Check out the comments on this!

[rose_metal_nz]

Australian site, but verrry interesting read...
http://www.businessday.com.au/small-...s=210#comments

[MoonCat]

Some of the best comments are near the end, where people point out that customer service people are human beings who can make mistakes, too, and it's not the end of the world if you have to wait on hold or your coffee order gets messed up.

Quite a lot of attitude there from people bitching about store employees wanting to leave on time. Oh the horror! I bet the complainers would scream bloody murder if they had to stay late at their jobs. Notice how the commenters often said that they, personally, were perfectly polite, it was the CSR's who were rude with no provocation. Yeah, right...Every time? I doubt it.

[fireheart]

I apologise, not all of us Aussies are like that. -.-

Also, just a quick explanation on the companies:

Vodaphone, Telstra, Optus, Virgin, TPG: All phone companies.
Harvey Norman: Electrical/Furniture outlet. Known for being somewhat overpriced.
Lincraft: Craft/fabric store.
David Jones, Myer: Upscale department stores.
Australia Post: self-explanatory.
ANZ, Commonwealth, NAB, Westpac-banks.
Big W, Kmart, Target-mid-range department stores. (Target sell their own brand clothes, or once in a while, certain "collection" lines. They are usually around $20-$30 more. SOME of their items are quite cute however)
Bunnings-Hardware store.
Officeworks-Stationery Store. (Strangely, there is an OfficeMax somewhere near one of the Officeworks)
Foxtel: Cable Company. (one of at least 2-3)
Woolworths: Supermarket.
Centrelink: The government welfare agency.
Internode: an ISP which provide suprisingly fast data services.


This comment however, gets the best vote from me hands down:

I realise the point of this article and comments is to vent at bad customer service, but I had to stop reading as I started to feel overwhelmed by the out of proportion reactions people have to customer service experiences. The generalisations are amazing, you deal with one or two people and an entire company is suddenly worthless. The problem with most of these complaints are that customers are beginning their interactions with these service companies (Telstra, Origin etc) already pissed off. Despite what they say, there's probably not much the CS representative could do right to make an angry customer feel better. Waiting on hold, a stuffed up coffee order, a missing salesperson. The world is hardly coming to an end over it, and if yours is over these situations, then consider yourself lucky 'bad' customer service is the worst of your problems. Get some perspective. I've had good and bad experiences this year, and take each as an individual experience that I move on from, rather than letting frustration build to the point where months later I'm still bothering to get worked up. People in service jobs are people too, and I think customers forget this. And in case anyone is wondering, no I don't work in this area. But I go into any experience, whether instore or on the phone, with the realisation that nobody's perfect, and even customer service people can make mistakes (god forbid), and be rude and unpleasant. Just like customers can.

Oh and that's not me