Actually, the search started along time ago.  I just never thought Customer Service was dead.  Just thought it had taken a vacation with the Loch Ness Monster.  As I move in and out of interaction with other people in my daily activities, I have noticed an alarming void that keeps growing and growing.  It becomes more vast as I get closer.  Sort of a interstate black hole where the Sun of customer service used to be.  This black hole has sucked all the joy of service out of everyone I encounter.  As Mom and Pop shops like the local hardware store get swallowed by the big box retail chains all signs of the life of customer service disappear too. 

 

As I wander through this culture and life, I find myself remembering what it was like to be treated like an actual person when I walked into a store with or without a pocket full of money.  I see why the bond between man and computer keep growing.  The understanding of the psyche becomes clearer when it is preferable to stare at a lifeless LCD screen and place an order than to drive through the local McDonald's and be accosted by overt hostility of a minimum wage cashier who is only there to take your plastic.  She may even look more than a little put out when you hand her actual money.  The look on her face shows that you might have mistakenly given her an open vial of E-coli.  God forbid you don't give them exact change!  See what kind of wrath you can provoke when you hand over $5.25 on an order that costs $4.25!!!

 

Go to one of the big box hardware stores and see if you don't have to scream at the top of your lungs for someone to help you!  Even if someone does show up, they usually are more confused than you are about plumbing or lighting.  Go in and stand there and see how Patrick Swayze felt in "Ghost".  Count how many "associates" walk right past you.  Some of them subtly ignoring you, at least from their perspective.  From ours it is patently obvious they are ignoring you.   Don't get me started on customer service by phone!!  Didn't realize India had its own School of Customer Service for the American Consumer!  How is it that I have to press "1" to speak to someone in my own language in my own country?  When did it become more cost effective to have a computer or a foreigner half way around the world take "care" of our customers?  When did the customer become an inconvenience? 

 

The most important question actually is....When did we as Customers ALLOW the corporations to treat us like chattle and view us through the daily "poll" of the stock price?

 

It is my task to find customer service wherever it hides, wherever it has gone.  Has it gone the way of Troy, the Roman Empire, and non-PC language of our forefather's?  (I do not mean the bad epithets and pejorative language of those who say and do nasty things) I mean the language of truth.  Like telling someone that the behavior they are exhibiting is reprehensible and to stop that, instead of the situational morality that pervades our society today.  That is customer service too.  Your friends and neighbors and fellow countrymen are your customers.  Your business is service to your fellow man. 

 

For now, I will stick to the customer service of business.  Does it still exist or is it a figment of my imagination lost in the mist of youth and small towns?

 

I'll let you know.