To think it's no wonder that so many businesses go out of business when they treat customers like shit?

[oolajoola]

It's almost as if some shops/salons/companies don't actually want any custom at all....

I recently phoned up a local ironing company as I've been working a lot of hours recently and wanted to get our (huge backlog) of ironing done. A gruff woman answered the phone and when I said 'hello, I'd be interested in getting some ironing done' I got an abrupt 'No we're not looking for anymore customers' and she virtually put the phone down! They may well be stacked out with customers now but this may not always be the case, and they will never ever get any custom from me now. Surely it would make better business sense to be polite.

Yesterday I went to get my hair cut. The hairdresser who cut it is lovely, but then at the end I had to go to the counter to pay, which was manned by the woman who owns the salon, with four other hairdressers standing by her chatting. They were all really hostile and made it clear that I was interrupting their conversation by daring to stand there and pay! I made my next appointment, and asked for it to be written on a card, and got much huffing and puffing and the owner just slapped the card down on the counter and didn't say a word.

There is also a local soft play place, where the service is absolutely atrocious. Things like staff standing around talking and being fully aware that there is a queue of customers to be let in, but ignoring customers for 10 or more minutes until they can be bothered to let them in. Or 6 members of staff standing behind the snacks counter chatting, with one staff member serving a queue of about 10 customers. They really don't seem to give a toss. I'd stop going there if my kids didn't love it there.

Surely happy customers are an essential for any business? Why do places just not seem to care or offer any customer service at all?

[ComposHat]

I know a lot of pubs are closing at the moment, but it isn't always the tragedy it is painted as in the media.

The overwhelming majority of pubs near me that have closed have been appallingly badly run. Staffed by surly and unhelpful staff, have had an uninspiring choice of drinks (not the licensee's fault if they are tied to a chain), have been shabby and dirty, have filthy beer lines and have made little effort at promotion or reaching out to new clientèle

I know that this isn't always the case, but in a number, it really is good riddance to bad rubbish.

[oolajoola]

MorrisZapp there's a bloke in my local 'express' supermarket who always just says 'you're welcome' if you say thanks to him after the transaction. He never says please or thank you and genuinely seems to think he's doing you a favour by serving you. He's also a total sexist chauvinistic pig, and arrogant and rude to boot.

[Bunbaker]

I have worked in retail as well and remember how knackered I was at the end of the day.

[NinjaBunny]

The worst I have come across recently is an independent shop that sells school uniform. The woman actually sneers when you enter her hallowed shop which reeks of cigarettes. She is like a Roald Dahl character who actively dislikes children. Or customers. Or humans in any form.



I know her!!

She runs Scholars in Trowbridge, yes?

She looked at me like I wanted to take a dump on the floor too. I only wanted some PE t-shirts which I eventually bought in Tesco where the staff are nice to me.

[theluckiest]

Oh dear Ninjabunny...that means there are two of them in existence!!! Mine is in Birmingham.

Perhaps it's a chain? 'Really horrible school wear for massive prices sold by someone who hates you.' That's why mums go to Sainsburys. Or Tesco. Except for the sodding jumper with the school logo on it and massively overpriced flimsy book bag.

[NearTheWindmill]

I find staff in shops and supermarkets generally very nice and very helpful with only the occasional bit of bad service.

I am as nice to NHS staff (especially receptionists in both private practice and hospitals) as I am in shops, supermarkets, restaurants, bars, etc. Can someone explain why they are so uninlaterally rude - ours don't even look up as you walk in anymore and if you dare ask a question like "where is surgery number 6 please" you just get barked out. Name? Date of birth? Sit down and you'll be called - and that's about as gracious as it gets. It irks. Why are they so rude - is it a London thing?

[NearTheWindmill]

private practice, means GP practice.

[ComposHat]

near you're right, GP and school receptionists can be spectacularly rude.

I think it is their proximity to someone who they perceive as important the (doctor/headteacher etc) and they enjoy the power of being the 'gatekeeper' to that important person and basking in their reflected glory.

Also they probably do have to deal with a lot of unreasonable idiots in the course of their day, but it doesn't give them the right to take it out on people who are being perfectly nice to them.

[SanityClause]

The receptionists at our GPs are lovely, and very helpful. Obviously, they can't help it if a repeat prescription hasn't been made up in the normal time frame, or whatever, so it's not fair to blame them for that sort of thing. But if they can help, they will.

I have three DCs at three different schools, and have always found the office staff to be very warm and helpful. The secretary at DS's school, in particular is a real sweety, and really goes out of her way to make you feel at ease, and that whatever you are asking for is no trouble.

[ComposHat]

I want to move to your town sanity

[theimposter]

Lots of people are quick to moan about bad service (rightly so; don't be a silent victim) but as a small business owner myself I make a point of recognising good service. Point in case my DSD wanted a particular perfume for Christmas. DP had ordered it with the Perfume Store who then at the last minute let him down after a stock mess up. I rang Superdrug and despite the fact they were clearly busy the young guy rang their other branches, located the perfume and rang us back to let us know. We asked to speak to his manager and told her how polite, efficient and helpful he had been and she sounded really surprised and chuffed that we had bothered as I bet hardly anyone does!

[CouthyMow]

There's two sides to this - one, having worked in customer service, I believe that part of that is to always be polite to customers. Two, it IS hard to remain polite when people are looking at you, and talking to you like something they've trodden in, and like you are 'less' than them because you work in customer service, and all for the grand total of £6 something an hour.

I'm glad I'm out of it now - I was getting to the point where if one more person had spoken to me in a condescending manner as if I couldn't add two and two together, I might have started to be VERY impolite to them...

There is a reason SOME customers were known as cuntstomers. If you were the nice customer straight after a cuntstomer, it's hard to readjust from wanting to shit down someone's neck whilst still smiling and trying to be polite through gritted teeth to being GENUINELY polite!

(Though I always scored well on mystery shopper tests for politeness, so I can't have been too bad at it...)

[beaglesaresweet]

I came across a shockingly rude, angry older woman who volunteered in a charity shop. She was actually swearing under her breath just because I was deciding whether I wanted to buy something and was thinking while looking at the item. I didn't need her attention, she could focus on anything else!
She was going 'for fs sake, for fs sake..' in a very tetchy voice, 'it's a charity shop' (erm so what? doesn't mean i have to pay over the odds for an antique object which I know the value of. I used to buy there regularly, so spent quite a bit there). It wasn't very loud so I thought I've misheard at first, but no! The bloke who was standing at a distance also started looking.
Yes, I know it's good of you to volunteer, but you should NEVER work in customer service role if you can't control yourself, or be tolerant of people being slow..and she was over 60, the polite generation so to speak! Because she was older, I couldn't really answer back, even though I made some protest, but I was quite upset afterwards. Always best to speak your mind, as otherwise you feel like you've accepted someone's shitty behaviour, makes you feel even worse than the actual bad service.

[Bogeyface]

There was (was!) a gift shop in town where the owner was clearly doing you a favour by allowing you to buy her goods. Not surprisingly, she went out of business fairly quickly but....she then gave an interview to the local paper about how it was the councils fault for pedestrianising the high street...a good ten years before she opened her shop! Given the tone of the piece, I rather suspect that the paper was allowing her hang herself on her own rope!

[BeetlebumShesAGun]

I had the independent vs chain service problem the other day. I was going to visit my friend on the train and had DD in her pram. Had about 30 minutes to kill so decided to go to the local lovely cafe for a cuppa to get out of the wind and rain. The cafe has a step up and a heavy door, and being a fool novice with the pram I struggled to get the pram up over the step while holding the door open. I could see a couple of members of staff inside chatting away, watching me. No offers of help from them (or from members of the public but that's another thread. After a couple of minutes I thought fuck this and went across the street to Costa, where a staff member was happy, chatty, offered to bring me my drink as I had the pram, and when I stood up to leave a different member of staff rushed across the shop to hold the door for me!

[NadiaWadia]

I don't know that the customer service here is so dreadful, really. It depends on what you compare it with.

DD is studying in the Netherlands at the moment, and often comments how bad the customer service is in restaurants there. They NEVER come back to your table to see if you are OK, or want anything else, it's very hard to get hold of them when you want to pay, etc. I think it's probably because the Dutch don't 'do' tipping, so why should the waiters care? The only good service place she found was an Italian family-run business. So DD prefers to save up eating out for when she is back visiting UK.

Her friend went to have her hair done there, she has quite thick hair. Half-way through blow-drying it the hairdresser got bored and wandered off never to return!

That being said, the Dutch are lovely people, if a bit blunt!

[manicinsomniac]

Usually I find most customer service is good. I don't think many people are nasty or rude really, just a small minority; and even then not all of the time.

Yesterday I did come across an example in one of those posh food markets in London though (the one on the South Bank) My friend wanted a biscuit (any biscuit, she wasn't fussy) and we stood at this stall for about 5 minutes in the freezing cold dusk. The two people behind the stall just completely ignored us and continued their conversation so we just walked off and bought the biscuit from another stall. They all sell similar stuff so I'm surprised they aren't falling over each other for custom.

On thing I will always be wary of though is that you just don't know what kind of day people have had. Once my lovely local pub decided to close 3 hours early on a Sunday night. One of my (very drunk) friends started arguing with the bar tender and telling her that she wasn't allowed to close when he still wanted to drink and didn't she know that the customer was always right and telling her she was rude etc. She was in there working on her own. She started crying. I felt awful. Maybe someone close to her was dying or maybe she was sick or just really tired, I don't know. But she was obviously closing because she couldn't cope any more and being shouted at was the last straw.

[lunar1]

I can't believe the post office hasn't been mentioned yet. I once dared to take in two parcels in one visit and was treated to a lecture on how much she hated eBay. I have to say I wasn't moved to join the outrage at the local post office closing. Maybe if she wasn't abusive to paying customers they could have stayed open.

[Quinteszilla]

Yet, you accept poor service because you keep going back to the same salon, which proves that good service does not matter.

[wowfudge]

So right about charity shops, especially older staff - they so often don't have a clue. OH loves rooting around in the book sections and came home with something I realised he already had. When he took it back to swap for something different the young member of staff was really helpful but the older one was all 'we don't do returns' so he showed her he genuinely had the book already and said he was likely to buy more books on this visit. She huffed and puffed but let him swap the book.

And yes about Post Offices complaining about ebayers, who must be one of their main sources of income these days. I've had one of the counter staff complaining to me about how long they take to serve with all their parcels.

What about some banks? You go in at lunchtime, there's a queue a mile long and only one or two counters open. The staff never seem to try to hurry up. Instead they try to flog all manner of other stuff you don't want to know about because by the time it is your turn you've got two minutes left of your break to get lunch and get back to work. If you complain about the lack of staff they tell you to use a machine instead!

[NadiaWadia]

I have never had the experience like some people say of being ignored for ages whilst waiting to pay in a salon. If it happened to me (after a few minutes), my impulse would be to head for the door saying loudly something like 'I see you're not taking payments today, so I'll just go, shall I?'. That would sort them out!

[PaulInHolland]

NadiaWadia, I have heard that Dutch service is not as good as that in the UK, but there is still good service. I eat out regularly and have had plenty of restaurant staff asking about my meal.

[Throughgrittedteeth]

I've worked in retail for 10 years (just about to leave!) and I'm polite to everyone, even if they give me reason not to be. It is very hard sometimes though and generally customers are not grateful for the, sometimes, huge amounts of effort you go to to source things. Yes you are the paying customer but I'm still a human and just because I work in a service role doesn't mean I'm an uneducated idiot.
Wages are shocking in most retail roles because it's not considered a skilled job. So frankly, employers get what they pay for. I am the assistant manager of the shop I work in and I only get paid 30p above minimum wage.

[Throughgrittedteeth]

Just to add, I appreciate it's not the customer's fault that wages are low but it probably goes some way to explaining why service can be shit.