Is there any actual benefit of being rude, abusive towards any staff?

17 year olds don't typically attend university.

I agree @Maverickess. And the only time most people see how little customer service assistants are paid is when their 17 yr old needs a part time job at uni. Beyond that they don't care. But they expect 5 star service.

Attention, validation, superiority.

Service jobs are usually low paid, and that means a distinct lack of respect in society. Any thread on here about low wages will have the usual suspects talking about lack of initiative, people being lazy and how those jobs should be for students, the retired or those who just want a few extra quid, and no one should be in a minimum wage job long term. In other words, not important.
Yet when in receipt of these services they want fantastic service. They want someone enthusiastic and knowledgeable, they want someone engaged and to give them a great experience. Suddenly customer service is very important then.

I also think some people really resent that they rely on those in customer facing roles.

Society needs a dog to kick and customer service workers are it.

@Mokel
Supermarket workers are the forgotten heroes of the pandemic. They got thanked for working through it.

Unfortunately I believe the lockdown created extreme rudeness on both sides of the counter in some people. The standard of customer service in a lot of places now falls far short of what it should be. I watched some staff become power mad with customers. We had a lady employee in our local tesco who became a bit of a celebrity with her mad behaviour in an often empty store.

Absolutely this.

As a previous LA employee and now a similar field, I always said the ones you don't hear from are the ones (generally) most in need. The people who yell get everyone bending to them.

@CynicalSunni...I'm a Receptionist and there are a couple of managers where I work who deal with unwanted sales calls by asking them to "call back another time", being sales people that's exactly what they do..again...and again ...and again...each time they do I get "take a message" or "tell him/her I'm not here"...if they were just firm in the first instance, told them they weren't interested and asked them not to call again, the time saved would be be immense, then again it would cut my calls in half and I'd probably be out of a job.

I'm in hospitality, but I have worked retail.
I refuse to be spoken to like crap from customers. I walk away now.

During Covid we were screamed at and threatened with violence regularly and I only work in a coffee shop.

I had a customer wanting to fight me because I was in charge ffs.

That’s crazy that all the supervisors -who were probably paid more - declined the call but it’s good you were able to solve the problem!

I once worked in a call centre that provided basic reception cover for a variety of companies. You weren’t allowed to hang up on anyone, even if being abused or you’d get fired! That was the policy.

I had this woman shout lots of violent gruesome threatening abuse down the phone and I just put the volume right down so I couldn’t hear her and she eventually got frustrated at my lack of response then hung up. She called back and asked for “Stella” she’d actually misheard my name and the guy across from me who had answered just said there’s no Stella here then she hung up in anger. It’s bizarre how she had came back for round two!

Same call centre - had a guy scream “you white bitch” and then make a super high ear piercing sound with something . I did hang up on that one because I was concerned for my ear health. I lasted 6 weeks in that awful job.

Agree that the services are not designed to work. Scottish power had awful outdated IT systems which led to a lot of billing issues , which financially devastated a lot of customers. So you just had to know what you were doing to resolve issues as best as you could.

I work in retail. I'm paid just above minimum wage. The bosses who decide on policy/prices/standards, don't ask my opinion, funnily enough. Yet customers still berate me for not having what they want/charging for bags/the toilets being closed.
Most people are absolutely fine, its the arseholes you always remember.. i make sure i don't find the size/colour/item someone is looking for when they are rude to me. I'll stand in the stockroom for a minute or 2 on my phone and not bother looking, then tell the person we don't have it.
It takes nothing to be civil to sales assistants. I go out my way to help anyone who has basic manners, (please/thank you) and who doesn't talk at me like I'm an idiot. In other words, normal people who just need help, not there to try to belittle you.

Prefacing this with I absolutely hate this. I have only walked out of one job on the spot and that was where I was dealing with an abusive customer who requested the manager. I was in the right but the manager sided with the customer and gave them a refund for a non-refundable item just to make them go away. If that company were happy for me to receive 10 minutes of abuse and then not follow through on the policies I was forced to enforce then they didn’t deserve my time.

To try and see it from the other side though, I think that so many ‘customer service’ rules are frustrating to the law abiding because they are put in to deal with the lowest common denominator. If pricks didn’t try and scam companies with fake claims, refunds for items they nicked etc then as a ‘normal’ person there wouldn’t be so many ridiculous hoops to jump through. Even the most reasonable people can quite quickly become unreasonable when you are constantly viewed with suspicion or feeling like the initial view is that you are a scammer and having quite a stressful time to prove that you aren’t. I can sort of see why companies put all these things in, but for the average person with an issue if you treat them like someone on the rob then don’t expect them to react all sweetness and light.

Everyone’s frustrations should be with the company, but as a company big boss I bet they would rather that their frontline staff got spoken to badly by frustrated/angry law abiding people than they gave money away to anyone so we are where we are.

Like a lot of things we have here (see also, some of the pointless H&S rules and regs) if we could just rid the country of thicko thieving scum ‘where there’s a blame there’s a claim’ types who lack any personal responsibility for their actions I imagine all levels of customer service would improve!

A lot of customer service is very poor these days. It is also very hard to get things done and actually speak to a person.

This correlates with more and more angry customers.

I don't agree that people need to rude to staff to get things down ne but companies need to recognise there is a direct link and try to improve processes and staff numbers to help. While the shareholders are happy and the CEO is earning his ££££ bonus nothing will change.

Some managers. I would always support my staff where person was clearly unreasonable.

I worked in an industry with an ombudsman, £500 fee for us if any complaint went to them - whether it was found to have any merit or not. Also went into our published stats. Irate customers got offered the world on a plate not to go to ombudsman

It's a shame your company takes that approach. It's not common in complaints functions ime.

I'm in a similar industry and our internal process is very explicitly that the Ombudsman fee should play no part in decision making. And it's stuck to religiously and reinforced often among frontline staff.

I can remember going to a chain pub for food. Someone sent their order to the wrong pub and then phoned up to scream at the manager. All the nearby customers were listening in to her telling her coworker and offered sympathetic comments when she was going about her tasks, collecting glasses and the likes. Customer then turns up at the pub and starts giving grief again, customers all turned to face him and gave him that look. You could tell we were all thinking you absolute tool. He got his refund though by stamping his feet. I was dying to stick my leg out when he walked past to leave.

I work in retail. Worked for an essential retailer during covid. Dealing with the public is a mixed bag. If someone is being rude to me I can usually just repeat what they say back to them, for example so your saying.... This usually makes people realise they are behaving irrationally. But sometimes you just get someone who comes in looking for confrontation. It has turned me into a cynical person sadly. I do get some really lovely customers though.

I work in supermarket retail and we always say that everyone should be made to do a year working in a shop like National Service, before they are allowed to go out into the world. It would give them one hell of an insight into just what goes on behind the scenes; how understaffed and inadequately resourced most shops are and how things work.
Also, it might stop the general public behaving as though all shop workers are thick and are only working in a shop because it's the only place they are qualified for. I, and many of my co workers, have degrees and are doing shop work because it fits hours-wise with the rest of our lives!

The number of teens or young people using “minimum wage” as an insult, eg shouting at retails staff, “ok minimum wage”. Disrespect and rudeness seems to be on the increase. None of which butter no parsnips.

I work in customer service in a call centre and it constantly amazes me quite how unpleasant some people are. Personally, when someone starts being rude/abusive, I shut down. I do the bare minimum I have to do for them but that's it. I become very polite but short. I will never go out of my way or make any special effort for these people. For people who are respectful, I will always do whatever I can to help resolve their issue.
My bosses definitely care more about customer satisfaction than their staff and by doing this I'm doing nothing that they can pull me up on, but I know that 9 times out of 10 I probably could've helped them further if they hadn't been so vile. You reap what you sow.

From my experience, working in a different sector is that employers would benefit more so by being respectful and appreciative towards their workforce.
Pissing around with their pay , being hostile and forgetting they are hard working human beings has a direct effect on productivity,loyalty and reliability ! Its a no brainer.

The only time I’ve seen it work was in a hospital waiting room when had the mum not had a go at reception her child might have died. They brought him in limp and unconscious and the evil bitch at reception still tried to make them wait in the queue

I get told regularly how awful my customer service is
It isn't, it's that we don't have an appointment tomorrow or can't do something ridiculous that they want. I offer other options which they declined
I'm fed up of being sworn at, told how shit I am, the sarcasm, the refusal to answer anything I have to ask. Calls are recorded and if I don't follow the questions I HAVE to ask then I could end up losing my job

People would rather argue for 10 mins than confirm their email address
I'm always polite and professional but I will tell people to stop swearing/stop speaking to me like I'm a child or a piece of crap on their shoe

This isn't a company they are tied to or have a contract with, they could go anywhere else if they're so fed up of us but they won't. It is so much worse since Covid

A few years back I was going through a divorce and my mental health was in a bad place. I am ashamed to say that I was rude, shouty and overly emotional with customer service people.

Unfortunately I think that approach got me further than I would get now by being politely assertive. Compensation offers were more generous, solutions were reached more quickly, etc

I'm generally with the more flies with honey approach.

Two exceptions:

Our GP receptionists that are breathtakingly rude on the phone. To counter this I now present myself at their counter to make appointments. Without the benefit of a phone they are unable to be so rude and unhelpful.

The man at our local station who is so unpleasant to kids that aren't doing anything at all wrong. I use my journey time to send south Eastern customer service emails if complaint.

Of course there is zero benefit to it, it makes people less likely to help you and making everything more difficult all around plus you risk refusal to serve you.

Unfortunately it's often the complete opposite @Lavender14.

Generally speaking, if you're rude enough, you'll get passed onto a manager who will then do whatever they can to just get rid of you - and normally that means giving you whatever you're asking for just to shut you up and stop you creating a scene.

I saw it happen so, so many times when I was in retail - some poor retail assistant would take a massive bollocking, get their manager (as per their training), only for the manager to turn around and say "Oh, I'm so sorry madam, of course we can do that for you".

It's bullshit and sets both the customer and the assistant up to fail.

I think if you’ve worked in customer service yourself, not only do you empathise more with the people you’re talking to, but you’re also in a better position to judge when someone is actually doing their job badly and causing the problem or making it worse.