Customer facing jobs, what winds you up?

[BigPinkBall]

I just need a bit of a rant

I work in a call centre and part of my job is to ask for customers sort code and account number, and 99 our of 100 people will give me it in that order, but there’s always one who says the account number first without giving me time to move to the box further down the page where that goes, and says the number really fast then gets annoyed when you ask them to repeat it.

Also the people who fail the security questions and say well what have you got for my address/date of birth? It wouldn’t be very secure if I told you, would it?

Can I just say the people. when they come in in the summer and say "oh it's too nice to be inside" and the variation there of, when they tall to someone on the phone in the morning and then come in in the afternoon and assume you are the same person. "Why don't you sell such a such, you really Should" yes because I have control of that sort of stuff, I can just go and tell them oh we need to sell this because some who doesn't even live local and will never come in again says so even though no one local ever buys it. Muppets.

When I used to work in pubs my pet hate was when you told people their order was £7.60 (or whatever) they would hold out their sweaty hand full of coins and expect you to pick out the right amount. Nope!

Used to work on a tesco checkout (the token mentions are bringing war flashbacks) and these were my key annoyances:

People who would thrust something directly at me instead of sticking it on the belt
People who just put a bloody basket on the belt and don't unload anything
People who say no when they're asked if they'd like help packing, then stare at me when I don't pack - I bloody asked you, you knobber!
"Haha it hasn't scanned that means it must be free!"
"Do you do the yellow thing here" We have 10000 items in this store and I am contracted to checkouts, not the entire store. I don''t fucking know what you're on about nor where it'd be.
People who come in at 11:57pm on a saturday night and complain that the tills shut at 12, we weren't going to stay open just because you came in before 12!
"Oh you didn't scan my club card!" yes, because you didn't give it to me!
People who come with a trolley at rush hour, load it all on the belt, get a queue behind them, then run off to the back of the store because they forgot 'one last thing' - right, now I can't help any fucker else!

National retail service needs to happen

I worked in busy town pubs when I was a student. Mostly it was a right laugh, and I enjoyed it.

Then Christmas came.....

Hoards of people who went out once a year would then invade the pub and they were a complete pain in the arse. They generally had no idea what they wanted to drink themselves, never mind what their friends wanted. They didn’t know if John wanted a pint of Stella or half of Heineken. They had no idea if Sue wanted slimline or regular tonic with her gin, or if she wanted ice, lemon, both or neither. When asking for wine, they had no idea if they wanted merlot or Pinot Grigio, or what the difference was. When, after 10 minutes of faffing about, they had finally managed to order what they wanted they seemed surprised when you said “£11.39 please” and started to search for their purse, getting increasingly flustered. Meanwhile, the queue of regulars who knew exactly what they wanted and were ready with £20 notes in their hands grew ever longer, thirstier and more frustrated....

I have two bosses, both lovely. We also have one regular customer who, without fail, when is due to return from a holiday will come in and cackle "Well, you'll all have to start doing some work when he gets back, won't you!". She is not in any way joking, and it ticks me off no end because we literally never stop moving in my job, and I regularly come home with my joints and muscles throbbing.

Also, the ones who come up to the till and immediately start repeatedly thrusting their money towards my face or chest before I've had chance to scan their items/reach behind me for booze or fags/print their lottery ticket off and scan it. I'm clearly not a lap dancer, the unattractive work fleece is a major clue, why do they feel the need to shove money at my chest?

"So if you just pop your signature on there"
"My signature?"
...no, the signature of the chap behind you, naturally.

People who don’t read the info pack we send out to them and still book in for a consultation, and then get angry because our service isnt what they expected and now they’ve wasted a whole afternoon coming in for nothing.

Should have read the info pack, then.

Call centre member too. Customers who ring through wonder if you can help me tells me full address details etc without taking a breath for me to say youll need to speak with x y z gets nasty because they've given me their life story or don't have the one essential piece of information that i cant help without. Strange how if they come through friendly talk politely and let me get the question i need in how much more help they get!

Standing behind a counter, on a landline to a customer, wearing a uniform with a name tag.

"Do you work here?"

I work for an opticians. I've done the job a long time. Things that wind me up most are people that ring up to tell me they've broken their glasses. 'Ok well you'll have to bring them in and I'll see what I can do.'
'I can't get into the store for days and I'm lost without them.' ?! What do you want me to do, fix them over the phone?! Drive to your house?! No. If your desperate, make time.

Also people, mostly men, who give me their frames to repair and then tell me how to repair them. I know. It's my job. And what your telling me to do is incorrect anyway.

Gaaaaah!!! 90% of the time I love it though, most people are truly lovely you just get the odd one that ruins it for everyone.

Glumglowworm

I used to get that i the NHS. You know the place that has thousands of people called Smith. Yes I will call you Mr Smith but I do need to check you are the same Mr Smith I have been sent to see not the other Mr Smith currently on the ward or the consultant who is also called Smith.

And yes I do know your date of birth but I thought this being a cardiology department you might attend the day before your birthday.

One that winds me up in supermarkets as a customer, the people who put their stuff on the conveyor belt and then stand right at the end, watching it go on a little holiday without them.

madein1995
The one that really gets my goat - we have a token/charity scheme where we give tokens to customers to vote for a charity, and the shop gives money to charity. We have a pot of tokens next to our screens. Some children reach over and grab a handful - they are only small and parents usually intervene and I smile and say its OK. I hate hate hate adults themselves reaching over and grabbing a handful. It's my space. I will give you a token, if you ask I will give you a few. I haven't even rang up your shopping yet so you've not even given me a chance. It is very bad manners and you look greedy and impatient.

Genuine question: how do you decide whether a customer gets charity tokens? The supermarket I use most often has had these for several years but I've never been able to work out what the criteria are for getting tokens. On most visits to the supermarket I get none. Sometimes I get two (when there are three charities, so I have to choose which one doesn't get s token). Very occasionally I get one or more than two. I can't see any connection between how much I spend, how many bags I reuse or how much I talk to the assistant and whether I get tokens. I was given two in Tesco yesterday evening. That's only the second time in about 5 years that I've been given any there.

Seriously??? Are that many people this rude?

A few times I've had people on the phone thank me for being nice, I wouldn't have thought that it was a novelty worth mentioning!

Working in a customer facing role years ago has certainly affected the way I treat people that do now.

I am very nice to them.

Could I ask the supermarket checkout assistants something? This is something I do that probably annoys you, but the fact of having to do it also annoys me.

In my local supermarket there will be several different packs of detergent/dishwasher tablets/etc. on display. Some are on offer. But the prices on the shelves are often not the prices of the items at that point on the shelf. Sometimes it's possible to match the price to the item if I put my reading glasses on and read the numbers above the bar codes, but not always. So I sometimes have to put two or three different packs in my trolley any ask at the checkout for the prices of each of them so I can pick the one that I think is a reasonable price. This means the other pack(s) are then left cluttering up your checkout. (I do usually offer to put them back but I'm sure you wouldn't be allowed to let me do this.)

So (a) does this annoys you, and (b) do you get annoyed with the customer or with the other staff who are incapable of putting stock & price labels in the correct place?

Demanding to use the toilet when it is not public.

Wouldn't it be Safire to ask the shop floor staff Skiiltan rather than lug all the boxes to the till? Then they can sort out the price ticket problem after sorting out which box you want?

*easier

People who get walked out of a club forgetting there is CCTV and then proceed to complain they were choked out.

People who get thrown out of a club who did nothing wrong.

When you tell people the price and they screech are you joking and I'm not paying that and come back any way.

@Skiltan the way they pack the shelves does my nut in as well.They put near enough the same product beside each other on purpose.I worked on checkouts.

I dont mind checking prices.What i hated where

people on phones.[not getting served while on the phone]
People not emptying their baskets.
Rude people and it was mostly middle aged women and retired men.
People constantly saying your name.
And moaning about teh price of plastic bags.

I wasn't the assistant, but we both had a moan when I got to her, about the customer in front of me.
Big food shop, and the man in front had packed his shopping into bags as he went round. Went to the till, and just put the pre packed bags on the belt. Assistant asked him to put the items individually on the belt, so she could scan. He refused. So assistant had to unpack the bag, scan it, and repack it as she went, as he was refusing to pack it again!
We exchanged eye rolls, and after he'd gone, she said she could have called a manager, but it just wasn't worth it. Talk about a power trip!

Getting swore at for asking for id. Getting swore at even more for refusing the alcohol sale due to no id. Getting swore at further more for not allowing the 1 person with id to purchase said alcohol incase they give it to under 18s. Urgh

People used to annoy me by coming up to me and asking whether I worked there. I suspect they were trying to be polite, but the uniform said the shop name on it in about four different positions.

The other main one was when they were always surprised that we had an upstairs. Sounds harmless enough but as soon as you come in the store there’s a massive flight of double stairs that I was never too sure how anyone didn’t notice them.

Oh and when people get grumpy because we didn’t keep masses of stock out back and wouldn’t believe me when I said we didn’t have something out there.

When a customer is taking ages counting out coins to make up the last bit of the bill... so you hold your hand out for the money.... and they totally dump it onto the counter instead, coins rolling everywhere.
Then we spend equally long colllecting all the change back up again. Rage.

‘Where have you moved the toilets to they were right here last week’
Well i dont move anything here as im not bob the builder and secondly they moved when we had a re last refit 2 years ago.

Classic other day put a shop through the till and the lady was just staring at me after i said the total price.
Me: are you ok
Lady:yh
Me: well thats £26 then please
Lady: oh ok

Lady: anything special you can do to knock the price down. Any special coupons or your own discount
Me: no
Customer behind: hurry up love this aint the market.
Lol

Booking same day GP appointments, line goes on 8am.
"Can I see Dr xx please?"
"9.10"
"Can I have something later? I've got to come from xxx (10 miles away) and have to catch the bus"

Ffs change to a GP nearer to your home and not the one you've been with for 50 years who have allowed you to stay with them years ago when you moved.