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

Lol, people like you make me laugh! If I said to my manager 'a lady complained today about the price of cigarettes' (real conversation, actually shouted in my face about it), he would roll his eyes and carry on with his day. You seriously think team leaders / managers / owners give a fuck about customer feedback received through shop minions? Best way to complain is via social media, they may actually pay attention to that IF it reaches enough people.

No she wasn’t saying the staff would speak to those people. She was saying the team leader would be aware of frequent complaints their team were getting, and the department leader would hear about the significant ones, and the store manager would hear about the more significant ones of those, and the area manager would hear about the significant ones out of the ones the store manager was aware of. Certainly in the supermarkets I worked in, the store manager was aware of anything that was being frequently raised by customers as an issue. Some of that was for them to fix because it was shop-specific (eg “the toilets are never clean”), and some would be for them to feed further up the chain.

She wasn’t saying the checkout staff were chatting to the area manager about it.

Absolutely. I work for one of the big 4 supermarkets. The higher ups (above my direct managers) don’t give a shit what I have to say, even if it was message passed along from a customer making some good points. I get their frustrations but my colleagues and I can’t do anything but work with what is available to us.

Most of the staff would never speak to these people in a large store. Listen to the people on the thread who actually know what they are talking about.

Um, loads of people? Maybe our personal experiences and those of our friends working in retail differ but a lot of people just want to keep their head down. I would say only about 1/3rd of the people i know would have even met their area manager - i never did, and i worked for a massive chain. And again, if its a big chain, you need to make sure the feedback goes direct to who needs to receive it. A local issue - the store manager. A wider issue - complaints. Otherwise you tell a colleague, who has to make note and tell their team manager, who then tells the store manager, who then tells the area manager, who then has to filter it through to the right department. Often they will end up emailing the same complaints team you would email. Why not just go to the right person to start with? Maybe you are very pleasant in giving feedback but the majority of people get very irate and put all of that shit on the person stood in front of them.
Am I missing a lot of 'got feedback? talk to a staff member' signs up or something, because I only ever see the occasional 'how are we doing? Go online to tell us'?

This. I work in heath care and we get the same. I understand people are frustrated and sometimes I’m the first living person they get to speak to. However, unless it’s bad planning on the shopper in terms of the other issues you are the face of the company and representing the company. You should be feeding this back to your manager as that’s what I do rather than take it personal.

You've never worked in retail quite clearly.

Obviously no one should ever shout or be rude. That’s completely unacceptable. But also no one in any company should have the attitude that they are not responsible for the customer’s experience. Even someone stacking shelves is a representative of the company. It actually causes more frustration if the only humans you can talk to throw their hands up and say it’s nothing to do with them. At the very least you can say ‘I’m sorry about the situation and I’ll pass your feedback on to my boss’.

Do people really do that with the reduced stuff? The cheek of it!!

Who the fuck thinks she is unreasonable?

Yes, people would do well to remember that some people can be very vindictive!

As if someone on the shop floor has the opportunity to do this. Get real.

I'm assuming OP's issues aren't with the people coming in looking to politely give feedback or address concerns, but the people who think it's ok to hurl abuse at shop floor staff because they're too thick to deal with their problems like an adult.

The vast majority of chains have details on the till receipt about how to submit your feedback with loyalty or voucher incentives

Most have social media accounts, some individual stores have their own separate accounts

And virtually every chain has a website with a "Contact Us" button, with telephone numbers, contact forms and a mailing address as options

Shouting at people who are barely above minimum wage and who doing their best for you will get you nowhere

I agree with this.

I’ve worked in several supermarkets, plus a high street shop and of course there is never a justification for shouting or abusive language etc. But I never thought it was unacceptable for someone to raise a complaint with me even if they knew I wasn’t personally responsible.

“Incredibly unlikely”? They never speak to their team leader? Who never speaks to the store manager? Who never speaks to the area manager?

I agree with you a trillion times over. I’m so sick of having people’s shitty moods taken out on me. Yes, we’re understaffed right now and queues are often very long. We can only do what we can do with what and who we have. If company higher ups won’t give us the budget for more staff or more hours the only thing we could do is work for free and I don’t think that’s fair <understatement>

It’s not just retail or even hospitality btw. My baby was admitted to hospital last week and when I said “I’m guessing it’s a long wait for the doctor come see her” (because it was packed with sick children) the nurses were lovely but felt they needed to say how busy they were, which I totally understood. But I’m guessing other patients and their parents and carers gave them shit for things out of their control.

Or...

If its a big company:
Look for a complaints or contact number online, if its a local issue ask to speak to the store manager.

If its a small company: ask how you can contact the manager for feedback.

What's the point in verbally giving feedback to someone, who is incredibly unlikely to have any way of submitting customer feedback up the chain in any way - or am I missing something massive here!

Forget national service. Everyone should work in either retail or hospitality for a few months around the Christmas period to see how awful some customers treat the staff. Maybe then people will be more polite.

Coupons - Then tell your head office to print the coupon expiry date in a font people can actually read instead of in pale grey and 4 point on the reverse.

Feedback !!

One of my jobs is in retail.

The truth is, if you are rude to shop, restaurant, doctors staff etc. you are the one who loses out ultimately.

Do you think restaurant staff won’t not wash their hands, or stick their finger in your food if you are a rude dickhead?

If you are friendly and polite to me when I am at work, I’ll go out of my way to find you what you want, tell you about offers etc. If you are rude, condescending, patronising or other to me, and you want something, I will go out the back, check my phone, do something else for 5 mins then come back and tell you we don’t have it, side head tilt and a I’m sooooo sorry.

You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Always be super polite to people who you need to do something for you.

This. YOU are the company’s representative on the shop floor. You need to be feeding these concerns up the chain. Of course the customer knows that you personally didn’t screw up the bread order, or discontinue their favourite products, or cause the freezer in aisle six to break. But what do you want them to do - drive to the head office and demand to speak to the head buyer?

I was in a fast food place last night waiting for an order and a lady was having a tantrum (and it was a proper foot stamper) at the man behind the till because she couldn't find a few items on the menu of the touchscreen. They had been discontinued. Obviously, the staff member had absolutely no input on the discontinuation decision of said items but she gave him shit for a good ten minutes about it. To be fair, it looked like he tuned out after 30 seconds.
DD works in a clothes retailer and very quickly learned to stop caring about what people said.

I don’t know if they still do it, but it used to be everyone who worked for Waitrose head office had to do some many in store shifts over the Christmas period. Gave extra hands on deck for the busy period and meant they go to hear /see what was going on. I do think all major retail companies should do this. Every board level person for a retail company should work a shift on the tills or man the customer service desk Christmas week.

I think anyone who works in retail at this time of year deserves a medal. If they work in a supermarket, they deserve two medals.