Get the feedRMV Happiness
Sunday, Jun 14th 2009
I notice customer service so much more as an experienced consumer than I did years ago. Not a day goes by where I don’t have some experience with customer service that’s either very impressive or so bad, I can’t believe people are getting paid real money for the “work” they’re doing. When I walked into the Registry of Motor Vehicles, I expected the latter.
There’s nothing more sterile than a Registry of Motor Vehicles. I had gone years without needing to visit one, but then found myself recently sitting in their hard chairs with my 16 year-old daughter. She was flipping through the MA Driver’s Manual, using her last couple seconds to study before her driver’s permit test. There’s nothing like watching your child procrastinate the exact same way you did when you were that age…but that’s a blog for another day.
We sat facing forward in rows of screwed down chairs. Numbers were called by a woman’s computer-generated voice while red-colored scrolling digital messages hung overhead directing us to the correct service counters. People spoke in hushed tones and nobody looked happy to be there.
Then our number was called. I went with Caitlin around the bend to the farthest service counter where an older gentleman stood behind the desk with a pleasant smile. He was actually more than pleasant. He joked around, did his job efficiently and sent Caitlin off to take her test. When we were back ten minutes later, she was warmly greeted again and boisterously congratulated. He took her picture and let her choose the one she liked. We met his kindness with warm goodbyes and thank yous.
And it was Caitlin who was the first to say with a smile, as we passed the rows of solemn waiting people, “He was sooo nice.”
There’s nothing more sterile than a Registry of Motor Vehicles. I had gone years without needing to visit one, but then found myself recently sitting in their hard chairs with my 16 year-old daughter. She was flipping through the MA Driver’s Manual, using her last couple seconds to study before her driver’s permit test. There’s nothing like watching your child procrastinate the exact same way you did when you were that age…but that’s a blog for another day.
We sat facing forward in rows of screwed down chairs. Numbers were called by a woman’s computer-generated voice while red-colored scrolling digital messages hung overhead directing us to the correct service counters. People spoke in hushed tones and nobody looked happy to be there.
Then our number was called. I went with Caitlin around the bend to the farthest service counter where an older gentleman stood behind the desk with a pleasant smile. He was actually more than pleasant. He joked around, did his job efficiently and sent Caitlin off to take her test. When we were back ten minutes later, she was warmly greeted again and boisterously congratulated. He took her picture and let her choose the one she liked. We met his kindness with warm goodbyes and thank yous.
And it was Caitlin who was the first to say with a smile, as we passed the rows of solemn waiting people, “He was sooo nice.”
Jean Yih Kingston
Jean Kingston, who co-founded SixSeeds, spends many of her waking hours in her SUV hauling carloads of children to various and sundry playing fields across the state of Massachusetts. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
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