Chapter 6. The Customer Zone

One day, my wife and I went to a local electronics superstore (that shall remain nameless) to resolve a problem with our credit statement. After waiting in line for about 30 minutes, we finally got to the service desk. The young lady at the desk listened patiently as my wife explained the problem, typed a few commands into her terminal, and then informed us without a trace of sarcasm, “We're just the customer service department—we can't help you here.”

Her manager overheard this exchange and whisked her off to perform some pressing function in the back room. After some further discussion, we eventually resolved our problem. Every business relies on the patronage of its customers. Making sure that customers can get ...

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