Ridiculous things customers say!

[Darkclothes]

I was in an Italian restaurant today in the UK. The menu was in English. The woman at the next table asked the waiter if the prawns were cooked! He said yes of course they are. She then said that it didn't specify on the menu- it just said 'King prawns with baby tomatoes in a creamy sauce'.

The waiter then said, well it doesn't specific that the chicken is cooked- but most people realise it is. DH and I starting laughing to ourselves. It made me wonder, what other bonkers things have you heard customers say?

When I worked at M&S in the call centre, a lady screamed at me complaining that her order hadn't arrived.

She kept repeating the order number that I couldn't find. She called me names, said I was stupid etc. Turns out she'd should have called John Lewis!

At my previous work, a customer wanted to return some girls’ school blouses. She handed over the receipt and the blouses. My colleague who served her said she can’t do the refund. Customer screamed why not. My colleague politely explained that the blouses were bought from Matalan, not here. Customer suggested could she do an exchange. No she can’t as we couldn’t sell the Matalan blouses.

Think these customers mentioned in these posts should had their conversations recorded and played back to them. They have serious problems if they don’t apologise or felt embarrassed

I left hospitality few years ago but I remember a few.
”is your salmon grass fed?”
”I want fresh fried eggs because we’re vegan and those on the buffet are too close to the bacon”
“I don’t want my sausages too cooked. The black lines from the grill gives you cancer”

Then I move to retail. We had a lady returning a HenryHoover for the third time. Now…those things are billet proof. Once defective unit? Ok. Three? No chance.
I resorted to open the hoover in front of her, manager got gloves and ripped bag apart. I asked her if she wanted the bits of concrete, dry plaster chunks and kitchen knife handle back, and the refund was obviously denied.

Now in healthcare is not much better.

We get this a lot

'We'll just leave a shit tonne of packaging on the table,we've torn the bag,dumped the tray somewhere and smeared sauce all over the floor even though we are totally able-bodied,just lazy and entitled'

Totally ignoring the fact there are 4 bins they have to walk past to get out of the door

Other customers,I have to almost wrestle the tray off them (I'm not into fighting anyone,it's the people who are struggling for whatever reason)

One of the most endearing sights on Christmas Eve in our small market town is the long queue of men, usually older men, waiting for the butcher to open.

Volunteering in charity shops you always get an idiot who complains things should be even cheaper as ‘it’s for charity’. They seem to think the customer is the charity not the actual cause written above the door!

We quite regularly get threads on here where people seem to be going from the assumption that the charity shops are there purely to provide great bargains for poor/tight people - without any real comprehension of the fact that they exist to raise money for the actual charity on their sign!!

Or things they don't say.

I worked in a shoe shop and some would just come up to me and show me the show they were holding. No polite request, just shove it in front of my face.
Sorry, would you like me to get the other one for you, or a different size, or do you just like waving around shoes?

They never got the brand new pair, just the matched ones.

Customer brought her outfit to commission a model hat, which I made for her. She was delighted with it and remarked how well it matched the garment. She returned the day after the wedding saying the hat didn't match her dress and she wanted a full refund. But you were pleased with it, I reminded her. Yes, I was but I didn't wear that outfit after all, I changed my mind and the hat didn't go with what I wore. She was furious I wouldn't refund her money.

I'm not a coffee drinker so I had to ask that question about the fruit based drinks when I first had them. It's only a ridiculous question if you already know what a frappe is.

I worked in M & S in the 90s when they didn’t accept credit cards (only cash, cheques or the M & S Charge Card). Signs all over the store and next to the tills about it. A woman was buying a massive pile of underwear and nightwear which took me about ten minutes to scan through. When it got to the payment stage she tried to pay with her credit card so I explained we didn’t accept them. She got really angry, picked up the pile of bras and knickers and threw them at me before storming off!

Keep telling yourself that.

Ooh, I was a Team Leader in Argos, my favourite was from a lady who rang the branch on a Saturday morning:
Customer - How long is the 25m garden hose?
Me - Erm, 25m..
Customer - Hmm, will that be long enough to reach the bottom of my garden?
Me - ... I don't know, how long is your garden? (thinking I was being pranked, I wasn't)
Customer - About 30m I think 🤔

She then asked why the price had changed. I explained it was currently on sale and had £5 off. She replied "But it still has the full price in my catalogue! Did she think we secretly broke into every hous with a Sharpie every 2 weeks to adjust catalogue prices when a new sale started?!?

The tide has definitely turned in terms of behaviour people are expected to tolerate.

In my job abuse of any kind isn’t tolerated and we have a specific department who will act on it if necessary.

People are perfectly entitled to end calls if they’re being verbally abused and depending on the level of abuse the company can terminate the customer contract.

This customer is always right mantra needs to stop. The customer most definitely is not always right, and while I do believe that people are entitled to a decent level of service, ranting and screaming and abusing staff shouldn’t ever need to be tolerated.

And in my experience, the customers who rant and scream and are the rudest are the customers who don’t actually have any legitimate reason to, whereas generally customers who have legitimate reason to complain are generally perfectly reasonable people who will give the time, and courtesy to the person attempting to resolve the issue.

I’ve submitted numerous complaints as part of my customer based roles, and I can hand on heart say that 100% of the customers I’ve had who have sworn and demanded compensation and quoted “my rights” haven’t had a leg to stand on, whereas I’ve submitted complaints for customers where I’ve absolutely agreed with them, and every single one of them has been polite, acknowledged that it’s not my fault, and has thanked me after.

Subway sandwich customers asking me what the difference is between a six inch and a footlong sub. About six inches!

Maybe they got married since getting the dog, so the dog would still have the old surname? 🤔

Just kidding! 🤣🤣

@Never2many I agree with that. Customers who hurl abuse, scream and other nasty things at staff are ALWAYS in the wrong. Trying to return something outside the returns window, trying to use a coupon for something that isn’t covered by it or expired etc.

Only one customer came up to me and apologised for her behaviour a few days later. She came back on my day off and colleague said to her “come back anytime from Saturday, ideally in the morning”. Customer came back and apologised for acting like that. She received some bad news earlier that day.

These customers don’t realise that they are the reason for staff to leave. It just needs 1 or 2 customers that scream obscenities at staff to make them quit.

Businesses need to more to ban customers. I know that they are scared of losing sales. One horrible customer the then store manager banned only spent £25-30 a week. Could recover that from a couple of customers buying clothing.

Customers have just got to blame themselves for their disgusting behaviour .

It took me a moment but that's brilliant, really classy too

And unless you’ve worked somewhere for more than 104 weeks consecutively, or have protected characteristics which are relevant to the reason you’re fired, they don’t mean a thing.

I once listened to manager in a local bookshop explain repeatedly to a customer that wanted to return 2 books in their 'buy two, get one free' deal, that she couldn't keep the 'free' one. The woman genuinely didn't seem to understand that this offer was an incentive, not a gift. She argued it for around 10 minutes while I waited patiently in the queue.

The first one is totally reasonable. Just show her an analogue electric clock.

The point is not about enforcing it though. If someone was determined to circumvent the rules and stock up in this way, if they the went on to overdose, none of the retailers could be sued because none had supplied more than the legal maximum.

I worked in a confectioners and a lady came in complaining that she’d bought two custard slices the day before and her husband didn’t like them. She asked for a refund. Boss said give her a refund and let her pick two more cakes. She picked two custard slices. You have to work in retail to see how idiotic some people can be. Hard to keep your mouth zipped.

Actually it’s really sad. There’s horrible pressure on youngsters these days to be having sex. They end up just trying to find anywhere warm and away from home just to say they’re doing it and not virgins. I feel sorry for them. They’re just kids really.