Customer Service

After waiting fifteen minutes for my coffee this morning and seeing several who had ordered after more pick-up theirs, I asked if there was an issue. The staff member couldn’t find the order, said there was a computer glitch and said they’d get onto it.

There was no computer glitch. The staff were busy talking to each other and busy talking to customers they knew. They were not consistent in pulling order dockets and racking them up on the coffee machine.

The computer glitch was a staff glitch. They lied thinking I’d believe their story.

They quickly made a coffee. I’d ordered a medium size flat white. They gave me a small flat white. I told them I couldn’t wait while they got the order right. They offered me a free slice of banana bread. I hate banana bread.

At an airline lounge desk a couple of days ago I asked about the possibility of getting on and earlier flight. Sorry, they’re all full was the immediate response. Would you mind seeing if everyone has checked in I asked. I can but I know they are all full was the response as they turned to continue a conversation with a colleague. I stood there and waited for the staff member to see me again. I’d really appreciate you checking I said when they noticed me again. Oh look, there is a seat on the next flight someone mustn’t have checked in. They switched me over and I was able to fly an hour earlier.

What the airline staff member did not know is that I pay for an app that provides loadings on flights. I knew they had an empty seat.

While the staff members directly involved the two situations described here are to blame for what I experienced (or, didn’t experience), the businesses themselves have a responsibility as they set the goals, create the customer service processes and oversee these.

Each experience dilutes my trust is what I am told in a customer service situation. While it may be unfair to apply this to all customer service experiences, it’s what we do I think.

In 2025, customers have more power than ever thanks to review platforms. A bad word about a business can be spread faster and wider than ever before. There are some who make trash-talking a business their mission.

I think it’s vital we note for ourselves and for our team members the importance of every customer service interaction. It’s important we have easy to follow guidelines on customer service interaction:

• Be aware of all customers.
• Be friendly while remaining focussed on the work.
• Treat everyone equally.
• If someone asks a question, respond from facts you can proive, not what you think.
• Always be truthful, even it exposes a mistake we made.
• Apologise if we made a mistake and offer a make-good if possible.
• Good customer service does not require us to be best friends.
• Customers can be wrong. Letting them know this required delicate mastery.

Plenty of big businesses get a free pass because of how much they advertise, that customers expect p0oor service and their prices.

For many local small business retailers, customer service is all we have that differentiates our business. It is vital that we approach it knowing this.

While I’ll fly on the airline again, I’ll reframe my question about flying earlier if the situation arises. I’m going to bypass the coffee shop for a while. Where I live I am spoilt for choice when it comes to coffee. All it took for me to skip today’s coffee shop is one bad experience.

I spent more than an hour on hold for Suncorp this week for an issue that they resolved with a flick of a switch at their end in seconds.

In my experience, this is common customer service from Suncorp.

It surprises me that retailers fall for the Suncorp deal pitches for EFTPOS business because the moment you have one question, your costs shoot through the roof in wasted time.

Australian banks need to do getter at customer service.

The customer service from the team at Afterpay Touch over the last week has been dreadful. While they fell victim to problems caused by updates to windows by Microsoft, the communication from Touch has been slow coming and inadequate in content. This has pushed newsagents to others for help that should have come from the company itself.

Like so many big suppliers to our channel, Afterpay Touch has not provided care small business retailers as it should.

The New Daily has the story: theft is estimated to cost Australian retailers $4.5 billion a year.

Self service has not been quite the gain the big retailers expected. Wow.

Retail is about customer service. Good customer service is a human-based function.

I left my laptop computer in the seat pocket of my Adelaide to Melbourne flight on Sunday this week. I am 100% to blame for this mistake.

I did not realise I had done this until I got home mid afternoon.

This is a big deal as my laptop is my workplace. It has all my files, my calendar, my task management and plenty of apps on which I rely in business and personally.

Immediately on realising what I had done I called Qantas at Melbourne airport. The laptop had not been handed in at baggage services. By the time I called, the aircraft had flown to Sydney and then left for Perth.

The Sydney lost baggage process is different to Melbourne. I was told it could be a day or two before the laptop made its way to lost baggage.

When the aircraft arrived in Perth, a Qantas team member personally boarded and checked the seat back pocket. The laptop was not there.

At each check they made, Qantas staff contacted me and kept me updated.

The collective wisdom from Qantas folk was that it would be in Sydney and I should hear from Qantas since they found i.

Sure enough, that is what happened. A Qantas staffer called Tuesday morning with the news.

On Tuesday I picked my laptop up from Sydney baggage services. The laptop was in perfect condition. It had not been opened – I know for sure because of the security facility I had installed and from the remote monitoring I had in place.

As best I can work out, Qantas staff spent at least four or five hours on this for me, without charge and without mocking me for leaving the valuable laptop in the seat pocket on the aircraft.

What I love about the experience is the regular communication from Qantas staff, their adhering to the timeline they advised in each contact with them and that they did not judge me – even though this was 100% my fault. Their communication on Sunday is what had me trusting them and their processes. It made waiting on Monday bearable.

The Qantas customer service was flawless.

Footnote: My 5pm Sunday I realised I needed a new laptop as being within mine on Monday was not an option as I had a crazy week ahead. I went to Apple at Chadstone, bought a new MacBook and thanks to a SSD backup and my iCloud backup was 100% up and running late that night. The experience was a reminder of the value of cloud based backup.

While Telstra appears to have been of little help to small business owners I have spoken with during the current outage, some banks have been equally unhelpful in restoring access to EFTPOS processing. One bank outright stated that their EFTPOS terminal would not work until Telstra was back on, the retailer was soon up and running thanks to connecting through a 4G dongle and a router that was fit for purpose.

Sometimes having access to good technical advice is more important than short-term better rates.

Walmart helps banana shoppers choose bananas that are safe to eat based on the colour of the bananas. My first reaction was who needs this and then I realised that regardless of whether I need it or not, it is a customer service that costs Walmart little yet puts them in a good light.

This made we think of opportunities in newsagencies for demystifying things we sell. Officeworks is doing some of this in the stationery space already.

I had contact with IPS management yesterday about why they were closed after 3pm. Looking at a year of call data they found that less than five calls a week come in after 3pm. They decided to cut hours and thereby reduce labour costs.

The only reason I discovered this is because a newsagent complained to me. While I understand labour is a high cost to any business, customer service is important, especially when it comes to niche magazine titles only available in newsagencies.

One way any company can reduce labour hours is to improve online services, to enable those who might call to resolve any issue online through a smart website. This is something IPS ought to act on.

According to the ABS close to 3% of people living in Australia are from New Zealand. Today and this week is the time to congratulate them on their gutsy Rugby World Cup win.

On a Qantas flight on last Thursday morning after the meal service the flight attendants came through the cabin giving each passenger a Lindt Easter bunny. It was unexpected. People were thrilled – some even talked to the person next to them to whom they had not spoken all the flight. The experience reminded me of the value of delivering unexpected good customer service. It can be the simplest of things that delight the most.

This video published on YouTube about a shopper experience is a reminder to all retailers that this is the era of the customer. Thanks to social media ad other online platforms, customers have never had such a loud and accessible voice. Whether you agree with Angela’s rant or not, the video makes for compelling viewing. Warning: there is some rough language.