Why be friendly?

It's been a while again, and I make no apologies. I never resolved to post an entry every day, or twice a week, or once a month because I don't need the added stress of that responsibility added to my life. Instead, I come here today with a little bit of a rant because I shouldn't feel guilty about letting out some of my frustrations on my private blog that nobody else will read. To do so would be foolish, and I'm tired of calling myself foolish.

So, why be friendly as the title suggests?  I don't mean to ask why we should be kind to others that we interact with on a daily basis.  That should be one of those common sense things that helps prevent fighting and strife, etc., but why do we have a consumerist culture that focuses so much on "friendliness"?  The old motto was, "the customer is always right", but that has been replaced with something else.  Now we simply smother the customer with so much kindness that they forget what it was that they felt like complaining about in the first place.

Anyone in retail can attest to the fact that corporate training focuses on ways to deflate customer issues and on how to deflate customer objections through rationalization and logic.  My question to the world is, why do we try so hard?  The obvious answer is that we don't want to alienate or insult anyone since many people are so fickle that they will change their loyalties on a whim if a customer service person so much as blinks at them in the wrong way.

My argument is that by continuing to coddle customers all of the time that we are making consumers less capable of handling their own issues on a day to day basis.  I've fallen victim to it myself from time to time.  Company X does such a good job of taking care of my issues that when they screw something up, I have no idea how to approach resolving the issue on my own.  As a result, I'm at the mercy of company X and their placating tactics until I'm whittled down to accepting some sort of discount or waiver for my next interaction rather than having my original issue resolved.

Now make no mistake by thinking that I want companies to completely leave their customers out in the rain when it comes to customer service, but companies should promote a certain level of self reliance as well.  And, now I'm tired of writing.  Toodles.