The Best Kind of Customer Service is the Kind You Don't Realize

What makes good customer service?  What is customer service in general?  

Growing up in Hong Kong, I am used to people - shopkeepers and customers - minding their own business.  You might get a nod, a smile, or a simple hello or "welcome," and you are acknowledged:  Yeah, I know you here.  I'll leave you be; you let me know if you need help.  Personal space is of such importance in Asia that if a shopkeeper is too attentive, you feel invaded.  That is, of course, unless you've got money and are so self-important that you relish going to name-brand stores and be waited on hand and foot.  The rest of us?  Yeah, we know how to take care of ourselves.  We know how this works.  Most of the boutiques I frequented as a student didn't have fitting rooms.  There were no return policies.  Cafes and restaurants didn't accept gratuity (unless you've booked a large party and even then it would be a service charge included in the bill).  I order something, you give me what I ordered; thank you, come again.

Coming to the U.S., maybe especially in California, customer service is suddenly a much, much bigger thing.  Now I'm not going to expand on what this is.  I'll let you think about what you expect or know is expected when you visit a business; perhaps recall a recent experience that was particularly pleasing or infuriating.  I am inspired to write this quick piece because of this:  I just visited a cafe at a university.  The guy at the register didn't seem to be very good at running it.  A girl waltzed back nonchalantly, chewing gum, with an attitude you'd expect from a late-70's, early 80's teen movie.  She took over, and solved the issue the guy was struggling with.  Told the customer, who's waited a while at this point, "Swipe."  The customer swiped his card, walked away with the product.  She said, "Next."  I couldn't believe it.  It put a smile on my face.  I looked for a tip jar even though she wouldn't have "earned" it, and there wasn't one to be found.  I walked away, no guilty feeling either way.

I remember being in the service industry when I spent all my energy people-pleasing and putting up an empathetic front all day, so much so that at the end of the day, I was a total asshole to everyone around me.  That energy was so misplaced.  

So don't ask me how was my day (especially when you don't really care), don't worry about smiling and validating my existence and importance as a customer.  Give me what I ordered, do it correctly and efficiently.  And we can each go home to the people we love and care about and ask them about their day, smile and validate their existence and importance.

(I can go on about the tipping culture, the sense of entitlement as a patron, etc.  But I'm going to stop here.)