Sick of customers moaning to shop staff about things beyond our control

Today, the checker bounced over and said "Oh I only need to check 2 things today, that's the lowest I've had". I was perfectly pleasant today.

The company’s representative who gets paid minimum wage! When exactly do we get time to forward all this constant information we’re being moaned about in between doing our job?

In retail it can be non stop from the moment you’re out there, constantly distracted. You will mention to your manager about the issues customers have brought to your attention, but honestly trying to remember every single one is impossible - if you think head office actually listen to most of us at the bottom you’re delusional.
As soon as my shift is over, it’s over, i stop getting paid, I'm not thinking “oh yeah i must make sure I contact head office tomorrow about such and such thing one random customer told me”. It’s our managers job to do that not mine. Unfortunately for the customer, they usually get a better response and action more likely to be taken when they contact head office themselves.

I understand. I am human. If I am going about my day and repeatedly come across things that frustrate me, I will react. I am not going to turn myself into an inert robot.
I don't have the time to complain to head office. I don't care enough. I also think I'll get a "thanks for your email, we take all comments seriously, yadda yadda" and nothing will change.

I worked for the DWP, back in the day, and we were bound by regulations.

Didnt stop “clients” moaning, whining and threatening though. 🙄

They used to do this when I worked at John Lewis a good 30 years ago, the branch top brass would come onto the tills.

They'd cause more of a bloody hindrance than anything

"Big smiles"
"Don't forget receipt in the bag"
"And how are YOU today?"
"Always say Merry Christmas"

Yes i do do this without fuss the remaining 364 days of the year you know...

Also, stop asking me where everything is.

Quite. No one refuses to deal with customers making polite complaints. He was obviously being aggressive for her to walk away. Rather than defend him, pp should have put a rocket up his arse.

The transferring money thing is one of the few things that younger customers are more guilty of. Younger customers are the most polite, in my experience.

I wouldn’t have wanted to serve your DP, either. He sounds unpleasant.

I cannot stop such abuse other than by my own conduct in shops, however something that could be given to make it a very small bit easier would be to close large stores on Boxing Day and New Year's Day in addition to Christmas Day. A bit more of a break for retail staff.

Why didn't the store manager request trolleys? Seems like it's no one's responsibility to do anything any more. Customers find their stuff, scan their stuff, find out (or guess) the price of stuff, pack their stuff, order their own trolleys. And if they don't like it they get to fill in an online form that no one looks at.

Yup!

I'm disabled and my carers currently on holiday. I HAVE to ask for help. I cannot see the detail myself.

I'm sorry if I piss you off. But voters don't want to provide me with a temporary carer as my benefits should apparently be cut. So I'm afraid you'll have to suck it up. Ill be even more annoying when I get no extra help at all. But there's not much I can do about it. Sorry for the shit electorate.

Or they could just accept that the customer is annoyed by something quite annoying and not be a dick back?

Whilst I agree that I have seen some appalling rudeness from customers and no one working in a shop deserves to be treated that way, as a customer I've also been on the receiving end of some pretty rude service from staff in shops (although this is outweighed by the many lovely staff I encounter)

For example, I appreciate you might be in the middle of something but it takes a second to acknowledge a customer and say "I'll be with you in a minute" in M&S I was ignored for over 5 minutes at the currency exchange while two staff faffed over a computer and didn't even bother go acknowledge me. On a weekly basis there will always be till staff who lack manners "That's five pounds" with no please or thank you, sighing if I ask for a bag etc. Or the ones that get shitty with you if you don't want an e receipt or to sign up for a 20% discount.

I think society is becoming much ruder in general.

If you ‘roll your eyes and mutter to yourself’ during a basket check enough to annoy the person checking, they can press a button that says to carry out a basket check again next time.
Best to be nothing but nice.

Tbh I work in healthcare, in tertiary care dentistry, and people are just very frustrated.

No one can access a dentist, they cant get into their GP, they are waiting over a year for surgery, they are in pain, they can't afford private care. They've waited 10hrs in A&E. They're scared. They've seen a million different healthcare professionals who've just fobbed them off

All of these things are frustrating, and I'm the first person they've been able to speak to face to face. Some people are rude and are entitled but most of the time they actually just want acknowledgement of their frustrations

I just direct them best I can to someone that can help and sympathise, and 99% of the time they warm up. If they are just a rude persom they will go away at the end of their appointment and someone nicer will come in 🤷🏼‍♀️

Customer service is part of a people facing job, and part of that is listening to people moan.

It is never on to shout at staff, but staff are the representatives of the company so it’s not unreasonable for feedback to be given to shop floor staff.

And as someone who did a 5 year stint at the start of my career in retail, there is no getting away from how bad customer service is in most shops nowadays.

Why click on the thread then?

Because I wanted to read and comment.

You could just scroll across.

See above.

It’s a public forum where people can discuss what they like.

Yes, but I'm not sure you can see the irony in that ^^, given you've decided to pick on my post discussing what I like.

I hear you OP. Also, for the love of god stop snatching reduced items out of my hands as I’m reducing them. Stop rifling through my trolley looking for items you think Ive hidden from you. My trolley is full of unsalable items that you are not entitled to (broken, OOD, poor quality). The price you pay is the price of that item when you picked it up. It will not be reduced again unless it’s still in the reduction area or it’s on its final reduction.

Last year I had to leave the shop floor to mark down items, as it was a free for all that I couldn’t control.

Happy Christmas. 😁

So many things are wrongly price marked now, it's an issue. Shrugging doesn't fix it.

I agree op.
However you are the face of the company a quick " I understand your concerns and I will feedback to the managers ".

Do you direct frustrated customers to that email address?

I think as a customer, it is reasonable to be frustrated by many of the things mentioned. Obviously as a shop worker you cant do anything about it, but you can direct them to someone that can or at least say you'll feedback to your manager. People just want to be sympathised with

Why click on the thread then? You could just scroll across. It’s a public forum where people can discuss what they like. You don’t have to read or comment on the ones that don’t interest you.

I never understand the arguments that they’ve seen the threads before every year blah blah. That’s practically the whole forum/many of the subsection's But it’s not the same person and quite often not the same people replying.

I work with the public in healthcare and the entitled and rude attitudes have hugely increased in recent years so i can empathise with you completely.

No it’s not a certain demographic it covers all ages and walks of life. Obviously it’s not everyone but those are the people that make everything so much harder and stressful.