to wonder why some customers have to resort to personal insults?

[mummytowillow]

I work in customer services for a well known retailer.

Today I spent an hour listening to a man verbally insult me. No swearing but just completely unnecessary personal insults about my intelligence, my personality, my experience, the fact I have a cough, the fact all I said was 'mmm' (he didn't let me speak).

All because he didn't like a policy that I didn't make and can't change.

He really was the most unpleasant person ever and ruined my afternoon!

I'm good at my job, fair, polite and firm, experienced but he really got to me today

The large glass of wine I'm drinking is helping!

Why do some people resort to such unpleasantness?

SomethingAboutNothing - Not at all. But there is a difference between that (where you are legally obliged to obey the law) and say a retail company selling say mobile phones, who refuses to obey the law in regard to consumer rights and puts up staff to answer the phones, training them to say effectively, 'sorry, but our company policy is that we do not obey the law, and if you have a problem with that, fuck off and sue us.' We all know it happens, and we all know what call centre staff are like. These women who complain endlessly to the likes of Watchdog about the way they are treated by energy suppliers, satellite TV companies and various retail outlets, are not all wrong. They are being treated wrongly, in many cases contrary to law, and the front men doing the dirty work are the call centre staff who really couldn't give a F about whether what they are doing is illegal/immoral/unethical or not. So long as they get their pay at the end of the day they couldn't in many cases give a F about the customer.

I'm not saying that is the case in this case. I have never said that. I merely point out that there are situations where a customer is justifiable in being as offensive as need be towards a stooge in order to get a company to react in an appropriate manner.

Without the OP being willing to elaborate, we do not know what policy her company was asking her to uphold.

And without individuals willing to stand up for their rights, companies will continue to treat those among us too weak to do anything other than tut about our situations, like the muppets we are.

there are situations where a customer is justifiable in being as offensive as need be towards a stooge in order to get a company to react in an appropriate manner

That 'stooge' is a human being who deserves to be spoken to like one.

elephantspoo may I just point out that your letters of complaint would very rarely scar anyones career because all letters of complaint would be reviewed and then either thrown in the bin or put on file for a limited time. Personal insults show a lack of intelligence and class and anyone subjected to it in my workplace either puts the phone down or walks away. A note is made on your file that you are rude and abusive to staff so anytime you ring in and give existing customer details that note will flash up so they know exactly the type of person you are and be ready to hang up on you.

I merely point out that there are situations where a customer is justifiable in being as offensive as need be towards a stooge in order to get a company to react in an appropriate manner.

There are no justifications at all for being offensive to get the result you want. You can express yourself and get your point across without ever having to resort to being offensive. Your approach may even lessen your chances of success. There is no justifiable reason to speak to a customer services person any differently than you would to e.g. a work colleague.

That 'stooge' is a human being who deserves to be spoken to like one. - And the customer is a person and not a victim, and deserves to be treated like a human being and not a cash machine. We don't know what this dispute is about, but when a stooge human being decides to treat another human being like a corporate automaton, the customer has a right to react in a manner that wakes that human being up to any immoral act she has chosen to receive money to administer. As I have said many times, we do not know the specifics and OP has thus far chosen not to elaborate on what she was asked to do.

FayKorgasm - No one needs to resort to personal insults to resolve a situation. One merely needs to insist on speaking to someone's supervisor and escalate the issue to the appropriate level of management to conclude the issue. If a member of staff insists on being obstructive, 'no you can't speak to my manager', then you insist, 'I have now asked you three times, please pass me to your manager. I am happy to wait.'

The real question I am now finding here is, are we as people now happy to receive pay in order to do immoral things to our fellow human beings?

It is fair to point out that you shouldn't be rude to people just for the sake of it, but what if the person is refusing to acknowledge your consumer rights and telling you they are happy to be paid to screw you over and take your money?

In any customer service complaint, there are those customers who are being defrauded by a company, and those who are not, and in the middle you have those who are paid to not give a fuck about right or wrong, just to do as they're are told by their paymaster.

I think the difference is I could not accept money for doing an immoral job, and if I found the company I was working for was acting immorally, I would leave.

fascicle - Is there ever any justification for not allowing a customer their consumer rights, and obstructing them from doing so, or making it as difficult and time consuming as possible in order to prevent them from exercising their rights as a buyer?

Do you believe a person should suspend their moral code and adopt that of their paymaster for the sake of a wage, even if it is not in the interest of other human beings?

You see, we have no frame of reference here. No specifics, no details of the dispute, no idea who is right and who is wrong. Only a post saying, 'I had a rude customer, please feel sorry for me and give me support' when in fact we have no idea about the circumstances, whether OP is in the right or the wrong to be taking the stance she took against the customer.

The, 'I was only taking orders' defence is a most cowardly way of saying, 'I choose not to exercise my own set of values, but defer to corporate diktat.' It is no defence to say 'I did it because I was told to, that's company policy' unless company policy can be demonstrated to be just, equitable, and abiding by the law.

It seems to me that there are so many threads about people complaining about the service they have received. (The customers)

And then there are another bunch of threads complaining that the general public are rude (The 'front of office' staff, this could include shop workers, doctors, call centre workers etc)

Has it always been like this? There seems a real lack of empathy from both parties.

I don't think elephants needs to be offensive.

If their posts on here are anything to go by they simply bore people into submission with tedious monologues.

I used to work in customer services and it is the actual worst, it was in a finance company as well so dealing with defaults, etc gets particularly nasty. We had people actually come to the office threatening to "sort out" people. It makes you more conscious of how you treat people when you have to complain to a company.

partialderivative - It is always within the customer service operators power to resolve a situation. It is rarely within the customers power to receive it if the customer service operator refuses to give it. When the balance of power is so heavily weighted in favour of one party over the other, abuse and neglect of the law inevitably results. That is why there are whole organisations formed to fight against this country's customer service departments, but no organisations have been formed to deal with rude customers. That says everything you really need to know about the customer service industry as a whole. They are people that the government has seen
fit to legislate and regulate to curb their abuse of power, in the interest of protecting the public from the most horrendous of them.

elephantspoo Perhaps the biggest anomaly in your argument is railing against companies/employees who you consider not to act ethically. What about your culpability for not choosing your suppliers more carefully? Why support companies you consider to be unethical?

I used to work in retail and absolutely hated it would never return. A lot of them are rude because they know you won't punch them in the throat or throw insults back. A woman complained about me to my boss after she called me a stupid little girl and I corrected her and told her I was a lady not a girl. I think some people genuinely go in shops to argue with staff because they know they won't get a reaction

I used to work on the phones for a well known satellite TV service provider. The company's policy was to ignore, stall, delay and bamboozle customers to the point that only the most determined would be escalated to the escalations team. The rest were fucked over for as much money as you could get out of them, lied to, miss sold stuff they couldn't use/didn't want, and flicked off in the end with a few months of free access, something that cost the company fuck all. I left, because I couldn't stand to turn out like the rest of the lifers in there. It was probably the most morally bankrupt company I have ever come across. To this day I will not use them.

On the other side, my friend worked for two years on the phones from a big bank. She was given an award because someone wrote in to thank the bank for her service, so things go both ways. She was always full of horror stories about other departments' callous attitude to customers. Particularly those who dealt with customers experiencing hardship at home. Just what you need when you're husband has been made redundant, some hard nosed cow telling you they'll do their utmost to ruin your credit and apply to the courts for a lien on your house.

fascicle - Fool me once... And all that. Most customers don't know what a company's stance is towards it s customers until they are on the receiving end of faulty goods. I can name many a service provider I will not deal with, because they choose to flout the law and abuse their customers. I actually worked for one.

But that does not excuse choosing to assist a company in flouting the law and abusing its customers. You don't need to be rude to be the abuser in a conflict. Receiving money in payment for abusing people and removing their rights is morally bankrupt whichever way you look at it. I would never work for a company that abused its customers rights.

We don't know in this case, as OP has elected not to say what policy she was being asked to exercise, so we cannot judge, but there are always two sides to every story, and some abuses of power can only be dealt with harshly and personally against the individual being paid to abuse you.

Elephantspoo
Most customers don't know what a company's stance is towards it s customers until they are on the receiving end of faulty goods.

By that logic, you could argue the same for new employees joining a company. Why did you choose to work for a company that flouted the law?

Whatever a consumer's issue with a company, there's no need for the verbal abuse/career scarring letters you advocated earlier. It's unnecessary and unethical in itself and is hardly likely to effect a change in company policy that will advantage customers. If somebody gets angry and rude, it's more difficult to hear their point - it's a negative distraction. If a company is not abiding by consumer legislation, there are other ways to apply leverage/get an issue resolved.

I work in Nursing & you wouldn't believe the personal insults that Healthcare workers get!

For example I've had friends asked if they are pregnant (when they are clearly just overweight) or actually referred to as being ''the fat one'' or any other fattist insult you can think of!
One friend was told by an old man that she should ''take up cycling to reduce the size of your thighs''.

Other friends have had racist insults, eg. one girl was called a ''Jewish bitch'' to her face by an older woman; black & Asian members of staff have had similar. One Iraqi HCA was told to ''go & work in a kebab shop''.

Or the patients will remark nastily on a nurse's hairstyle - and especially men won't hesitate to say if they think a female nurse is ugly (both types of those insults have happened to me).

If these were patients who had experienced poor care or who had complaints or who were mentally unwell or on drugs for example - then maybe the insults would be expected (though still unacceptable).

But no, these insults are generally from normal men & women (often middle aged to elderly) who just seem to think that because a member of staff is making their bed or doing some other task then it's ok to make personal remarks.

Can I also say that the management of our ward are not very supportive when patients are sexist / racist / homophobic or just downright insulting - they let patients get away with anything.

One man of 40 sexually harassed a Student Nurse of 18 so I told a Clinical Leader & her attitude was that she'd have to learn to cope with it.
So I took over the Student's work & dealt with the man myself - he didn't dare be crude to me.

I also told one Clinical Leader about the fact a bay of male patients were racist to the Iraqi HCA but she wouldn't do anything about it because she didn't 'hear it herself'.
So despite my junior role I went and told them not to be racist - which left me feeling intimidated because these were 6 older, loud, over confident male patients.

We are not supported at all when patients are insulting or offensive and it's wrong.

That sucks Latara. From previous experience, management are often quite content to let folk in the firing line take the flack/absorb the abuse and fail to back them up.

By that logic, you could argue the same for new employees joining a company. - Absolutely. When I discovered said company's policy was one of attrition and obstruction, rather than fairness and care, I left. I didn't even give them notice, I walked and lost pay and reference as a result. To my mind it is not acceptable for one person to be paid to fuck over another person. That quite clearly puts the customer service rep' in the abusive role from the get go. I was not willing to play that role for any amount of money. I run my own business now, and I would never treat customers the way I see them treated by many corporate mouthpieces under the guise of, 'I do it for the money and they told me to.'

As to your other point, the flip side of that argument is that if a customer service rep' is trained to obstruct resolution and push customers towards going legal in writing, because the company knows this is a policy of attrition, then that customer services rep' by condoning such actions and reinforcing it, is choosing to take a position of power and abuse customers for his/her own financial gain. There is not moral justification for doing such things whatsoever. When I was in such a position myself, I realised I was being paid to fuck over customers. I was being a cunt to people, preventing them getting their money back, preventing them withdrawing from contracts they had been lured into with lies and deceit, bullying them with legal sounding BS, and bamboozling them with garbage science as to why they couldn't get what they thought they were meant to be getting, all because I wanted a pay packet. How fucked up was I that I would screw over other people to feed my family? I realised quickly that there were more respectable ways of earning money. Not as easy, a damn site more work, but at least no longer abusing to unknown customers on behalf of my paymaster.

Re. nursing. The time old excuse for not caring for patients in hospital always seems to be, 'sorry, we're busy, over stretched, under staffed' etc. sort of a polite, 'sorry, but deal with it bitch.'

Example - A girl I know has had three dead babies, one still born and two late deaths in utero. So she is rushed into hospital to try to save the fourth. Told no you can't have a room, and put on a ward with mothers with babies. This is a woman who has never heard her baby cry, and the NHS attitude to her is one of, 'toughen up or stop trying to have a baby.' There appears to be little care or compassion from staff in the NHS in this case.

I'm sure the service is fine for most of us who just join the conveyer belt of routine pregnancy/delivery, but for those who do not have babies who survive, certainly in my friends experience, the NHS staff couldn't give a fuck.

I suppose until you've buried three babies, it's hard for anyone, let alone a nurse, to understand or care about the needs of a mother faced with burying her fourth.

An awful situation for anybody to go through, elephant. But the NHS is a huge organisation. You will always find good and bad experiences and examples of care. The overwhelming consensus seems to be positive; that the NHS is a vital part of our society.

Your views seem very black and white. Most companies are not trying to trick their customers. And if you run your own company, I'm sure you don't accommodate every disgruntled customer's demands, however unreasonable. I think it's also unlikely that you're happy to receive verbal abuse from your customers.

fascicle - No, my point was, and still is, that if I treated my customers in the way I know some companies treat theirs, and I told a customer that my intent was to fuck them in whatever way I could, then I would expect abuse in response. Now, I could employ a polite mannered telephonist to tell them in more eloquent language that her boss was going to fuck them every which way but loose, but the message would still be the same, and the response would never reach my ears. I could do as I pleased and pay £7.50 an hour to let some wallflower take the abuse. I get rich, she gets stress. If she's happy to get paid to receive the shit Thrown at me, more fool her.

That's the way the real world works. I left that environment and started my own business because I neither agreed with, nor condoned it. Customer service in a lot of companies is a wall of people ready to receive the shit thrown at a company. They are trained to play the attrition game, to wear down and deflect grievances rather than deal with them, indeed many are not even empowered to resolve issues in favour of a customer, and must escalate to a higher level if they can't force the customer off the phone with a canned response read off a screen or taught to them parrot fashion.

Getting a wallflower to tell a customer, 'fuck you, sue the company' is the winning hand most companies play, because they know that results in 95% of all complaints receiving a conclusion positive to the company! and the very worst that can happen is that 5% maybe get their money back, and their PR dept. put a guy on Watchdog to say, 'we've learnt from this experience! it won't happen again.' Everyone here has seen it. Everyone here knows it happens again and again. No-one here believes that Corporate Giant X or Y has any interest in them apart from their money.

Now we don't know in this case what the OPs specific issue was, but the stock answer of, if everyone's nice, it'll all work out in the end is bullshit. That was my point. Some people are paid to financially abuse other people on behalf of their paymasters, and they are trained to talk nicely and politely as that abuse takes place. If they get a bit of it back in some not so savoury language, I'd suggest maybe growing a moral backbone and ceasing abusing others would be a good start. That is why I quit my job.

I used to work in public facing jobs and have had a cry after many encounters!
I do remember a couple that gave me a good laugh though. A woman and her partner were getting served by me in a well known diy store. She was being really snooty and quite nasty talking down to me, by this time I had learned to take it on the chin and stayed polite and smiling. Her partner had clearly never seen this side of her and looked at her with disgust before shouting at her, while I was still serving them, 'who do you think your fucking talking to like that' . He then apologised to me before they left, she looked so embarrassed but she deserved it.
Another woman in the same shop had the same attitude, her card was declined , little pleasures

You will always find good and bad experiences and examples of care. The overwhelming consensus seems to be positive; that the NHS is a vital part of our society.

I don't disagree in regard to the necessity of the NHS, but in the example of said mother facing burying her fourth baby being placed in a ward of mothers with newborns. Let's say she is stressed, facing the death of her child, reliving the deaths of her other babies, and she's screaming at the MW to get her into away from there. She doesn't care if she delivers in a corridor, she doesn't want to hear babies crying, she's buried three, never heard them cry, knows her fourth is dead...

Are we to sit and say, when nursie posts on a forum like this, 'oh how abusive this woman was! how unreasonable! and how loud! I was almost in tears the way she spoke to me.' Are we to say, 'yes, you're absolutely right. No one should ever speak to you like that.' Or is it perhaps more reasonable to expect a MW to take the abuse directed at her institution's lack of care?

To tell a woman you will not be spoken to like that, when her baby is lying dead on a trolley beside you is probably one of the most disgusting things a MW could do, as is keeping her in a room full of newborn babies. But like you say, some nurses couldn't give a F, and some do. There is good and bad in all organisations, and the NHS is no different.

This is all besides the point, only mentioned because a nurse was complaining about how she has to deal with abuse at her work. But abuse goes both ways in all situations. Just because a person works for the company and has all the power, and just because they are the one being polite, does not in any way mean they are not the one being abusive.

There are two sides to every story. When a person posts saying they have been abused by a company it's 'oh how awful, that is so wrong.' When a person posts about being abused by a customer it's 'oh how awful, that is so wrong'. These could be two people posting about the same incident and we'd all be telling both people how awful it is and how wrong the other person was. Maybe a little honesty would help.