The last few weeks I’ve noticed a load of customer service wearing earphones at work. This isn’t just when they’re stacking shelves but also when serving customers. It seems to be the knew trend, especially with younger staff.
From bus conductors through to the staff at the convenience store in my condo I’ve seen the earphone creep in recently and not be removed when dealing with customers. It’s left me a bit bemused. I mean I’m not going to have a conversation with them but it seems a little rude. However, maybe it’s just one of those things I’ll have to live with.
From The Other Side
I used to work in Tesco when I was 18 stacking shelves and working behind the counter. When a customer came to pay and was either on the phone, or had headphones in, it really used to piss me off. I would talk really quietly to force them to end their call or take off their headphones. It just seemed like common courtesy to me.
I see so many customers here in Thailand with headphones in or take calls when dealing with customer service staff. To be honest most customers don’t even acknowledge or say thanks to the staff behind the tills here. I can understand why some staff members are now copying their customers and wearing earphones whilst serving. I mean it’s not as if it’s stopping a conversation right? I already covered the issue of poor manners from customers in a different article but it’s an interesting point whether the staff should bother being polite back to rude customers.
A Foreigner’s Issue?
Maybe it’s the customer service training from Tesco kicking in but I feel like wearing earphones whilst serving staff isn’t acceptable. There are bigger issues in life for sure and perhaps it’s just the moaning expat in me coming out and feeling a bit angry.
Many of my Thai friends are amazingly polite but rarely say thank you to customer service staff in restaurants, supermarkets and other shops. It leaves me feeling awkward but it seems the norm here in Thailand. On the flip side customers here probably don’t care what customer service staff do as they aren’t really paying attention anyway.
Sometimes my “thank you’s” after being served are met with surprise, other times the staff member is already back on their phone (if they put it down to serve me that is!)
Service With An Earphone
Service with an earphone probably isn’t going away any time soon. Imagine if companies banned staff from taking their phones into work to prevent this issue, there’d be riots in the streets!
I’ll keep saying thank you to customer service staff but they probably wont hear me anyway….
