Are we settling?

After visiting a popular electronic component store that sells some popular phones and electronic tablets for the third time this week, I am left wondering if Harry Beckwith wasn't correct in his book Selling The Invisible. In it he points out how we have become accustomed to settling for poor customer service.  We make fun of companies like McDonald's and Disney for how clean, quick and nice there employees can be. He says that love them or hate them McDonald's hat set the standard for good fast food in a clean environment. Disney is also known for being really clean and even though they did with stressed out people on vacation all the time, there "Cast Members" always have a smile and are really nice.

In an effort to try and find something good in a bad situation, I thought that customer service would improve in a down economy. Almost every business owner will tell you that they would rather keep a current customer happy than it is to find a new customer. Therefore it would only make sense that if I am in doing business with a service provider that it would behoove them to treat me well and make me happy. More often than not, it is just the opposite. I have had phone companies not even ask "why" when I cancelled my service because of to many dropped calls. After 3 years of having our monthly charges automatically deducted from our account with our TV service provider, we found out that we should have receiving a discount. While I was on the phone with them getting this issue corrected I brought up my displeasure of being charged and extra $5 a month for not having it connected to a phone line. Their response was, "you want a discount for paying by credit card and not be charged for no phone line?" Needless to say we are no longer with that TV service provider.

All this being said I would have to agree with Harry Beckwith in his observance that part of bad customer service is our fault as consumers. The reason is because we have accepted the service we are receiving and continue to spend our money at those companies. So after my third trip to the electronic store to find out that I can't buy what I want because I won't show up an hour or two before they open to get one of two or three that was delivered that day, is really my fault because I am going to buy it even though I am not happy with how I am being serviced.