The Food Scout

Admittedly, the above claim is completely subjective and not scientifically based. But I have been traveling extensively across the U.S. for the past 6 months, checking into dozens of hotels, checking out at hundreds of grocery stores and restaurants, and from what I can see, the recession has improved customer service across the board (well, except maybe in Charleston, S.C.).

Not surprisingly, I have a lot of theories about this, and they aren’t necessarily politically correct. Basically, I think that when the economy was humming and everyone was dreaming of being in a better job (and believed they could find one at the drop of a hat), there wasn’t a lot of motivation to go above and beyond. But now, with tourism down and hotels and restaurants less full, and jobs less abundant, I believe that service representatives are smiling more and being more accommodating because 1) companies are struggling and need all the business they can get and 2) employees want to be the one who is retained when and if layoffs occur.

So, meanwhile, the silver lining for me in the recession cloud is that, not only are places less crowded than they were, but better customer service is making me a much happier customer who is leaving places feeling a lot better about having spent my money there than in the past.