Inconvenient, convenience

Maybe we get a little too comfortable with the words that encompass the idea of "customer service" in our personal and professional lives. Customer service to me has stemmed from an uncomfortable and frustrating place not too long ago and has over time through the innovative entrepreneurial mindfulness become an idea that along with the product or service the customer's needs and expectations should be not only met but exceeded. But, I am starting to wonder if some companies provide such good customer service that our expectations set a bar too high and we become disappointed when others don't even come close to reaching it.
How are some companies still missing the mark? How can intentions be so good but they fall short every time?

Take the idea of the convenience store. Some stores have become even more convenient to offer delivery of their products. Recently I ordered a prescription online from a convenience store with a new shipping feature. The prescription needed to start on a specific day so I ordered it a week in advance thinking that would be enough time. This monthly prescription refill can be tedious to remember and with this new service the prescription is shipped right to my mailbox and requires no thought on my end other than to open the mailbox door. Genius! Very satisfied with this new-found service I went about my week and let the delivery Gods work their magic. Until Friday. I get a notice that the order had just been processed. What? 5 days to process an online order? This is medication -- is there no urgency when it comes to medication? I have been shipped business cards in less time. I figure it must be coming by Saturday and keep my fingers crossed. Till Saturday. No delivery and now I start to get nervous. How could I have relied on this company? I should have just ducked into the one of the corner stores on every other block and just had them refilled. How could I be so reliant? So lazy? So trusting? Monday rolled around and I tried to see where my order was. Still processing. Now it had been a week. Mind you if I was waiting on a back-order of a lamp shade I may have been much more patient but in this time of technology even the slowest of slow still should have shipped this product.

I go online and try to switch my delivery method to pick up. Looks like it worked but I didn't get a confirmation. By noon I walked to the end of the block (which I could have done a week ago) and try to explain the situation to the pharmacist. He has no affiliation but he could either fill my prescription at full cost or could call customer service for me and would I like to stop by later to see what they said? Now I am getting irritated. No, I will call myself. I have been far too reliant on others already. I call customer service in a panic. Now I am going on 2 days late starting my prescription. When I finally get through I explain my situation to find out, where is my order? After, she tells me it just went through on Friday so I explain again. She doesn't know what happened but would I hold and she will look into it. Looking into it meant making me wait for 5 minutes only to be greeted by someone else who would let me know it just got processed on Friday (and with unspoken words that I was being impatient). After some pieced-together sentences about their distribution chain I asked her to please cancel the order so that I could have it filled at the store I was currently waiting outside of with bulging eyes. No problem. Have the pharmacist refresh the system and it can be filled with your insurance company. Ugh. Now I am back to where I could have been one week prior. At the store, ordering my prescription in person minus the convenient service of the convenience store. After the Pharmacist and I exchanged some glances (something like he, "I hope you never place a refill while I am working again" and me, "I hope you are never working again when I refill a prescription" I waited 15 minutes while I roamed the store, bought items I didn't need and was on my way. No matter what they had won and I felt defeated. I put my faith in a business that I thought would follow through and they dropped the ball.

When it comes to expectations, are we expecting too much?