Customer service and the dream of “America”

When I was a boy in Israel-  “AMERICA” was a magical word. Magical on a mythical scale.

Leonard Bernstein’s  refrain from ‘West Side Story” rang so true, that everyone, literally, wanted to “be in America”.
Everything about the US was great! The cars, the movies, the shopping, the music, the landscapes, the size of everything and…… the Service!

Ah, yes, I can very clearly remember those days when you said America, you meant amazing, courteous, personalized, customer friendly service.

People came back from the US and marveled at the most incredible things about the Service, as if it was a creation from outer space: . that you were treated with respect and had a right as a customer to expect it;  that people were always polite, that you could return anything you didn’t like and be greeted with a smile; that people actually cared whether you were satisfied or not; that great customer service was not a by-product or a way of just making more money but part of the culture of the place (or at least it was so sincere that it felt that way). And the hope was that one day, maybe in the far off future, we could be like America.

I am thinking about those days gone by and wondering where it all went. How it got lost in the shuffle, in the money, in the machine.

And thinking that if it was indeed part of the soul of the place – it’s here somewhere. And it will return.