Remember the days when someone would tell you their story of a bad customer service experience, and you’d be shocked that they were treated like that?  You’d think, “how can a company treat you so bad…there’s no way they’re gonna stay in business treating customers like that!”

Well, think about your recent experiences dealing with a company’s customer service department.  It seems that these days, you’re shocked when you’re treated with great customer service, and you’ve come to expect bad service as the norm.

Just to be sure I’m not the only one that feels this way, I asked many of my friends and they all felt the same way.  It’s a sad statement when we, as a nation, have come to expect bad or mediocre service as the norm, and we’re pleasantly surprised when we receive great, or even good service.

Over the last couple of years I’ve had the pleasure of traveling to Japan, and I have to say the service there is amazing.  It’s just in their culture, like it used to be in our culture.  I can honeslty say that I’ve never had a bad experience at a restaurant, shopping, or any other experience where I was dealing with a company as their customer.  People will really go out of their way to help you.  You’ll really be shocked to hear I even witnessed great service at their government offices (if you’ve ever been to the DMV, you can understand why I say that).  It used to be like that here, but it’s becoming harder and harder to find.

Is it too late for us to change our culture back to one of customer service?  Why has it gotten so bad?  I think it’s a self-induced problem. Maybe the issue is one of Customer Loyalty, not Customer Service. I’ll explain more in part 2, but until then, I’d love to hear your comments.