Columnist Susan Snyder: Bad service exacts a heavy price

Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2001 | 8:31 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or 259-4082.

I'm sure the woman behind the bagel counter would have recanted if she truly had heard what she said when I told her I wanted to buy 18 bagels.

"OK, but it'll be a few minutes because I have to help our customers first."

And I would be what, a chair?

A couple of readers suggested we talk about the customer service that locals receive in a top tourist town where at least a third of the work force is employed in the service industry.

I've been avoiding it because so many customers can be such poots to deal with, and they probably deserve whatever they do or don't get. I answer my phone. I know your pain.

But in a 24-hour period last week I encountered a bank that carried nothing larger than a $20 bill, a pharmacy without a pharmacist on duty and a "customer service" representative who said Sprint telephone-repair people don't work nights even when your phone is dead.

My completely unscientific and totally visceral conclusion is that we don't need more customer service consultants and seminars. We need a recession and some good old-fashioned fear. People need to be afraid to screw up at work.

A bunch of co-workers recently visited a restaurant named for a speedy little desert bird and waited 20 minutes for the "server" to bring us water and take our order. The dining room wasn't even a third full, and there were three others waiting tables, too. We finally asked the manager for a waiter and some water.

The waiter showed up with the water and a litany of gripes about how busy he was and how his boss was mad at him and how it was our fault for wanting to be served lunch on our lunch hour.

Hope he wasn't making big plans for that tip.

And anyone who frequents $5-a-cup coffee shops has endured waiting until the servers finish whatever personal conversation they're engaged in. I blame the television show "Friends," where the gal who works in the coffee shop never really works. She just wears an apron and gets paid to stand around and talk with her buddies.

The real world doesn't work that way. Leave room for cream.

Even the methods big companies use to make us think they are serving us fall short of the intent. Consider:

"All of our representatives are busy helping other customers. Please stay on the line and your call will be taken in the order in which it was received."

Translation: "Get in line and wait like everybody else, bub."

When someone stumbles I try to remember that everyone has goof-ups. Mine end up in the hands of 40,000 readers, after all. This may be one of them.

We peons of the world generally try to do our best. For instance, each young woman or man answering the phone at Bank of America's office in Florida has been polite, helpful, patient and attentive every time I have called.

The trouble is I have been calling since 1999 trying to obtain a title for a car that has been paid off for two years and quit running in April. Until I receive a title I have a planter that seats four.

Still, the customer service lady last week promised to mail the form I need.

Rushed, even.

Maybe this time she'll rush it to Las Vegas instead of Utah.