An unwilling customer

The official definition of a customer is as follows -

“A person or entity who willingly buys goods and services from another person or entity.”

Last week I watched a very interesting Cutting Edge documentary on traffic wardens.  The film makers followed a selection of people who had recently arrived in this country and taken a job as a traffic warden in the London Borough of Westminster.

On the limited evidence of this film one thing was very obvious and that is that racism is alive and well on the streets of London.  I cringed as the traffic wardens were called “coon” or “packy” on a frequent basis whilst they went about their jobs.

What interested me more than anything however was the continual referral to members of the public as “customers”.  Taking the above definition of a customer being someone who willingly purchases goods or services from someone else I found the definition of those violating parking regulations as customers to be very funny.

I don’t know about you but I have never willingly entered into the purchasing of a good or service otherwise known as a parking ticket.  It is surely impossible to describe those being fined as customers simply because they are not willingly purchasing goods and services from their friendly local traffic warden.

When given a parking ticket I prefer to think of myself as a “finee” or “one receiving a fine.”  If I am feeling particularly sorry for myself I might think of myself as a victim but I certainly don’t look back and think of myself as a customer.  I have never gone home from receiving a parking ticket and been heard to be eulogising about the excellent customer service I received from my dedicated traffic warden!

There are other examples of situations where you don’t consider yourself to be a customer but you are profiled as one.  One such example might be in your dealings with the Police.

If you are the unfortunate victim of a crime or indeed you are the perpertrator for something like speeding you would be viewed by the Police as a customer.  However, in both of the above instances similarly to the traffic warden you would rather not be a customer and in fact your life would be richer if you had never had the interaction at all.

This presents both the Police and traffic wardens with a huge challenge because none of their so-called customers actually want anything to do with them if they can help it in any way.  However despite the fact that you have an unwilling customer you still do need to serve them to the best of your ability.

This means that traffic wardens and the Police are up against it at all times because it can be enough of a challenge serving customers who are not particularly difficult and are certainly willing to purchase your goods or services.  Imagine the challenge you would face if none of your customers wanted to be your customers and therefore all started off as difficult as their default position.

If you are in customer service imagine what it would be like to pick up the phone or serve a customer face-to-face and have them instantly on the offensive at all times without fail.  Of course we all have difficult customers to deal with however we also have some customers who enjoy doing business with us in some way so there is at least some respite.

It is a necessary evil to have traffic wardens partrolling the area and if you park in the right place and pay the right money then you should have no need to become a “customer” of the wardens.

I actually felt quite sorry for most of the traffic wardens who took part in this documentary as all of their customers were difficult from the word go and when you coupled this with some of the horrendous racism that accompanied this it is a wonder any of them got out of bed to go to work at all.