For the past many decades, good customer service has always been benchmarked by the standard of what the older generations thought of customer service, as was given to customers as far back as the early 1900’s. Of course you can go farther back than that, but for the sake of argument, we’ll use the last 50 years.

“Mom and Pop” stores as they’re called, were not only places to buy goods, but places where conversations happened, friendships were made, and events occurred in a town. Far removed from the fast-paced society of today, people didn’t stop for something and moved on, people stopped completely for an indefinite period of time and made physical connections with the shopkeeper and his or her employees and other town locals. Even as society advanced and things became more streamlined and convenient, many places still kept in the old practice of engaging their customers for that physical and emotional connections, ensuring that the person would be a return customer simply for the experience and not just the product.

Sadly in such a fast-paced and globalized world such as today, most people don’t afford the time to stop and smell the roses so to speak. We are so preoccupied with getting from one place to the other, and business is more interested in quantity over quality, that we have lost that personal connection we once had when venturing out beyond our homes. People are out to make money, be successful, and make a living, and for many, they don’t realize that their greatest asset in doing so, is their interpersonal skills.

Many places though today are trying to revive the old ways of doing business, making personal connections, and making their customers and guests feel more welcome in their place of business. This is apart from consumer advocate groups bent on changing the face of business through grassroots community action in order to make things “fair” for all, which isn’t bad per se, but only serves as an unwanted nanny into private affairs. Add all of this to health codes, building codes, permits, and all sorts of other barriers and it’s not hard to understand why it can be frustrating to retailers to be able to sell their services when everyone wants a say in how it should be.

I’ve worked in food service for the past decade, between grocery retail and restaurants. I’ve seen a lot of things happen, I’ve met, talked to, and dealt with a lot of people, some good, some bad. I’ve been fortunate to work for three of the more customer-oriented companies in Connecticut, Highland Park Market, Red Robin, and Panera Bread. All three have core mission statements to put customer service as the top priority. However, it’s not perfect, and sometimes I feel people in this world really don’t have an idea of what others like myself and even people who have other common jobs doing the things that civilized society takes for granted, do.

First off, although customer service is our primary goal and I certainly try my hardest to provide the best I possibly can, things can, and will, go wrong. Mistakes can be made, things can be broken, accidents occur, and sometimes things don’t always go the way I, or you, the customer, want them to. Understand that I am not trying to inconvenience you, sabotage you, or in any way take away from your time or money, I am simply doing my job and unless you’d like robots to replace us all in 25 years to do it for you, you’ll have to deal with human error. Today we had water fall from the ceiling onto the surfaces and floor of the sandwich line. We take health codes and sanitation pretty serious, and we closed the line for a little bit to clean up, inspect the product, replace some, and reopen the line. I was rather taken back by the number of people who complained about either not being able to get food as a result, or not being able to order any at the time because of it, as if they believed that because they were in the building, they were entitled to everything. I understand it’s your money and time and I’d be pretty annoyed too if it were me, and I am by no means trying to push you out the door or tell you you can’t get any food, but an accident was an accident and our top priority was to make sure the food was safe to serve before serving it. Had someone gotten sick, whose heads would roll? People seem to not take any heed to the welfare of others, preferring to be selfish about their wants that they would complain about the inability to serve food, yet if they were to get sick from food made from possibly dirty product or surfaces, they’d complain all the same that we served them bad food, so where do we win here? We don’t. Sometimes we have to play the bad guy and tell people things in order to maintain our integrity as a company and organization committed to excellent service, a clean environment, and a solid reputation. Sometimes that will inconvenience you, we don’t like it to, and believe me we are just as frustrated as you when it happens. I for one have a deeper appreciation for food service employees after so many years working it myself, when I am out to other places, I rarely complain about service, because I know those people have other things going on.

Quality is one thing, I would complain about the quality of something that is inconsistent with what I usually get, and I expect anyone to challenge that of me. I may not be able to connect with each and every person that comes through Panera Bread, but I certainly don’t make any attempt to make them feel not welcome. I only ask that they have a little patience and a little understanding of my, and my co-workers attempts to feed and satisfy hundred of people a day, usually in the span of mere hours. I happen to think we do an excellent job of moving a lot of quality food to a lot of people during our lunch and dinner rushes, and it is the kind of quality food that you feel better about eating, not burgers and fries, things you feel you’ll clog your arteries with, but good deli sandwiches on good quality breads. I sound like a spokesperson for the company, but far from it, ever since I began working food service, I’ve aligned myself with places that I would want to eat at, to recommend to others, places I felt were part of my community, and places I could work at and offer my services and interactions with people to benefit the company. It sounds cheesy, but I prefer to think of it as the honor and integrity of my very person, someone who instead of joining the BBB, the AARP, or many other organizations that nanny businesses and standards, joins the very company, works inside, and understands what kind of business they do, and the kind of people they serve. I’ve met a lot of interesting people in this job, both co-workers and customers. It is for this reason I am typing this very long tl;dr post now, because I feel I owe every consumer out there in this recession-weary time, and myself, the honesty of what I believe in where I work, how I work, and what I am serving to the people of my community, town, city, and state.

Before you, the consumer, think about yourself, your time, and your money, stop and think for one moment, what about them, their time, and their salary? Think about what life would be like without gas station clerks, McDonalds employees, sewer maintenance workers, restaurant servers, and all those people who work at the little places you, your family, and your co-workers, all depend on for your daily life. Not everyone has or even wants a top-tier college education, for many people, this is either the best they can do, or all they can do at the moment with what is available to them. They aren’t unfortunate, and it is a downright insult to label service jobs as “McJobs” by elites who cannot understand that not everyone gets the chances they did to have higher education or in many cases even have a decent home or family to come home to. I may not like certain jobs for the reason of not wanting to do them, but I respect the kids, adults, men, women, blacks, hispanics, asians, and everyone who gets out there and works to provide people with products and services that are the backbone of our civilized life.

tl;dr: old fashioned customer service is not dead, old fashioned common sense is. respect goes a long way in creating the customer service connection in which you seek.