Customer Service Experience, Essay Example

About two years ago, I and some of my friends made a trip to New York City (NYC). One of my friends Ada was a Nigerian girl with an upper class background whose father was a senior executive in a major Nigerian oil company. NYC is one of the fashion capitals of the world and it is not unusual for female tourists to shop at retail outlets operated by one of the leading fashion brands. My friend had been wanting a Louis Vuitton bag designed by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami for a long time, thus, we paid visit to the Louis Vuitton store in Manhattan.

All of us friends were dressed casually including my friend Ada and as we entered the shop, the store associates noticed our presence but didn’t pay attention to us. After a while, a European couple entered the shop and drew immediate attention from the store associates. The European couple was dressed up in designer clothing and looked rich. The store associates gave undivided attention to the couple for about half an hour which resulted in a sale of about $1,200. Ada felt she was being judged on the basis of both her skin color as well as her appearance even though the item she planned to purchase cost about $3,500. Even after the European couple left and despite the fact that we had come before the couple, store associates still didn’t come to us to inquire as to what we were looking for. It’s as if they had assumed given our appearance that we didn’t have the purchasing power to afford Louis Vuitton goods. Ada was so disappointed by the treatment she left the store without making any purchase and instead bought a bag from Gucci for about $3,000.

There were many factors that led to bad customer service from the Louis Vuitton store associates. The first factor was probably personal stereotypes of the store associates who may have assumed Ada comes from middle or low-income background, given her race and appearance. The second factor was age since we were all around 20 years of age and the store associates might have assumed we are merely passing time looking around.

The company could have ensured better customer service for everyone by providing diversity training to store associates. NYC is a major tourist spot and people come here from all over the world, thus, appearances can be deceptive. In addition, the store associates could also be provided rules common in other industries such as attending to every customer within a particular period of time and treating everyone with respect.

Service marketing is important because competition has grown intense and service marketing could be used to gain competitive advantage over the competition through differentiation. In addition, income levels have been rising and so have been customer expectations. Customers now do not only care about product but overall product experience.