Slipping service standards?

[Seaspriter]

It seems to me like the standards of customer service at gun shops are slipping,

treating your customers as a nuisance or not having any knowledge of your products would be unacceptable in any other industry, yet with gun shops it seems to be an increasingly common theme.

at my local I will barely get noticed

I've always been impressed by Lawrance Ordnance's service in Sydney; it doesn't matter whether I'm buying a piece of $20 repro kit or something more substatantial, they've always treated me with courtesy, been upfront about everything and delivered on exactly what they said they would.

It is not just down under and not just gun dealers. Customer service is on life support many places.

Service in general is just bad. The younger generations seem to think they are entitled to things just because they exist and don't feel the need to work for it. Plus there are just some nasty people out there.

We now have the same problem here in Canada

Gentlemen, you have touched on a very disturbing, but harsh reality of our capitalistic world. Sadly, today, as a result of a lot of "bovine excrement" (to borrow a phrase from one of our exalted members) from Wall Street, we have created a generation of entrepreneurs who believe that the purpose of business is "to make money." When I went to business school in the Vietnam era, we were taught that the purpose of business was "to sell goods and services competitively at a profit."

This is not a subtle distinction, it's the cause of too many of the problems we see in business today. I've come to understand there are three types of capitalists in the world:
- Adversarial capitalists who are always looking to pick someone's pockets, swindle people, and take advantage of those who are unsuspecting or ignorant.
- Transactional capitalists who just see everything as a "deal," an impersonal transaction where people are not part of the equation, just money is all that counts.
- Collaborative capitalists who see the purpose of business is to create mutual value -- for the customer and for themselves. These are the folks we all yearn to have as partners. They listen to us, treat us a long-term accounts, where a $20 sale is just as important as a $200 one -- because we are likely to return when we are recognized by the person behind the counter as important.

Collaborative entrepreneurs, while rare, are not extinct. And the good news is that, competitively, our economic analysis shows they win the game more often in the long run than their adversarial or transactional rivals -- just look at Southwest Airlines in the US or WestJet in Canada as examples.

The problem is that Wall Street, aided by Alan Greenspan (who actually started the "greed is good" movement in 1966 in a book he co-authored with Ayn Rand) have promoted this bogus "make money at all costs" philosophy for too long, and too many people now believe it. Couple this with the very narcissistic "me first, everyone else be damned" generation, and we have the recipe for customer dissatisfaction. (BTW, social scientists have confirmed what you already know -- the new generation is the most narcissistic since Roman times).

What can be done about it? A lot.
-- First, "complain positively" stating what's wrong and what must be done right.
-- Second, business owners need to take the time to recruit, select, and train people to work collaboratively with people. There are many companies that do this, and they rate very high in the "Great Places to Work" index (and, not by coincidence, they are also the most profitable companies).
-- Third, post your complaints on social media -- other customers will boycott bad businesses; natural selection will put them our of our mutual misery and the good guys will eventually prevail -- vote with the dollar or pound. Tell the world who you are doing business with and why those that are caring and honourable are getting your business.
-- Fourth, tell the bosses at the good companies that you went out of the way to do business with them because they cared about customer service -- in other words, reinforce the reason you decided to buy from them so they reinforce it with their staff.
-- Fifth, if you have a choice to buy locally or buy off the internet; choose the former, all things being equal.

Goodness and righteousness will prevail if we give those that make the right choices a little help along the way.