Batman to the rescue

Customer service — an oxymoron in America?

Over the past year or so I have become more and more conscious of people in business not doing what they promise they will do.

Is it lack of caring? Lack of training? Lack of understanding of why performance is important? 

My motto: Under promise and over deliver. Do that and people will be happy. It is not that hard. 

In recent weeks, two of my medical providers failed to forward records as I had requested them to do, even after I had reminded them after the initial request. 

A mail order company promised delivery by a given date, the product arrived three days late. (Not Amazon, which is freaking amazing.) 

I call an 800 number and get put on an interminable hold, only to be cut off. 

Try to find the phone number of a business online and all you see is an email address. The message: We don’t want to talk to you. Impersonal service. 

Mistakes in your order in restaurants, trains that don’t run on time, people who just don’t listen.

WTF is going on? Is half of America already on drugs, or drinking stupid serum? 

But let’s be fair, not all is bleak. I have had some good experiences, too. 

Apple’s telephone tech support hit a home run for me. I called the other day, everyone was busy, the robot gave me an option of a callback at 8:30, which I took. At precisely 8:30, my cell phone rang. It was Melissa in Florida who took all the time in the world to resolve my issue.

Closer to home, although I am in their loyalty program, the Staples at 15th and Chestnut never recognizes my phone number. It didn’t, as usual, the other day. The associate I was with seemed baffled, so he called a supervisor.

Rob went through the motions, got stuck, but then pulled out his phone and went online, to navigate a way through the maze.

I noticed his screen saver was a Batman logo. 

“Is that Batman?” I asked.

“I am Batman,” he replied.

Ka-POW.

In about five minutes, Batman/Rob straightened out the tech problem so that the computer recognized me, and he gave me a $10 discount on the printer ink I just bought, because Staples couldn’t give me the discount the last time I was in. 

That last time, when things went blooey, the associate gave me a Staples 800 number to call from home, but the 800 people said the fix had to be done in the store.

The old run-around that makes you want to kill someone. 

Conversely, Batman/Rob took the extra couple of minutes to fix a problem, joke with a customer and make everything right. It is not that hard.

I’d like to introduce him to Melissa. They’d make a great couple.