Customer service lost at the Department of Motor Vehicles

Just a personal experience that I wanted to share with our readers. I'm sure we've all had similar experiences, but I was so incensed at the disregard for customers at the Minden DMV office on Monday that I felt it necessary to write an editorial.

My husband is in South Dakota for a month and called me on Saturday to let me know that the license plate on his truck is expiring the end of this month. We didn't receive a renewal notice, so I volunteered to go to the DMV Monday and send him the renewal Ð first mistake.

I arrived at the office on County Road at about 9:30. I took a number and sat down. Feeling rather lucky, as there were only about 20 people inside the office Ð second mistake.

When I first arrived, the gentleman at the front desk was helping a customer. After about 15 minutes with the same customer, I actually started paying attention. He was showing this lady how he could look up all her daughters vehicles as well as hers on his computer screen with no regard for the increased number of people coming in the front door and picking up numbers. After she finally left, instead of going to the next number, this guy sat and looked through some paper work for a couple minutes until a young lady came in and instead of taking a number, went up to his desk and asked where she could take the driving test. Instead of asking her to take a number, he proceeded to go get an application for her and then explain the procedure to her which took another 15 minutes.

The only other clerk "helping" customers had answered the phone and was on a 20-minute phone call with someone explaining what papers they needed to bring in.

In 40 minutes time, these two clerks had only waited on 2 customers. By now, there were about 40 customers in the office. All the chairs were filled and several people were standing. The clerks appeared oblivious to the customers and several people just decided to leave. The gentleman then answered the phone and called out to someone in the back that "Debbie" was on the phone for her. A women came out of the back, said she didn't want to talk to Debbie right now and could he "take a number." This took him several more minutes as he took down a bunch of personal information from the caller.

I finally decided to ask for the manager. I explained that I was the publisher of The Record-Courier and had never seen such poor service and disregard for other people's time in my life. She started making excuses for her clerks, however, I told her what I had observed and she really couldn't explain it. She said she would get a couple more people "out front" immediately. Clerks started coming out of back offices and within a couple minutes, there were several more people to help the customers.

I'm wondering where these people came from and why they couldn't see that all these people were waiting to be helped.

I know that the DMV in Carson City has had complaints about the wait time, but the last time I was in Carson, the DMV was working like a well-oiled machine.

I think the Minden DMV office should be ashamed of their blatant disregard of the people who pay their salaries and need to realize that they would not be able to perform this way in the private sector.

n Janet Geary is publisher of The Record-Courier. Reach her at 782-5121.