What happened to good service?

Is it just me or does good service just not exist anymore in Alberta? It seems like everywhere you go poor service crops up. Good service is non-existent, average service would be nice to have, but poor to bad service really reigns supreme right now. Why is that?

I have a couple of theories. I think the economic climate in Alberta has had an influence on service standards. Jobs are plentiful. It seems like there are shortages of staff everywhere you turn. Gas stations are closing because they can’t find people to work the shifts they need. Restaurants can’t find cooks and so they are closing earlier and earlier at night. Stores are practically devoid of anyone you might want to ask a question of. God forbid you walk down any aisle in Home Depot trying to find someone to ask about the type of fitting you need for your bathroom shower fixtures. When you do find someone, you get a very curt reply or you are told that he doesn’t know. Normally the person would make a best guess… or if you are really lucky, they would take you to someone actually knows what you want.

The reason I think the number of jobs has an effect, is because employees know that if they don’t like their job they can always go find another one. There is no incentive to do a good job if another one is waiting around the corner. Many times employees just walk off the job if they are not happy and don’t even bother to give notice. If the employer asks their staff to smile, be courteous or go out of their way to help someone, it is often too much to ask of the staff member who is just there till the next best thing comes along. Employers have a hard enough time finding staff, that a lot of stuff slides that would normally incur a reprimand.

Of course that’s not to say that all the burden of poor service rests solely on the employee. Many employers are so short staffed that the employees that they do have are asked to do way more than is reasonable. Staff are asked to pull an evening shift one night, then the morning shift on the back of it. Barely 8 hours between shifts. A place that requires 10 people to run smoothly is getting by on 6 and a ½. Duties are piled on top of one another and so it makes it difficult for an employee to go above and beyond and do anything extra at all. The dedicated staff can barely keep up to the bare minimum requirements and still manage a smile. So of course when a better paying job comes along, they jump on it. Especially if the duties and shifts are more to their liking. The customer is the one that suffers though.

With these two factors weighing heavily on the quality of service, it is no wonder that employers feel gouged trying to keep up to the demands of higher and higher wages just to keep staff. Of course it’s harder to instill good values and work ethic into new workers that know they can move from one job to the next with no consequences either. When does this finally reach a peak and begin to equalize? That is a good question. A downturn in the economy will most likely help to balance this out. Less money, more businesses close, and less need for staff will start to correct this problem. Of course the economy can continue to grow, but we still need the people to staff the positions. With enough staff the balance can be maintained as well. People are willing to move to Calgary for a job, but if it doesn’t pay enough, how will they find affordable housing? Or affordable transportation? Or affordable living expenses. It’s a vicious circle.

What I do know is this: If businesses continue to provide poor service it will hurt them in the long run. Loyal customers will abandon them and when things start to normalize these businesses will regret not taking better care of the public. In the end, the customer always wins.