Covid-19 Killed Customer Service

Good customer service has become a novelty. It seems that people just don’t care. Yes, Covid-19 has caused issues for most businesses.

Employees have to quarantine if they have been around someone that has tested positive. Considering there are roughly 20 million Americans that have tested positive, that causes enormous amounts of employee absences. Not all employees can work remotely. Out of that 20 million, there have been approximately 350,000 deaths. While any death is awful, just do the math. The death rate is actually extremely low. Before you make an assumption about me, I do personally know people that have had it and survived and some that have died from it. I don’t wish Covid-19 on anyone. I do believe there has to be a better way to contain it without killing small businesses and the economy.

Shipping times for UPS, FedEx, USPS, and other freight companies have increased. I had a shipment coming to North Carolina from Florida that has gone from a normal 1-day delivery to 4 days. FedEx Ground had a shipment they received on a Monday to ship to a city 4 hours away — it was finally delivered the next Tuesday. The problem is they were dated items for an event that happened the Saturday before delivery. It should not take 8 days to make delivery 4 hours away. Luckily, the customer is working with me so I don’t have to refund the entire order. I may have to refund some if they can’t sell all the merchandise. FedEx was contacted several times during this time but couldn’t get the package delivered. I finally got the call that it was being delivered. Instead of apologizing, they acted like they were doing me a favor getting it delivered. They even blamed the delay on how the shipper taped the box.

I had another package that was delivered and placed at the end of my driveway by the road. My driveway is several cars long. When I tracked the package, it showed that it was put on my porch. Thank goodness it didn’t get picked up or run over by a car. Because I received the package, I couldn’t file a complaint. I’m sure it was delivered by a contracted delivery driver.

I know of another delivery that required a signature that was delivered to a neighbor’s house. There was no specific address and the signature on the delivery confirmation wasn’t a neighbor. The receiver was told that someones the driver will just enter a signature they know. He was also told he should check with all the neighbors to see if anyone has it. Really?!?!?

I’ve had jobs still with decorators. Production times have increased dramatically. It is taking longer for the decorator to receive items from the supplier. Production times are increased because of employee absences and new sanitation requirements. Instead of saying we’ve extended production time from 2 weeks to 4, all I can get are lots of excuses. “We got hit with Covid”, “We’re short-handed”, “Nobody wants to work”. Unfortunately, my customer doesn’t want to hear it — they want their order. After 2 weeks of trying to get an update and estimated delivery times, I now get no response. That sounds bad but it is better than getting promises that just don’t pan out — which the promises were communicated to my customers. As far as the customer is concerned, I’m the one with egg on my face.

About a month ago, my family went to a restaurant where we had eaten for almost many years. We got our drinks and ordered. It was almost an hour before our waitress came back to check on us. We were there another half hour before we left hungry. Seems they were more concerned with the takeout orders than the customers in the restaurant. Takeouts are extremely high right now because of limited capacities. Restaurants just haven’t been geared to handle that amount of takeout volume and indoor seating. Some restaurants have become takeout only because of the difficulties covering both and all the sanitation requirements between customers.

This has been my rant for today. I could continue but it would just be more examples of the same. I do want to end on a positive note. Chick-fil-A has it together when it comes to getting customers through their drive-thru lines. They have come up with a way to handle the volume and keep their customers happy. It’s impressive.

Have a great week!