along to the consumer. I still have to pay the same price whether I use the self checkout and scan all of my items myself or if I go to the cashier line and have the cashier total my order. I might be able to see the “so-called” customer service option of self checkout if a discount on my total order was given for me checking out my own items (I’m doing the work). Think about it, at an automated teller machine (ATM), you actually pay to retrieve your own money. The bank has cut the cost of having to pay a teller and are charging you a fee to withdraw your own hard earned and saved money. The fees are now ranging from $3.25 to $5.00 or more that is tacked on to your withdrawal per transaction. Better customer service, yet I am paying for performing a job that a cashier used to do and being assessed a fee for withdrawing my money. Does this make sense to you? If it does, I can tell you as of this writing that it does not make sense to me. It’s almost as if we are lemmings that just go along with anything that we are told. The companies say that this will improve customer service and we go right along with it, not questioning the logic of what is actually happening. The same holds true for soundbites that are given to us on the news each evening by the way.

According to a 2021 State of Self-Checkout Experiences report, self-checkout is a feature that customers value highly. Just about 60 percent of the 1,000 American consumers we surveyed said that they will head to a self-checkout kiosk rather than a cashier when given the choice. I am willing to bet that the 60 percent surveyed never really thought about the fact that they are either paying the same or more for doing what was once someone’s job who was being paid to do it. Why aren’t we feeding back to companies that we would be willing to check ourselves out, if you pay us (discount on our purchases that are self scanned out)? Why aren’t we fighting with banks or the Feds to say that we are not going to pay these extortion like fees to withdraw our own money? Again, lemmings. Less service being given while more money is being taken. Not to mention the reduction in package sizes/volume at higher prices. Companies think the consumers are stupid about that too (that’s another issue for another article).

Maybe I’m the only one out on this limb; however, I don’t think so. I do not believe that I am the only one who has seen a drastic reduction in customer service over the years under the guise of “do it yourself.” As I write this article, I am disgusted with META, the company formerly known as Facebook for not allowing its users to communicate with them when a problem arises. They’ve become so big that I guess they don’t give a hoot about what their customers think about them or feel the need to provide a communications vehicle for their users to address their concerns to them. I predict that if META continues down this path, that there won’t be a META in the long run. Facebook has its place, however, like any other company, it must be concerned for its users/customers. Without users/customers, there is no META.

I will end with the very familiar fable of The Goose that Laid he Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs

There once was a man who owned a wonderful goose.

Every morning, the goose laid for him a big, beautiful

egg — an egg made of pure, shiny, solid gold. Every

morning, the man collected golden eggs. And little by

little, egg by egg, he began to grow rich. But the man wanted

more. “My goose has all those golden eggs insider her,” he kept

thinking. “Why not get them all at once?” One day he couldn’t

wait any longer. He grabbed the goose and killed her. But there

were no eggs inside her! “Why did I do that?” the man cried!

“Now there will be no more golden eggs.”

It is my hope that the moral of the fable is understood in the context of where we are headed in terms of “customer service.”

For more about me, please visit marcamedley.com

A Chance In The World Is A Must See Film

Well it has been nearly a year since I shared my thoughts on this platform, The Critical Thinker. Within that time life got in the way serving as a great distraction for both my writing in this blog and recording my podcast. My only constant throughout was my radio show broadcast live each Saturday from 6-9 a.m. ET on gobrave.org and 88.7 FM. Well, while life is still in the way, so to speak, I am back in my groove of writing in The Critical Thinker and recording on The Marc Medley Show. 

My reintroduction to writing in The Critical Thinker was brought about as a result of my watching a movie based on the life of a recent guest I interviewed on The Reading Circle with Marc Medley. My guest was Steve Pemberton and we discussed his recently released book The Lighthouse Effect: How Ordinary People Can Have an Extraordinary Impact in the World.  During our time on air together we also discussed his previously released book A Chance In The World, a book based on Mr. Pemberton's life that birthed a movie by the same name. I took the opportunity to watch  A Chance In The World  last night and afterwards was prompted to pen this post. 

As I watched A Chance In The World, my mind immediately went back to a film I watched with my children when they were small It Takes Two, a 1995 American romantic comedy film starring Kirstie Alley, Steve Guttenberg, and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. In It Takes Two, Amanda Lemmon is a nine-year-old orphan who is being sought after by the Butkises, a family known to "collect" kids.  My mind went back to It Takes Two when watching A Chance In The World  because of the uncanny similarities between the the Butkises and the Robinsons the foster family portrayed in A Chance In The World. The Robinsons like the Butkises "collected" foster children. Now, it is bad enough that the word "collected" is used in terms of children, however, it gets worse as the children were not only collected, they were abused and traumatized on a daily basis.

Steve Pemberton in his transparency about his childhood experiences as a foster child blows the lid off  of the horrific circumstances that are unbeknownst to the general public because the exploitation and abuse is often hidden by foster parents who are great actors. Mr. and Mrs. Robinson were great actors in front of the public while mentally and physically abusing their foster children behind closed doors. In the movie, Steve was subjected to ridicule and physical harm and was threatened with even more if he were to tell anyone the truth. I could not imagine what must have been going through Steve's mind and nervous system as he was being taunted and teased by people who he thought were supposed to love him. All he ever wanted was a family to love him and to know who his biological parents were. I won't tell you anymore as I highly recommend that you watch the film. 

I have had very few traumas in my life, however, having experienced some recent trauma, It it beyond my comprehension of what the mind of someone who has been repeatedly traumatized must be like. There are children who are traumatized on a daily basis before they come to school and when they return home from school, and then educators wonder why they behave the way that they do in school. I highly recommend  A Chance In The World  for teachers and guidance counselors and even students for that matter. Abuse of any form must not be tolerated and no one should be subjected to it. If you suspect child abuse is occurring in the life of any child that you serve or know, please do not hesitate to report what you believe to the proper authorities. While Mr. Pemberton's experiences ultimately made him stronger and built resilience, no child or adult for that matter ought to suffer from any type of abuse. If you have been traumatized, abused or struggling mentally, do not hesitate to seek professional help. 

I invite you to visit my website marcamedley.com and to listen to me live each Saturday from 6-9 a.m. ET on gobrave.org and 88.7 FM radio in the northern New Jersey/New York areas. The Marc Medley Show is heard on all of the major podcast distribution platforms. 

One Man Dead And One Man Going To Jail Is Nothing To "Celebrate"

Is Our Psyche Being Damaged By This Pandemic?

 

Leprosy:

1a chronic infectious disease caused by a mycobacterium (Mycobacterium leprae) affecting especially the skin and peripheral nerves and characterized by the formation of nodules or macules that enlarge and spread accompanied by loss of sensation with eventual paralysis, wasting of muscle, and production of deformities

— called also Hansen's disease

Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/leprosy

“Unclean! Unclean!”

We all know about lepers in the Bible. They had to live outside the regular community, call out “Unclean!” to passers-by, wear torn clothes and cover the lower part of their faces (Lv 14:35). Contact with a leper made one unclean and unable to attend any religious service.

The quotation above was the opening line excerpted from Famous Lepers of the Bible by Patricia Kasten written in The Compass, October 7, 2016. I used Ms. Kasten's opening to illustrate how someone who was diagnosed with leprosy had to live during that time. 

I liken what was happening then to what is happening now to some degree. I raise the question, is our psyche be damaged by this Covid-19/coronavirus pandemic? I raise that question because since we learned of the deadly virus nearly a year ago in the late winter of 2020 we have either contracted the virus or have been doing everything in our power not to contract the virus. We are never sure if we have it or if someone we have come in contact with has it. The constant safety guidelines that we must follow such as social distancing,  the wearing of a face covering, the frequent washing of our hands, staying home as much as possible, and not being able to eat in a restaurant or shop freely keeps all of us feeling as if we have the disease or the people we are around have it even when neither may be true. You nor the people that you are interacting with may have Covid-19 and yet we are made to feel as we or they do. We just don't know, so we almost automatically default to everyone must have it and keep our distance from everyone. The mask seemingly screams "Unclean! Unclean! whether you have the coronavirus or not. When we do make our way out of the house, we make sure that as soon as we return home, that we strip, place the clothes that we have worn in the laundry and immediately take a shower as if indeed contact with anyone has made us unclean.  Even if you don't have Covid-19 and have never tested positive, you almost can't help but feel as if you have it based on how we have to interact with each other. 

Which brings me to my question. What is all of this social distancing and everything else that we have to do to hopefully remain coronavirus-free doing to our psyche?  What is the constant feeling of either I have a virus or someone thinks I have a virus doing to us? Think about it. On a daily basis, we either act as if we have it or as if whomever we are going to come into contact with has it. What is that doing to our minds? What is that doing to our spirits? Not for nothing, what is it doing to our bodies? (they are all connected, you know). 

Personally, I hate this feeling of someone thinking that I have a contagious disease that I don't have and me having to think that someone else has a disease that they do not. I hate this assumption that I am going to catch this deadly disease from family members, friends, co-workers, or even strangers on the street if I do not have a face covering over my mouth and nose and wash my hands every five minutes. Yet, by now, we all have suffered a loss or losses of people that we know and love to this killer virus. As of this writing, according to The New York Times, we have had 439 thousand deaths in the United States and 2.22 million worldwide with 103 million cases worldwide. Again, I ask, what is this doing to our psyche? 

Even when we gain control of Covid-19, what has this done to our trust of what was prior to Covid-19 taken for granted such as eating in a restaurant, flying on an airplane, or staying in a hotel? Yes, we always have known that when you stay in a hotel that someone else had slept in the same bed that you were sleeping in or showered in the same shower, and yet as we move forward will we always be questioning now if the beds or showers were sanitized enough for me not to catch the virus if by chance the person before me did have it? (remember, we are assuming everyone has it). 

These are just some thoughts that come to mind that I thought I'd share. I believe it is something to critically think about. Please stay safe. 

American Reckoning - A PBS NewsHour Special Report

 

THOSE WERE NOT PATRIOTS

We As Adult Children Must Show Compassion and Have Patience With Our Senior Adult Parents

The story that I am going to share with you in this post touched me so much that I have shared it on all of my podcast platforms and decided to share it in this blog format too.  I know that people receive information in different ways so I am providing it auditorily in my podcasts and visually in this blog. Maybe the story touched me so much because my mom is eighty-two years old. Maybe it touched me because her sight is not as good as it used to be. Maybe it touched me because her hearing is not as good as it used to be and maybe just maybe it touched me because her hands are not as steady as they once were. Maybe it's just because I'm getting older.

What I think got me the most though was....................(I won't share that here, I'll share the story and let you decide what moves you.)  The story below is from a book written by Robin Sharma titled THE MONK WHO SOLD HIS FERRARI. 

"There was once a feeble old woman whose loving husband died. So she went to live with her son and his wife and daughter. Every day, the woman's sight grew worse and her hearing grew worse. Some days her hands trembled so badly the peas on her plate rolled onto the floor and the soup ran from her cup. Her son and wife couldn't help but be annoyed at the mess she made and one day they said enough was enough. So they set up a little table for the old woman in a corner next to the broom closet and made her eat all of her meals there, alone. She would look at them at mealtimes with tear-filled eyes from across the room, but they hardly talked to her while they ate, except to scold her for dropping a spoon or fork.

One evening, just before dinner, the little girl was sitting on the floor playing with her building blocks. What are you making? her father asked earnestly. I'm building a little table for you and mother she said, so you can eat by yourselves in the corner someday when I get big. The father and mother were moved to silence for what seemed like an eternity. Then they started to weep. In that instant they became aware of the nature of their actions and the sadness they had caused. That night they led the old woman back to her rightful place at their big dinner table and from that day on she ate all her meals with them. And when a little morsel of food fell off the table or a fork strayed onto the floor, nobody seemed to mind anymore." 

The moral of the story: Compassion and daily acts of kindness make life far richer. Something to think about. 

The Live Well, Love Much, Laugh Often Podcast