AIBU- being on the phone when being served is just rude?

[autumnnightsaredrawingin]

I’ve just been to pick up a parcel from the post office. The woman in front of me was on her phone, as in having a conversation, not just texting. She didn’t even acknowledge the man behind the counter, gave him the card, carried on talking, showed her ID, took the parcel and left, without pausing her conversation or saying thank you.

AIBU to think pretty much any phone call can wait a few minutes whilst you’re being served, whether that be at a post office, supermarket, coffee shop or whatever? If you must be talking on your phone, at least pause the conversation and acknowledge the person serving you? It’s just so, so rude not to.

Yes it’s rude. People who do this should use the self service tills, if available.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but the customer has is always right. Their custom is paying your wages! Did you not learn that during your customer service training?

The customer is not always right. Fair enough this thread is a fairly mild case of rudeness, but are you genuinely saying that it is fine to be rude because someone is there to 'serve' you?

In hospitality I have been verbally abused, sworn at, had things thrown at me and had people attempt to spit on me, and these were not drunk/crazy/unstable people, they were normal middle class well-to-do types who always trot out 'but I am the customer!', like it makes them royalty.

The entitled attitude that people have towards service industry staff is disgusting.

I work in food retail, happens a lot we are very busy. Ive had people tell me to wait to take the order. I have a whole load of other people to serve, I move on to the next person waiting.
My boss is considering putting a sign up to say they won't be served if they are on a phone.

come out of the queue if youre on the phone noone wants to serve someone do9ing something else and not acknowledgjing you

Given some of the Post Office's rules, some of which I find petty, I am surprised the person behind the counter served her without speaking to ensure the phone conversation was stopped for a few seconds.

I get calls all the time that I can't ignore and have to concentrate on. It's not like I can make them happen while I'm not in the middle of something either. YABVU

I work in pharmacy and nothing boils my blood more than entitled students patients who expect me to serve them while they blether away on their phones, I just skip past them and move onto the next person waiting. If they have the cheek to challenge me I smile politely and inform them that I have to confirm their personal details with them before handing out medication and may have to discuss how to take their medication, therefore I cannot possibly serve them correctly while they are on the phone.
Winds them up no end, but delights everyone else in the queue!

At first I thought you were going to say that the person serving you was on the phone! I was that this would actually happen. Regarding customers talking on phones whilst being served,I think it's only acceptable if it's an urgent/emergency call. Otherwise,it's just bad manners.

Not quite the same thing, but I did get very annoyed the other day - I was walking through a shopping centre on the phone, and someone at one of those stalls they often have set up in the middle of the floor approaches me and starts to try to engage me in conversation to see if I want to try his product. No I bloody don’t - so rude to interrupt me! I did snap at him “I’m on the phone!” as I walked past, which was probably rude in itself, but I was having a miserable day and was holding back tears.

Not rude. If I smile, mouth "thank you" and pay without a problem then I think that's fine. You're scanning my groceries I don't want deep conversation anyway! I think it's bad customer service to expect your customers to adapt to YOUR expectations.

im only going to stand there in silence anyway when served apart from a thank you.

works both ways, I was in the library the other day and the receptionist was on the phone for about 10 minuted (no exaggeration) and completely ignored me. it was so bad i left in the end!

I once went to a beauticians who thought she was going to wax my eyebrows whilst having whay sounded like an argument in her own language erm no thanks she wasnt happy to be asked to not be on her phone whilst doing my eye brows me now would have just walked out!

Not rude. If I smile, mouth "thank you" and pay without a problem then I think that's fine. You're scanning my groceries I don't want deep conversation anyway! I think it's bad customer service to expect your customers to adapt to YOUR expectations.

Yes, but smiling and mouthing "thank you" shows basic manners, and is not rude. In this case the customer didn't acknowledge the person behind the counter at all.

Expecting people to have basic manners and treat you as a human is not bad customer service.

Not rude. If I smile, mouth "thank you" and pay without a problem then I think that's fine. You're scanning my groceries I don't want deep conversation anyway! I think it's bad customer service to expect your customers to adapt to YOUR expectations.

And this is why you are rude. You think, because you are a customer, that you are entitled to behave as though you are above the other human being with whom you are interacting.

@Charolais

The bastards. How dare they do their job and try to help you.

You do realise that most retail workers get into trouble if they don't interact with the customers?

The problem is simply people think their phones are more important than anything else (barring perhaps their expensive cars). I now play chicken with people in London who stare at their phones while walking along - to see if they'll look up before they crash into me and have to be ready to leap out of the way if they don't.

Um. Wtf? What a peach you are @Satsumaeater 

One of our local stores has a sign saying if you are on the phone, they’ll ignore you too and serve the next person in line. It worked.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but the customer has is always right. Their custom is paying your wages! Did you not learn that during your customer service training?

thisneverendingsummer That phrase does not mean what you think it means. The origin of the phrase ‘the customer is always right’ is due to making sure customer complaints are respected and taken seriously, which they absolutely should be.

It does not mean the customer gets to say, do or demand whatever they like.

I am a manager in a global restaurant business. We have extremely thorough training, one of the best management programmes in the country that’s well respected and has a high focus on customer satisfaction, and I have personally won awards for my customer service.

However, as much as I go out of my way for my customers, I have a duty of care to my crew. If a customer is rude to them, demanding, shouting or upsetting them, it is absolutely irrelevant to me whether or not their complaint is justified. They will be refunded immediately and asked to leave. I will not allow anyone to abuse, dehumanise or be rude to my crew; it is wholly unacceptable.

There are ways to go about things, and being rude is not one of them. That being said, while being on the phone while being served is extremely rude and dismissive, it is not a case where I would step in.

I hate being on a checkout when customers are on their phone - invariably they are too busy with their conversation to concentrate on packing so I have to slow right down with scanning which then pisses off the waiting queue and I can't help with packing as I'd need to communicate with the customer (to ask for their bags/check how they want things packed etc) which I can't do while they're on the phone.

Even when working on the kiosk (cigs and lottery) people will be on the phone and the worst are those who don't even break their conversation/turn their phone away to make it clear they are addressing me. I once had a guy kick off when I genuinely didn't realise what he wanted because he didn't even pause for breath between his phone conversation and his order. It was literally a case of "... so then I told her to bugger off back to her ex twenty L&B original and then I text Johnno to come round for a drink ..." (And at no point had he even looked at me to make me aware he was ordering) and so just stood there and then dared interrupt his conversation to clarify what he wanted.

It's one thing if they've been waiting a while in the queue so are chatting, but as soon as they get to the front of the queue say something like "Hang on, just getting served/I'll ring you back in a sec" as they are acknowledging me as a person. The same goes for if we're in mid transaction and their phone goes off and they say "Sorry, I need to get this/it's a call I've been waiting for," as again it is acknowledging that the transaction is a two way process.

I agree being on the phone unless it's an emergency is entirely rude the only problem is those who try to shame people with sarcastic comments etc is that you don't actually know if it's an emergency do you?

Granted of course if someone is twittering on about Tuesday's bingo night they are fair game

However thus was a discussion at work recently as we are on call managers and I am an escalation on call manager for extremely vulnerable people, I wouldn't dream of answering my personal phone while being served but I'm not going to risk harm to someone to save blushes out of rudeness

One of my colleagues had a checkout assistant think herself very clever and smugly and loudly tried shaming her despite when my colleague answered the phone she clearly answered it with "on call"

However to keep confidentiality of course my colleague was effectively saying yes and no with very little information if someone was listening , particularly because this call was frankly about a graphic situation that I promise no-one wanted to here and involved severe injury and how to support staff who had been covered in blood

My colleague had done a 12 hour day and had 15 minutes to grab food before then going back in

That call was extremely serious (to be fair that's why we were talking about this as it was a serious incident debrief)

She didn't get to eat because the woman was sat on her high horse , grimacing and having a good ole laugh trying to embarrass her out of using her phone so my colleague simply walked away

I'm sure that checkout worker was very proud of herself and somewhat bosom hoikingly told her nearest and dearest she had put my colleague in her place

And yes my colleague had apologised and mouthed sorry. She genuinely could not have ignored the call and was trying to eat in a horrendous day, she couldn't explain the details of the call or give any information ,she had answered "on call" so it was clearly not a silly calll , tried to apologise as best she could and wasn't given a chance to explain it was an emergency

But hey manners were more important apparently

I had to do this once as uncle had just been killed and was talking to the funeral home but i still made sure to take a moment to apologise for being on the phone when i was being served.

I think this is the height of rudeness. It’s a human being doing something for you. Why on earth would you act as though they aren’t even there !

I find the staff that ignore you are ruder. The number of times people are left waiting with no acknowledgement while staff do something else is appalling. I don't mind how long I have to wait if they look at you and say they'll just be a minute but to deliberately ignore you and not look at you is incredibly rude. I normally walk out in these cases. Though I find gp receptionists etc some of the worst for this.

It is rude, unless you absolutely have to take the call, and apologise for so doing.

It is considerably ruder if staff are having a conversation with a colleague and not properly concentrating when serving a customer though. They are actually at work, the customer isn't.

Eliza9917 agree fully. Recent visit to Boots saw me at till second in queue three times. Each time walked out and did something else thinking it would be better next time then returned. Was fuming by end of it. Also laughing because it was farcical. Got item elsewhere.