Customer Service Gone Mad

Customer services are a vital component to any company’s survival but has it reached a level of complete absurdity with the services they offer? With new shopping centres opening all the time, the UK’s shopping circuit is becoming more and more like America’s all the time but it seems that this is not necessarily a bad thing as this also means there are elements of their customer services dripping into our society and if America does anything well, it’s customer service.

Contemporary shopping centres or ‘malls’ if you are using American terminology are being built with more than just shopping in mind. It’s all about the whole experience and therefore they come with cinemas, food courts and crèches incorporated – the final element is brilliant for those with busy schedules who need to try clothes on or buy bulky items and therefore would be most useful to be child-free! There is a new service being incorporated though wherein the customer service assistants go above and beyond the usual call of duty.

Some things are purely common sense, things like gift cards for the shopping centre generally as opposed to specific shops, thus allowing customers options which is the crux of the reason for so many of these shopping centres sprouting up. They also offer many services that are necessary and useful – crèches, wheelchair hire and ‘fun’ pushchair hire to keep the kids entertained while you’re out looking for that perfect new interview outfit. However, the point of this article is to debate whether they also offer services for the sake of it. Do shoppers really need, or indeed want, the ability to browse the shops on a store-provided tablet? Or to drop their mobile phone off in a secure locker that allows you to charge the phone while you shop? Unlikely that these are needed. Admittedly it is frustrating when mobile phones lose their battery power and the owners are left with a feeling synonymous with that of losing a limb, but it is not a vital component to the experience.

As for the customer services department offering a collection of tablets that allow customers to browse the internet, including which shops have which offers available is surely a step too far. Isn’t the point of shopping in a shopping centre to navigate the businesses in some sort of order and find out what is available and where? Offering customers the ability to visit the customer services department and browse the shops virtually, defeats the object of building a shopping centre.

The other services generally provided are general visitor information including travel information – useful but surely if customers have managed to arrive at the destination they have a plan for getting home again – ‘shop and drop’ which allows customers to deposit their purchases and collect them later – granted very useful if you decide to visit the cinema or food court and finally free Wi-Fi, only necessary for those using their fingers as opposed to feet to shop.

The world has gone mad. Internet mad no less.

For more information on customer services or just the mad, mad world we live in have a look at our blog posts. Or, if you want to jump on the band wagon and have a tablet as well, contact Samsung and speak to their helpful and friendly customer services department.