customer service

Customer Service is no longer defined by what the actual words would imply.  America, or rather, Consumerist America, has created a newer, more "advanced," mutated version of the term.  It is a pleasing illusion to think that serving a customer would simply involve an employee of a company acting as a resource in helping a customer find a desired product or service.  In reality, customer service today for most companies aiming at a middle to upper-class demographic, can be easily paralleled to the three part relationship of parent, child and babysitter.  The parent, a promising or well established company such as Starbucks, is dependent on what Starbucks calls, "legendary customer service," to take care of whatever wish the customer, or child, so commands.  Let's imagine for an instant that the customer, or child, is a toddler.  They have learned the basics of how life works.  The parent is in control and the parent decides what the child is allowed to do or not do, have or not have etc.  The toddler has also learned that there are certain powers he or she holds as well.  To take the metaphor even closer, imagine that the parent will do anything to please and reassure the toddler.  The parent and the executive have a new raison d'etre which is the love and approval of a child or customer.  The toddler understands that there are ways to get whatever he or she wants, such as throwing temper tantrums.  Now introduce the babysitter, or the customer service representative; the "partner," as Starbucks calls them.  This person's job is simply to provide for the needs of the toddler while the parent is unable to.  The babysitter, or customer service representative, is only there to make a few bucks.  The catch is that the most effective way for this child to remain happy is for the babysitter to act as if he or she were the parent or an even more easily exploited version there of.  The toddler understands that this person is simply a stand-in, but still needs for this person to provide the service as if he or she has just as much invested in the relationship as their employer.  The customer, by now, is in the know that the employee has been trained to believe that the customer is always right.  Many companies now cleverly add, "even when they are wrong," to the phrase just to make clear the boundaries of what is allowed for a customer to get away with.  Companies want their employees to act as if they were actual partners in the business and will do whatever is necessary to make this seem like a reality.  Companies do this by encouraging the employee to stake personal claims in the business.  This is a fine art and, if done carefully, the employee will gladly do whatever is demanded by the customer and at the end of the day hand over the money they made for the executives with that same blank smile.  Executives come up with different ways of creating this illusion such as offering stock to the employee.  The executives need to allow the business to run itself while they are off looking for more money.  The parents need to go out and trust that their toddler is in good hands.  Basically what happens is that a self perpetuating environment is created for the toddler, or customer, which is solely concerned with pleasing by any means possible.  At places like Starbucks, the employee is taught to do whatever it takes to please a customer as long as it is legal.  As a basic principle, this is a very wise characteristic for a company to have.  There has been a mutation somewhere along the line where executives will do anything, or make somebody do anything, for a buck.  This creates a relationship where the customer has free reign to act however he or she sees fit to get what he or she wants.  It goes without saying that with most companies who are focused on a higher class demographic, the tantrums seem to occur more frequently and are more practiced.  The customer, now free to take this principle and abuse it in whatever way they wish, has redefined the term 'customer service' as a building block of the empire of American middle to upper-class snobbery.