As a kid I thought going with dad was HIGH adventure. To go up at night to meet someone who needed help, I thought it felt like we were doing something good for someone else. And if we missed or delayed our own activities, it was something that in the end was right in my young eyes.
So now, Alan and I are in the customer service business in a different way. If someone needs something we stop what we're doing to take a phone call, meet someone with a cow, run outside to help someone looking at our calves. As an adult, this is HIGH adventure. There is always something going on, people coming in the house, new people to meet and talk to from all over the country, and I think that we are helping others be able to build their own cow herd.
I guess I never realized until this week when not once, but twice, I have been dealt with as a customer entirely differently than I grew up or expect now as an adult. The idea of the customer being right, needing something from you the seller, and asking for things that may be out of the ordinary has become not a challenge to a business operator, but a burden. When I'm told, "Well, if you ordered this item I need proof of that via an email exchange or a printed copy order" instead of "If you said you did it, I'll take care of it", or I hear, "we're going to charge you for that", instead of "we'll take care of this for you", something is wrong with that business's frame of mind and end mission. And that is what I hear more often than not anymore.
Customer service should not be something that has moved out of vogue because we are trying to preserve our policies, or watch our bottom line. It's something we just do. And I just don't think many are doing it anymore. I hope my kids watch Alan and I and learn what good customer service really is -- taking care of others who are relying on you to provide them with a product, an experience, or a service. No matter what.
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