the pursuit of excellence

ok, it's been quite a while since blogging. i want to "vent" today about how there seems to be a lack of excellence in society. whether it's a restaurant, a store, or people in general - it seems difficult to find a place that people really care about what they offer in the way of goods or services. quality is lacking in many places and at many times.





restaurants that offer low standards of service; either they don't get the order right, are very slow to fill the order, ring it up wrong, or are just plain rude or snobbish and then offer nothing more than "sorry" with nothing to compensate for your time, gas, inconvenience etc.





now i'm not of the mind that the customer is always right, because we aren't. however, when you order food and it's on the receipt with "no onion" or whatever your particular choice is, and you drive for miles to bring it home and it's still wrong - and so you go without eating it - you return it and all they offer is your money back and/or another sandwich, i have to ask "why would i choose to do business with them again?" what have they done to encourage me that customer satisfaction is their goal and that they would like to keep me as a customer? perhaps...they really don't care if i'm a customer...perhaps it doesn't matter if they lose my particular business. however, they should know that i will most likely let others know and word of mouth will usually spread.





or how about if you're neglected while waiting for your food at a sit down restaurant? it takes literally an hour, even though you requested assistance from a manager(?) who takes nothing off the bill, and just offers excuses with no real reasoning? and then, you take it to the next level (or so you think) and they offer NOTHING to say "i'm sorry, we'd really like you to give us another try, enjoy....on us". or, when you order a steak and it takes 3 times to get it cooked correctly and then nothing is taken off the bill and by then everyone else in your group has finished and you get to take the steak "home" and maybe eat it later. and then there's getting bleach water in you water glass as a beverage, actually taking a drink and swallowing before you realize it, because someone used the wrong pitcher (yes this happened and pretty much all they did was say i'm sorry!! - guess maybe we could have sued, but...)





then there are stores who don't credit your account (charge accts) when you've made a payment and you have to spend 30 plus minutes with numerous people on phone calls to be asked to wait 10 days for it to get cleared up and over 30 days later it still isn't cleared up! and of course there was the whole employee at the store spending 30 minutes talking to some other employee when there were six or seven people in line waiting to check out and then used (allegedly) the wrong register to ring in your payment. Come on...





is it really that parents/teachers/society as a whole have taught no "pursuit of excellence"? or is it that most people know, but really just don't care?





once again, i am not offering a paid endorsement, however, i find that Chick-fil-A generally goes over the top in trying for customer satisfaction. perhaps that's because employees are taught to take to heart that they're there to serve. ("How may I serve you?" "My pleasure.")





Jesus himself, came to serve, and we are to be examples. I know i lose my temper at times (my husband has to pray for me when i get on the phone with these types of situations), but really, it's all too common. less than exemplary has become the standard. whether it's doctor's appts., stores, restaurants, traffic, and so on...excellence or caring about the other person and going the extra mile has become almost non-existent. i really don't like that it is this way. am i alone here or have you noticed it too?