Have you noticed a change in supermarket workers customer service?

[pretzele]

I know they are working really hard at the moment but the past couple of times I have been in the supermarket I've been shocked at how rude the staff are being to customers.

Obviously not all of them.

For example I asked someone where an item was as I couldn't find it anywhere. Their reply was ' I don't know' and that was it. This is someone who has worked in this shop for a good few years.

I tried to clean my trolley with the spray and cloth provided and a member of staff shouted at me that it's already been cleaned. I hadn't seen them do it and had already sprayed the handle bar so continued to wipe it so they tutted and shook their head.

This is just to name a few.

I get it that they are all overworked and tired but its bad when people haven't been out for weeks and when they do they get talked to with little respect.

Has anyone else noticed this?

Just a little insight for you but my husband is a lidl store manager and they are trying to restrict it to just one person in a household (like most other retailers) but he had some one asking for the manager yesterday to complain that he wasnt allowed in with his wife. This person was a colleague at a previous store he managed and this person still works there so is well aware of the guidelines! My husband couldn't believe that he wanted to complain. Also customers are not observing social distancing whilst trying to talk to store members. Every one is tense and it only takes one person in the morning to be awful to ruin the day.

I work in a pharmacy and people are still rude to us and won't stand on the floor markings.

I've not been food shopping but have been to wilkos once and they were all lovely.

A few staff have become officious about the distancing ; I was standing well away from the guy at the till for him to authorise my wine at the self check outs last week but he had to wave me back just a tad further ; shop was empty too. I was being polite , but he had to enforce the rules a bit more and seemed to revel in it! I did have a smile at that.
They all looked fed up yesterday in the store but the check out lady cheered up when I said thank you and asked how it was going. I feel sorry for them , but I have noticed a subtle change in their attitudes. Had the shopping practically thrown at me on one occasion too but then the distancing measures are not easy either. Understandable I guess.
(Mind you customer service wasn't always great before this : people are generally miserable these days and this had made it worse) ..

I think it must be a very, very tough job at the moment.

to the supermarket workers, and delivery drivers, and in fact, all the other essential workers keeping us safe and fed, keeping the streets clean, our rubbish collected and our utilities up and running.

Everyone is afraid. We need to cut one another more slack than usual ... I can't imagine - from my safe, well paid work that can be done from home - what it must be like right now for people who have to work face to face with the public every day for low pay in this horrible situation.

Hats off to them. If anything good comes out of this dreadful time it should be that we finally recognise (with respect and renumeration) the essential services all these people are offering. And that we should be paying more for them.

I've noticed a tension amongst shop workers recently but thought it was because they were worried they would be infected by shoppers. It must be incredibly stressful.

I’ve found the exact opposite more helpful and friendly

The supermarket staff that I've come across have all been polite and friendly.

But I haven't witnessed shitty behaviour from customers either. I'm sure there have been badly behaved customers in my area but hopefully they're a very small minority.

Maybe, if most customers are being polite and sensible, then the staff are a bit less stressed and therefore less likely to be rude or aggressive in turn.

I haven't been in supermarket for weeks. But when I did go before they was variable.

One sainsbury ms is the worse consistently. One I stood waiting for five minutes being ignored at a till while a woman chatted. I had to walk off and they was still chatting after I paid at another till. The next time I had a member of staff standing a metre from.me saying she lived alone since a young teen as her mum was a "drug addict cunt". About four members of staff with her and no one called her up on it. There was around 15 customers who heard her gobbing off like she was down the pub with her mates. I think it's sometimes down to managers as well. Plus some people are naturally rude normally.

I dont doctors and nurses are snapping but doen the money and essential nature of the job.

I did notice a security guard telling a woman to get off her phone the other day followed by a conversation with the cashier that the same woman had been in twice that day. This was Waitrose no less.

I suspect it's a mixture of anxiety ,because lets face it this is a high risk job right now. Combined with a shift in power within the role of shop worker and customer. We now have to queue obediently and stay 2 metres from each other. It makes us subservient to them (probably a bit strong but I cant find the right word ). You then have the back drop of the hero key workers rhetoric going on which perhaps makes some people get carried away with the power. Let's face it working in a shop is not normally a highly thought of job in a society which seems to celebrate money as the ultimate marker of success.

This is a situation that the staff have had no training for. Queue control and people management is not their usual job. They have to do it as best they can.

I've noticed some shop staff being rude and enjoying being tinpot dictators....... currently boycotting Morrisons after witnessing a man very rudely and eyerollingly (( is that even a word ? )) Put a guy who looked to be late 70s and clearly confused firmly in his place. I'd have been amazed if he could even see the lines on the floor, let alone the sign.

Shop worker then had a good laugh about it to the person next to him, then did a bit more pointing and tutting.........newsflash. they're working in a shop. Yes, it's great they're coming in each day.

Yes. We need them. But let's face it, they aren't going to war to be cannon fodder in their millions. And there's no need to be horrible to elderly and vulnerable people along the way.

I've found the best shop to be Aldi, it's well organised and the staff are polite and helpful. I think this is in part because Aldi staff are already used to hard work and are paid well for it. Certainly above most the other supermarkets.

That’s a good idea @bookmum08, I might do that.
I’ll have to ready for the ‘talking. to. you. really. slowly. like. you’re. stupid’ though

I posted a thread from the other side about this a few days ago. The abuse from the general public has genuinely gotten me down so much I’m struggling to summon any motivation to do my job anymore.

It’s been going on for a (seemingly) long time now and it isn’t sustainable for most of us anymore. I know that it’s a small minority of people but we have at least two incidents a day where I work and it seems like it’s getting worse.

Add to this an increase in working hours to meet demand and intense pressure whilst on the job.

So yeah, that’s why you aren’t getting ‘service with a smile’.

Truffly I've been wondering how supermarkets would feel about going back to "normal" i.e. no social distancing. What would you think?

I found them far "less patient" at the start of the lockdown, when people were getting used to the idea of restricted items - I can only presume they were pushed to the end of their tether. Now they all seem to have a little more time and are friendlier, perhaps because their customers are so.

Sauvignon I knew someone who worked on the checkouts at a supermarket and she was deaf and her talking voice was hard to understand. She had a bunch of flashcards to hold up to the customer ("do you need bags? /have you got a clubcard? etc). It mostly worked quite well.
Good luck with whatever you try.

Alot of the customers I deal with at work have called me every name under the sun, treated me as though I am stupid (speaking veeerrryyy slowly for instance ), and just been generally horrible when I've been unable to give them what they want (e.g. out of stock items, deals that we used to have but no longer do). I do try not to let that affect how other customers are treated but it does grind you down, and I must admit my attitude has changed slightly because I'm always waiting for the next onslaught of abuse. I'm terrified of taking the virus home to my children because not everyone practices social distancing properly (both customers and colleagues!), and let's be honest it is rubbish money for what we put up with.

None of that is an excuse to treat customers rudely, but at the same time it is easy to see why attitudes are changing.

I found my local Morrison’s to be the worst and was going to stay away but they then introduced a 10% discount for NHS staff so I decided to be brave and try again, I’m not sure the discount is worth it.

I’ve definitely found Aldi the least stressful, maybe that’s because shopping there was always challenging at the checkout pre Covid19?

@LilacTree1 I don’t work in a supermarket my thread the other day was about abuse in general (I work in a pharmacy). But I think it will take a while to return to normal and I’m not entirely sure this won’t change people’s buying habits forever.

I can’t wait for a return to normal. People are ordering medication that they probably don’t even need or are stockpiling, putting pressure on us, the doctors and the supply chain. Imagine a supermarket is the same, a substantial change in buying habits puts pressure on every part of the system.

COMPLETELY agree with @TrufflyPig, there were always the odd occasions of rude/abusive customers before this of course but in this climate it is a thousand times worse and I am honestly drowning in depression from it, I feel like I'm going to meet a firing squad while walking to work and have no motivation to even get out of bed in the morning. Prior to measures like signs/screens being put up we would politely ask customers to not lean directly over us etc and would routinely be sworn at or laughed at. People would reach round us or push past us like we were furniture while stocking the shelves instead of asking or waiting for us to move, they just don't care about our safety.

One relatively new girl was sworn at because we didn't have something in stock, a manager came over to try to defuse it and was also screamed and sworn at and ended up telling the customer they were not welcome to return. There has been AT LEAST one incident like that every day and frankly it has taken a knock on everyone's emotions and it is genuinely so hard to be chipper even to nice customers because everything is so awful. The store manager (whose main priority is typically customer service and only customer service) has been pushed so far that she said that for the foreseeable future any customer complaints are just going in the bin.

It is absolute hell. Added to this because I work with the public I currently can't see my parents or my partner (unlikely that will change until June/July at least) so I just have nothing to look forward to apart from being berated by customers and then coming home to be alone with my anxiety through the roof. I really don't know how much more I can take before I break, I cry every day (both at work and at home) and I know I'm not the only one.

Rowlett You have articulated my inner feelings so well there. Hugs.

To make things worse too people have more time to complain online or post negative things on social media so you can’t even leave the job behind when you clock off.

Thanks @bookmum08, masks have been a bit of a disaster for me at work (NHS Hospital) we have to wear them on the wards and I haven’t a clue what anyone is saying. I’ve had to relocate another deaf nurse due to this.

I’m not permanently ward-based but have to go on and off wards all day. There’s not really anyway round it.

If they become compulsory in public I’ll struggle.

Rowlett, I'm sorry. People are horrible and this situation has made it much worse.
No need for it at all.
I hope you meet some nicer customers next week ! I'm grateful to all key workers but then I always was ! even the officious ones.

No I haven't.
I have noticed them taking less shit though and standing up for themselves, and being backed for doing that.
The 'power' is shifting. With only certain places open, people having less choice about where to go and shopping closer to home, they're having to actually behave like adults and treat supermarket workers like humans or they'll have a bigger problem than usual if they're banned. It's not as simple as voting with their feet at the moment. Some people really don't like that at all.
Some shop assistants have simply had enough of being treated like shit and are finally able to stand up for themselves with less fear of losing their jobs. Some of course will abuse it.
I bet though that if you did a poll, abuse towards shop assistants would far outweigh abuse towards customers.

Rowlett & Truffly, I'm so sorry you're going through this.

I must admit, it does become quite irritating when the third person of the day comes up and taps you to get your attention, then stands so close to you to ask questions. Or when you watch people coughing into their hands and then touching products are we aren't allowed to stop them. Plus many of us have relatives shielding at home, and at least one member of staff has infected a member of their family who was shielding, leading to their death. Thankfully I can keep a smile on my face regardless, but I do appreciate that not everyone can.