Is good customer service appreciated?

Maybe it's the economy or maybe it's the threat of losing one's job or maybe people are just cranky. It seems like good customer service is being ignored.

I'm a volunteer camp host at a CA state park. My job is to make the camping or fishing experience here the best it can be. From the time a visitor arrives at the kiosk until they drive out of the park, that experience should entice the visitor to return, perhaps with family and friends.

The state of California is in trouble. Our budget shortfall is in numbers so astronomical, I can't even begin to visualize it. Government offices are closed on Fridays. State income tax refunds will be IOUs. State workers must take two unpaid leave days per month. It's rough going and may continue for months.

One of the problems we've encountered has been a delay in the shipment of the state park annual passes. Visitors who want to purchase the passes cannot and must pay to enter the park. They're angry and frustrated. I understand that and offer the website for a faster receipt. The passes are shipped the same day and folks can have them in their hands within a couple of days. I apologize and explain the problem and solution.

So far this week, I've been called a Nazi, ignorant, stupid, and "not being very helpful" because I wouldn't issue a receipt so the visitor could present it after receiving the pass and get a refund. I'm not talking about a trillion-dollar item: it's $6. For the fishermen, the day use fee with fishing is $11. That allows you to launch your boat, park your vehicle, fish all day and night, and leave by 10 am the following day.

Two women, one following the other in her car, came to the kiosk and asked where she could let her dog run loose. I smiled, apologized and said that dogs were not permitted to be off leash in the state parks. "Well, that's stupid! Where can my dog run?" I told her I didn't know of any place nearby (true). She snapped, "Well, don't you think you'd better find out?" Then she sped through the stop sign, made a U-turn and went out the other side. The second car pulled up and the woman said, "I'm with her." She repeated the other woman's actions and went out the other side at about 25 miles an hour. Um. OK.

A man was in the day use area which is open daily from sunrise to sundown. It was dark so the host said, "I'm sorry but I need to close the gate. This area of the park is closed." He said, "Too bad. I'm staying." She replied, "I can't close the gate with you inside. You don't want the ranger to give you a ticket." His response? "There's no ranger on duty and it's not worth calling the sheriff." That was true, although we have no idea how he knew there was no ranger. She walked away and sat in her RV. After 20 minutes, he went to his car and drove out the gate peeling rubber at the entrance.

Whenever I'm out of the park dealing with folks at the gas station, grocery store or other service places, I find a hit-or-miss reception. My usual greeting is "Hi. How are you?" I wait for a response and listen. I make eye contact if I can and I smile. I want the persons serving me to remember that someone was nice, asked about their health, and actually looked at them. I'm not a transaction or an interruption. Most of the time, it works. Sometimes it doesn't, no matter how charming I try to be.

Have you noticed this lack of appreciation?

Random Spam Thoughts

As a forum administrator, I receive a great deal of email, much of it accompanied by spam. Some days, I would dump 200-300 emails. None of them would reach my Outlook folders because I have filters through several software programs. It was a pain to delete them: I needed to check them all for an occasional valid email that would be sent to the spam folder. Every time there was an upgrade, the filters would "forget" and select a good message to file with the junk.

I have five email addresses and have been scratching my head about what to do. Then I found a solution: I went to the account that sent the most spam (now an unsupported webmail service). The list had been sold to pretty much everyone and my filter would report the origin of the forwarded email. Before I tracked down the webmaster to close the account, I forwarded the email to the Yahoo account I had set up years ago so I could read postings from the various groups I belong to. I never check my email on that account so there are probably thousands of messages from spammers waiting to hear from me (and my inbox is probably full. Drat).

Yesterday, I awakened to 129 overnight spam emails and deleted another 177 before logging off for the night. Today, I have had 22.

A friend I worked with in IT for a telebusiness corporation had a great method of handling spam. He figured out how to forward spam from one sender to another and remove his IP address to remain undetected. He would take a spam message about making money on the 'net and forward it to the person sending a spam message about holding funds for a Nigerian politician. Ukrainian Viagra? Forward the spam to the sender with the hot chicks just waiting to chat. Working from home? Send that to the spammer with the real estate lots with no money down.

I never learned how he did it. I should have brought pizza and Jolt to hang out with him while he taught me. Ah well. At least I found out how to reduce the spam I see.

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I wonder how many of those poor souls sending out spam actually make a living out of doing so. Every day, I delete a dozen or so from the RV Travel and Free Campgrounds forums. Every day, they try another clever way to bypass the protection and every day, I send them careening into cyberspace. That's why you will very seldom see a spam post on either forum. The spammers on the other side of the planet will do their dirty work while I'm asleep (yes, I do occasionally leave the laptop and close my eyes). When I awaken and have had my first cup of coffee so I can at least focus, the first job is to check for spam. That way, when you're drinking your first cup, you can focus on reading and enjoying the forum.

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If any spammer out there in cyberspace is reading this, please let me know how much you're making (ballpark is fine). I would be interested in finding out how lucrative it is.

Now watch me get spammed!