If there's one thing that I've been tolerating less & less in recent years, it's the bullshit excuses that companies sometimes offer up, disguised as customer service. Let me explain with a recent experience:
Two days ago, I quickly stop at the little shopping center on my way home after work to pick up some flowers for my wife (I know, so romantic). I'm in & out within 5 minutes, only to find that I lost my parking ticket (the center has paid parking, but the first 30 minutes is free). I go to the management office, where I'm told that I will need to pay a penalty fee for my lost ticket, which is the equivalent of being parked there for 24 hours. Not only that, but I need to complete an "application" form of sorts and they need a copy of my ID.Trying to determine the rationale behind this, I was told repeatedly that he - as manager - can't do anything about it and that he was only applying the "rules". I thought it was daylight robbery of course.
So here's my issue with that: why have a manager in the first place if he is not allowed to manage the situation correctly. Surely common sense should prevail here and good customer service would dictate that they should've helped me, instead of man-handling the whole situation.
In fact, I was being a good customer. I go there often and I went there again to spend more money there. Why should I be punished for a silly mistake? I understand that rules exist for a reason, but business owners & managers need to be able to bend those rules from time to time; especially if that means you're delivering happiness to your customers. In my opinion, there's just no excuse for this bullshit handling of such situations.
By offering bullshit reasons for your even more bullshit actions, you are only alienating your customers.