Green Prepay Petrol Monsters
Our first real stop toward the North was near Wairakei whereupon I met the green prepay petrol monsters that are BP Service stations (we were to meet a number of them along the way). You know I have this thing about customer service right, well this was so awful, why because it REALLY was!
The tension when you pulled into the service station was quite pulpable. The first thing you notice is the lack of court staff and given that it was a Public Holiday (Labour Day Weekend) you could be forgiven for thinking that the place was just humming! Well, it was but there were more than a few bees in the bonnet when we scratched the surface.
The signage was poor. Customers had to guess or in sheer desperation ask each other how you got petrol and that’s when things got a little thermal! Wairakei hot under the collar thermal. The lines were back to the door with people prepaying then returning to the petrol pump to get their gas. The process was cumbersome but if the petrol heads wanted to minimise drive aways why not simply put in EFTPOS at the pump. It’s not rocket science!
I thought the customers were particularly patient, even chatting among ourselves. Great customer service is really quite simple. Do the business! Service, service, service. This is an indisputable fact of working in a service industry, staff are there to serve and in as much is humanly possible with a smile on the dial.
I waited until the line was reduced to just two people, my sister and me. All I wanted was an ice-block. The woman behind the counter was a Manager, she managed to get my all time lowest rating for customer service in all the countries I’ve travelled in! She got a 1, she deserved it!
Not only was she rude because she made me wait longer than I considered acceptable and without so much as a single ‘I won’t be a moment’ show of common courtesy. When she took my money she slammed (you read right!) my change back in my hand as if I’d been the cause of all her hassles. In fact it was a computer glitch in one of her terminals.
People like that woman give good service providers a bad name. People like that woman shouldn’t be in the kitchen if they can’t stand the heat. So here’s my advice to you, avoid the BP Service station at Wairakei and fill up in Taupo, the lake views are to die for and the service, well, is so much better and I know because we did on the return trip.
Green prepay monsters are one thing but monstrous behaviour on this occasion was totally unacceptable, Never accept it and make sure you fill in the Customer Service Evaluations, good paying customers ALWAYS have a choice, always.
