I thought so

In previous posts I have bitched about the quality of customer service out here on the east coast. Perhaps my bitches were a bit broad . . . as the Washington Business Journal has narrowed it down from the entire coast to D.C. and Baltimore. It feels good to know I'm not crazy and that my observations were not merely the result of self-pity.


D.C., Baltimore Score Supreme In Being Slow
Washington Business Journal
by Neil Adler
Staff Reporter

If you are looking to take out money from your local bank, buy groceries, purchase clothes or other consumer items, prepare to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Washington and Baltimore have the ignominious distinction of being the two slowest cities in the United States when it comes to customer service. In a survey by the Mystery Shopping Providers Association, which collected more than 10,000 responses from mystery shoppers throughout North America, Baltimore and Washington had ratings of 5.13 and 4.58, respectively, worst among the cities measured.

What that means is in Baltimore people on average wait 5 minutes, 13 seconds, for their purchase or activity, while in the District it is 4 minutes 58 seconds. On the flip side, those with the top two scores are Phoenix, at 3 minutes 5 seconds, and Portland, Ore., at 3 minutes 30 seconds.

Baltimore also had the worst return ratio, at 77.3 percent. This means that only 77.3 percent of shoppers would return to the same site in Baltimore based on the wait time. D.C., mirroring its slow wait time, came in second worst, at 77.6 percent.