A friend and I were discussing the extinction of “customer service” recently, whilst indulging in Yum Cha of all things, because we have both had strong backgrounds/experience in customer service and have come to have an expectation of a certain level of service.

In the last fortnight I have been on a rollercoaster ride of good and bad customer service, which leads me to believe that my friend and I were quite right in our deduction that customer service is a long dead animal.

The good: I ordered some books on Amazon 3 weeks ago, and the first lot arrived soaking wet (thanks to Sydney’s recent heavy falls) and after going through Amazon’s return policy – which is exceptional and fast – It took another week and the replacement books were in my posession. No mess no fuss. Now you would normally think that buying off the ‘net is a bit hit and miss (and it can be), especially in the area of trust but I have found it can often be more service oriented than a real bricks ‘n’ mortar business because no people are involved.

The bad: I ordered an extremely expensive bed towards the end of January and was informed that the frame I had selected was Australian hardwood (the only one of its kind in the shop) and the furniture had to be made (as most good furniture does) after the order is processed – which may take a few weeks. This meant that I would have a mattress, with no frame, for a couple of weeks. I was ok with that and paid for the lot upfront. Where the drama occurred is when the due delivery date for the frame came-and-went and I still had heard nothing from the bedding store. I have called 4 times since to find out what is going on and been given 4 different due dates for delivery, including the final dubious call back of “maybe March”.

The Bad was just one incident of maybe half a dozen that I have had with purchases in the last month or so. The bad, far outnumber the good, and it is sad to see that ‘customer service’, a quality once held in the highest regard by retailers and business owners of all kinds, now no longer exists. The catchphrase used to be that the customer is always right. Its been changed to the customer is never right. Whilst there are some situations where a customer is in the wrong, I have found through experience that this is not the norm and that for the most part the customer (being the one that supplies the business with its revenue) is right, and therefore should be serviced as such.

Good luck with Shittyrail, I hope you get the outcome you are after, but in my experience with them they are generally very slow in delivery of any promises they make.