When did customer service personnel start acting as if expecting customer service is a personal insult to them? When did America’s service industry become peopled with angry, condescending individuals? There’s a definite culture shift in America, and it’s not for the good.
There are many contributing factors to the increasing rudeness epidemic in America, including the breakdown of religiosity, the glorification of immorality, the self-esteem movement, the woke victim rhetoric and race-baiting, and the disintegration of the nuclear family. One sees both customers and employees, bosses and subordinates, parents and children, politicians and voters, teachers and students behaving shamelessly in ways that would have appalled the average person 70 or even 50 years ago. Too many Americans are perpetually angry, obnoxious, self-indulgent, or outright vicious.
That does not mean, of course, that there are not still many Americans trying to be decent and civilized. But it is often difficult not to feel outnumbered by those who are not. I could go on and on with examples — from parents who let their children behave like wild animals in public to habitual victim activists who never admit responsibility for their own actions — but one area where we particularly see the loss of politeness is in customer service.
Recommended: James Stewart and America’s Lost Hometown Nostalgia
This is on my mind because of my experience this week at my home airport. At the American Airlines kiosk, dozens of people (my party included) arrived almost as soon as the airport opened yet missed our flights as airline employees milled about vacantly, doing nothing, instead of helping check people in. Having missed our flights, we asked the employee we finally reached after more than an hour to find us the same level seats we paid for, if possible, or at least provide a partial refund or food vouchers, as we were stranded for seven hours.
“Vouchers? It’s YOUR fault you missed your flight,” she sneered. There was no form apology, no voucher, just accusations that her incompetence wasn’t to blame — we were. And other employees along the line were being just as rude to their customers, including a young couple with a new baby. Following that, we witnessed an airport volunteer yelling rudely at a janitor to come clean up a mess.
Now, this is not so much to whine about a bad day (we’ve all had worse) as to point out the root problem. No doubt you have your own similar stories. Such behavior was once unacceptable in the service industry, but now it’s ordinary; one almost has to expect it. Airline travel has become particularly aggravating, with constant cancellations and habitually hostile attitudes from the employees with whom one has to deal. But customer service decline is spread across many industries.
Though not all hope is lost. Yesterday I also met a car rental employee who was extremely cheerful and competent. Like him, we can resolve to be the solution instead of the problem, to teach our young people and our employees respect and responsibility, so that politeness and stellar customer service again become the rule rather than the exception.
