By Scott Kreisberg
CEO, One Step Retail Solutions

While you might expect the shopping experience to have a few rough spots during the peak holiday season, I had an interesting run-in with a customer service issue the other day.

This is not what you might think though -- it's not just another upset over a particularly bad event, but rather something that provided an entirely new perspective for me.

We were at a high-end retailer to exchange an evening gown that had been ordered online by one of our out-of-town relatives, and which had been shipped to our house as a convenience to her. Part of the service issue started with the fact that the store could not do a direct exchange in-store and reorder from the online stock, thus requiring a new order.

Also, since the systems weren't linked, they couldn't use the same credit card so we would need to put it on ours. If this were a small chain it would be understandable, but this was one of the largest top-of-the-line retailers so you would expect the best.

However, the bigger issue with service was the sales associate's assumption of what we wanted with no communication about it. It was not that she had a bad attitude or demeanor, just that she didn't see the need for or value in informing us about certain things and asking us what our preference would be.

It definitely didn't leave a good impression about the store, but these things do happen. Still, I had some attention on it as we were leaving which brings me to the main point.

Driving away from the mall, I was aware that I still had a slight bit of attention on the transaction, as when you are analyzing something to put it in perspective and align your thoughts. I wasn't completely sure what had caught my attention though, and it wasn't until we were a few miles away that it finally clicked.

As we were driving down the street we came up to an intersection with major brand fast food restaurants on several corners. When I noticed all the brand signs in a group I had an "oh no" moment, sort of a sinking feeling that kind of surprised me!

The basis for that feeling is a long and frequent history of customer service incidents that has led us to adopt a family policy of never driving away from a fast food drive-through without stopping nearby and checking our order.

So seeing the restaurant signs made me realize that I have come to expect mediocre service (not bad service, just less than excellent) in most retail environments. The sinking feeling was almost exactly like Jack Nicholson's famous line - maybe this is as good as it gets!

This was not always the case -- I used to expect good service and an instance of poor service would stand out. Now it seems more like when you run into an example of really good or great customer service that is an exception to the norm.

Since my expectations have always been to receive (AND strive to provide) excellent customer service, those brands (and their related service experience) had developed a negative brand experience for me!

I do think a large part of excellence in service comes down to the difference between have to and want to. I believe it was the government of China that recently ordered some of its toll-booth workers to smile more, and installed cameras focused on each employee to constantly measure their smile.

I don't think the "smile or be shot by the smile police" approach can truly deliver customer service results of any substance -- it might work for the motorists in China, but that's about it. But when your choices are limited to "bad" and "really bad", bad can seem, well, not so bad!

From that experience I started looking more closely at the people I meet in all walks of life, be they entry-level employees or company owners, and figure out if they are doing things because they have to or they want to. I have also been considering whether I am right in my viewpoint, or maybe I am just too particular?

Perhaps we have a new generation who has grown up with this level of service and are more or less used to it, and some of the rest of us have resigned ourselves to our fate. This could lead to new opportunities if approached correctly, which we'll discuss more in our next issue.