The problem is, it’s not likely to be much better across the street. It’s no secret that service is abysmal, a fact confirmed last week by a new University of Michigan survey of customer satisfaction that puts an exclamation point on an unfortunate Econ 101 lesson: as unemployment has fallen to its lowest level in 30 years, it’s tough to find good workers. And that’s why customer satisfaction at fast-food restaurants, retailers, gas stations and banks has fallen to its lowest level since the consumer survey began in 1994. The real burden, though, falls on the frontline managers who not only have to recruit and train workers who aren’t exactly the creamiest of the crop, but also have to tolerate the bad service of their employees or else resume the hunt for new workers. In this overheated business climate, entire staffs can turn over three times in a year, despite $10-an-hour wages. Employees who stick around more than 90 days are often considered old hands. Terry Guth, director of staffing for 7-Eleven convenience stores, has started combing welfare rolls for applicants. Store owners offer new hires up to $12 an hour to serve Slurpees. The war for workers is more fierce than the battle for customers. “We’re all fighting it out for people,” he says.
Recruiters desperately seeking applicants are coming up with new strategies. Target, the big discount chain, installed kiosks in the front of its stores where prospects can fill out a computerized application and be on the job in 24 hours. “Applicants are so scarce, you have to be able to respond quickly,” says vice president Betty Kimbrough. “If we don’t get to your application for a week, you’re probably already working for someone else.” In addition to offering fat paychecks that make a mockery of the $5.15 minimum wage, retailers like Wal-Mart are now extending medical benefits and 401(k) savings plans to part-timers. Home Depot is so anxious to recruit workers it spent millions to launch its first national television help-wanted ad. The commercial, filled with smiling employees who promise that “great careers are built” at Home Depot, got the green light after executives calculated that having too few staffers cost them tens of millions in lost sales. “If you don’t have enough people, that represents lost revenue,” says Cindy Durning, Home Depot’s recruitment vice president. The ad seemed to work. Since it debuted, Home Depot says, applications have quadrupled at some stores.
The luxury of leisurely classroom training for new recruits has all but vanished. Fresh hires at Wal-Mart and McDonald’s no longer spend days locked in the back room watching training videos. Most training comes on the job, and if the rookie needs more he can log on to the computer in the break room. “We used to teach them the history of the potato, but they don’t need all that to make fries,” says Barry Mehrman, McDonald’s director of human resources. Critics say this rush to get inexperienced workers behind the counter explains why service is declining. “You see a lot of trainees these days fumbling at the cash register,” says economist Russ Thibeault of Applied Economic Research in New Hampshire. As quality hires grow scarce, bosses find they must teach the most rudimentary manners. “Some people just don’t want to smile,” says Charles Valluzzo, a McDonald’s franchisee in Baton Rouge, La., who is hiring more workers off welfare. “It’s a challenge to motivate these people. You’ve got to sit there and work with them daily.”
And be awfully forgiving if you want them to stick around. With help-wanted signs papering the windows of stores everywhere, workers hold the power and managers hesitate to reprimand. Arrive late for work or don’t show up at all? Don’t worry, the boss will give you another chance. “If someone was late three times in a row in the past, I might let them go,” says Bill Tarpey, who manages Sunset Foods in Lake Forest, Ill. “Now I think twice. Without bodies, you can’t give good service.” Even dressing down a customer is a forgivable offense. When a cashier at a 7-Eleven in Farmington Hills, Mich., recently snapped at a young woman who balked when asked to show ID to buy alcohol, owner Jim Chatham sent the worker to the back room to cool off. But he never considered firing her. “I’m not going to dump a good employee just because two or three customers had a bad reaction,” says Chatham. “I always back my employees.”
So much for the days when the customer was always right. These days customers had better just bite their tongues. Mary Beltrian discovered that when she complained to the manager of her car wash in Chicago after a worker sprayed bleach on her dashboard. “The manager told me he didn’t get paid enough to deal with it,” says the 36-year-old nurse. A Detroit couple who filed a $100 million lawsuit against McDonald’s last week claim they received even rougher treatment. They allege they were beaten by three Detroit McDonald’s employees after they tried to return a watery milkshake. McDonald’s Detroit marketing manager Vicky Free responded: “This matter is under investigation and litigation, and it’s inappropriate to discuss it further.”
As workers have grown more frustrated with customers, they’ve begun to vent their hostility online. The customerssuck.com site gets 1,200 hits a day. In the anonymity of cyberspace, workers rail about customers’ dumbest questions (“How much is a 99-cent cheeseburger?”) and give their finicky shoppers pet names (“Return Rita,” “Mr. SlowMotion Man”). Quincy, Mass., liquor-store manager George Duncan, 25, started the customerssuck.com site two years ago, giving it the slogan “The customer is never right.” Duncan argues that the booming economy has made consumers arrogant and corporate owners even more greedy. Workers, he contends, are caught in the middle. “Companies still want more profits, even though they are relying on fewer people to do the work,” says Duncan. “It can be a nightmare for the clerk.”
Predictably, not many customers are sympathetic. Los Angeles vending-machine salesman Ruben Nogales fumes about the inept service he’s been getting lately from the trainees running the drive-throughs he frequents for lunch. When Nogales pulled up to the window at a taco joint recently, he was handed the wrong order and his debit card was charged $450 for the lunch. The manager had to get involved to unravel the mess. Nogales vows he’ll never return to that restaurant. “I don’t care how hungry I am,” he huffs. “It’s not worth the aggravation.” With service suffering everywhere, Nogales’s chances of having a happy meal are growing slim. But hey, at least the economy is still booming. So have a nice day.
Graphic: (Graph) Service Sure Isn’t What It Used to Be (Graphic omitted)
