One of the things I was excited to be reunited with upon my return was good customer service. Customer service in South Africa is generally ridiculously, hilariously bad. Most of the times I went out to eat with friends in cities or towns we had to repeatedly ask for tap water with our meals before it was delivered to us. Sometimes it came halfway through the meal, sometimes we asked 5 times and it never came. One time I was trying to print some pictures at a little Kodak kiosk inside a Walmart-esque store. There was an employee standing in front of it doing something at the counter next to it. She was blocking my way but since it looked like she was busy I stood there awkwardly for a bit, thumb drive in hand. After a minute or two of this when she hadn’t acknowledged me I said “sorry, can I use the machine?” She looked at me, looked at the thumb drive I was holding up, and went back to what she was doing without saying a word. At that I just ambled around her and squeezed my way into the foot of space between her and the machine.
I will say that I greatly appreciate being smiled at, greeted, and offered help by employees of the various businesses and stores I frequent in America. What I do not so much understand is a lot of what happens beyond these basics. I went to a new grocery store that opened up by my house and here’s what ensued:
Checkout lady: Hello, how are you?
Me: I’m fine, how are you?
Checkout lady: Did you find everything you were looking for?
Me: Yup, I did thanks.
All the groceries have been scanned or whatever and the total has come up, I have my credit card in hand ready to slide through the machine.
Checkout lady: What else can I help you find today?
Me: (after a second of faltering confusion)…um, I’m all set.
Checkout lady: Okay then you can go ahead and slide your card!
Now I assume that this employee was simply following instructions in double-double checking that I had had no problems at the grocery store but, really? If I really didn’t find everything I needed I would have told her the first time I asked and if I wasn’t ready to slide my card and pay I wouldn’t have had my card in my hand, hovering over the machine. Can too much customer service be construed as bad customer service? I think so. It’s like the mother who goes one step too far in her motherly nagging. It ruins a good thing. Kinda like when I walk into a Gap and I’m one of two people in the store and the three employees there all give me the same 30-second spiel about what’s on sale that day. It really just makes me want to abandon my search for the perfect cardigan in order to avoid the eager gaze of 6 eyes with nothing better to do.
This is really a distinctly Midwestern thing.
My first day in the Boston area, I walked up to a Dunkin Donuts counter and the cashier stared at me expectantly. Beginning the ritual exchange, I asked, “Good morning, how are you?” The stare became hostile, as if to ask “why are you nosing into my personal business. And there are customers behind you. What do you want???” Finally, I asked for a medium coffee. She spake a single, word: “Regulah?” Yes, I responded, regular. She then pressed a button on the cash register. She did not tell me the price, I could read that for myself. Nor did she acknowledge what tender I handed her or tell me what change she thought she was handing back. The single word was all she said.
And it turns out, that’s normal around here.
I miss Iowa customer service!