Total Customer Satisfaction

I woke up this morning thinking, "I'm ordering breakfast!"  So I got up, turned my laptop on and proceeded to order online.  However, after about half an hour, I had this feeling that my order wasn't coming.  So I dialed the delivery hotline.  What happened next is not what I would consider blog-worthy, so I'll just leave it to your imagination.

I'll give you a clue: if there was ever an irate caller award, I would have gotten it this morning.  And now that the episode is over, I try to recall what exactly it was that triggered me to become irate in the first place.

1. I trusted them to deliver.  And when they failed to do so, I got disappointed. But why get disappointed over a trivial thing as food delivery?  Ah, I know.  I put them on a pedestal!  I loved them to the max, to the point of arguing with people why I am so gung ho on them!  But they let me down...
2. I believed in them when they said TOTAL CUSTOMER SATISFACTION.  But after talking to their phone agents, and exchanging emails with their customer relations person, I realized that these people threw TCS out the window!  Worse, they could've killed it!  I was talking to robots who answered from a script and didn't know how to handle such a simple situation.  My sister worked as a crew member in this burger chain, and she told me outright, "Sus, hotcake lang di pa nila inihabol!"  Was her training 20 years ago different from how they train their crew today?  What ever happened to world-class, pioneering and upping the standards?
3. People don't pay close attention to detail anymore.  I wrote their customer relations via email, I get a response, quick.  "Dear Ms Alma Perez..."  What the fudge?!  The name's Alma Alvarez, thank you very much!  No wonder things are topsy-turvy over at their end!

My friend, whose family owns one of the oldest and most respected steak houses in the country (and it's not just because the President brings his dates there), posted a comment on my Facebook status: "Superb service is something every human being is capable of giving.  Does not cost more, just the right attitudes from top to bottom.  It looks like Filipinos do not have their heads on straight, or their hearts in the right place."  I couldn't agree more.

Each time people do something, shouldn't excellence be the top objective?  But this group of 20-somethings who man the customer relations department of huge reputable corporations only believe in "Pwede na yan!"  And I pity them.  Mediocrity scares me, and here we have a whole segment of the population thriving on that.  

Pursuing excellence does not depend on the task.  One could be a street sweeper, but if he strives to be the best there is, then he is doing his job well!  After all, the Bible did say in 1 Corinthians 10:31, "So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God."

So, if ever total customer satisfaction has flown out the window, I just pray it isn't lying dead somewhere.