🌺 {28/10/26} ✦ "Cuando el buen trato es la excepción" 🐹 ( ´∀｀)人(´∀｀ ) 🍵 | Womantribe ✦ 🇪🇸 │ 🇺🇸

🇺🇸 ~ The culture of customer service has been in decline for many years here in my country. I don’t know what it’s like elsewhere, but here, for a very long time, businesses stood out for their excellent service and the diligence and kindness of their staff.

From the bakery in a long-established neighborhood to the store in the fanciest shopping mall, whether you were a salesperson, a receptionist, or a cashier—and no matter if you were making a $1 purchase or a $100 one—the service was just as excellent.

Why has that spirit of courtesy withered away? I don’t think the reason is a mystery—the country’s circumstances have affected us all. It’s hard to go to work with a smile when you’ve slept poorly due to power outages, for example, and in turn, it’s hard to smile when customers behave rudely.

I’ve witnessed a customer taking out their frustrations on someone who’s just doing their job—trying to ring up a sale, trying to move the line of customers along—while a supervisor stands behind them holding a folder with a very hostile expression on their face.

I understand when I encounter, for example, a cashier who doesn’t want to make eye contact, or who barely speaks while taking your card to swipe it through the reader. This is someone who has to deal all day long—one after another—with people who no longer even say “good morning,” who make excessive demands, and who blame them for any random thing that doesn’t satisfy them the moment they step into the store.

The current average salary simply doesn’t make up for it: long workdays, often with overtime, and row after row of customers who see the clerks as targets for what I call a “performance”—as if they were servants rather than workers—complaining just for the sake of complaining, just to get attention, as if the person on the other side of the counter didn’t have feelings that they know full well they’re hurting.

I believe the decline in the quality of customer service stems from both sides: good employees have left because even the minimum labor guarantees needed to live with dignity aren’t met, which leaves job openings in a state of desperation where whoever is available is hired, rather than the most qualified candidate.

On the other hand, we’ve experienced waves of, for example, mass resellers who have done a great deal of damage to the economy. And in the process of trafficking in essential goods or high-quality, affordable merchandise, staff at many retail chains have found themselves cornered in terrible situations—some of which have even reached the point of threatening their physical safety. That leaves lasting scars.

I keep this in mind whenever I go out to run errands, go shopping, or see the doctor. I don’t get upset if someone I meet along the way isn’t nice to me—which is something I often tell my family: “That person must have been mistreated; nobody acts like that out of the blue,” I tell them when they complain that this or that receptionist spoke rudely to them.

And I think I’ve been lucky, because there’s a pattern I invite you to check out for yourself: The next time you go out, be sure to say hello, ask questions without forgetting to say “please” and “thank you,” and speak in a gentle tone of voice—even if everyone around you is yelling, don’t yell; stay calm.

The staff at the establishment will surely relax, because after dealing with so many customers who speak to them in a confrontational tone, when they see someone who isn’t doing that, you’ll notice how some of the tension lifts from their shoulders.

Doing this won’t solve the problem or change the world, but I assure you that, at least for a few minutes, that person will feel like they can behave at work the way they should—or the way they’d like to—with kindness. Plus, in the end, these interactions should be pleasant because business means prosperity and, above all, success.