Customer Abuse

I am writing this blog with Nelly Furtado's song "Afraid" playing in the background. I think it's time to address an increasing problem among office workers in the US (and possibly other countries as well). I'm considering starting a support group for office workers who deal with disgruntled and often profanity-spouting customers. The Golden Rule of customer service is "the customer is always right." Well, I ask my readers, is he? Is she?

When a customer comes into our office and says, "I did that paperwork last year, I shouldn't have to do it this year!" And throws the clipboard back on the desk in front of Michelle. And glares in her general direction. Should I turn to that customer and say, "Oh wait. You're right!"
No. That customer is required by our office policy to do the paperwork. We are just doing our job. What is it with people who think the rules don't apply to them?

Or what if a customer comes into our office with four children and proceeds to let her children do whatever they want to do. They go to our coffeemaker and all get cups of coffee pouring in three-four packs of creamer each (these children are all under 12), taking the full cups of coffee around our expensive instruments. They go into our frame room and try on frames that are worth hundreds of dollars, twisting them, dropping them. Does mom say a word to her precious children? No. Should we be babysitting them for her?

For all the many times I have been blessed out on the phone because some customer didn't get her glasses in the timely fashion which she expected (three days sooner than we had promised) and all the many times patients have refused to pay their bills or tell us their social security number or give us ALL their insurance information, I am writing this blog. And for my office co-workers and myself, I propose on-the-job counselling sessions. Possibly during our lunch hour we can go into a back room and talk to a registered psychologist about this debilitating problem of customer abuse. We can tell our shrink about how our self esteem has dropped to new lows and our blood pressure to new highs. Perhaps then we can learn to not cring when the phone rings or to not snap at the first patient that doesn't have a smile on his face.