Los Angeles customer service bites, or does it? Depends on who you talk to.
According to hundreds of secret shoppers who surveyed 10 major U.S. cities, L.A. was outdone only by the rude capital of the world, New York City, the Los Angeles Daily News reports. Shoppers who participated in the study reported their experiences to Grass Roots Performance Measurement, a company based in the United Kingdom. Grass Roots weighed the comments to calculate a score for various business sectors.
L.A. drugstores bottomed out at 49 out of 100 points. Department stores were not far behind, receiving just 67 points. Anonymous testers did find exceptions, however. Realtors received 97 points while bartenders racked up 88 points.
“What did surprise us was the wide variation of standards in different cities in the U.S.,” said Jane Edwards-Hall, general manager of Grass Roots in the United States. “Some of our cities have a lot of catching up to do.”
L.A. fared much better in a separate study by J.D. Power and Associates in Westlake Village that focused on customer service at department stores. The study compared eight stores in two categories, upscale and midscale, across Atlanta, L.A. and New York.
