To wonder why customer service is so awful?

[PlomBear]

Is it just me or is customer service in the UK crap?

In a department store - huge queue, two cashiers. I appreciate that it’s management who roster staff. Waited ages to pay. I said a cheery “hello” and the woman just pursed her lips at me. She only spoke to say the transaction amount. I said “thanks” and she just looked at me. 🤷🏻‍♀️

On a train, the conductor checking tickets. Showed him my ticket “need your railcard too, you need to have that ready for me you know.” I smiled and said sorry, he proceeded to ask me why I was entitled to that railcard! And yes, it was my railcard and in date with my photo. Then just kind of grunted at me and walked off.

Post office - posting a dozen cards, some overseas. The clerk actually shouted at me that it wasn’t her job to stick the stamps on, I didn’t even ask her to! Considering there was nobody behind me in the empty store I thought it was a bit weird. She wouldn’t let me stand there to put the stamps on. I had to take them home, figure out which one was which (different countries needing a different number of stamps) and then go out again in the rain to post them.

I have worked retail many moons ago. I get that it’s minimum wage and that customers can be rude. But I really am always smiley and polite. Yet I am often met with downright hostility from staff. Everybody (staff and customers) seem so miserable.

[MiniMum97]

I also think the skill of good customer service is massively undervalued. Not everyone can do it and it's vital to the success of a business so not sure why this would be.

[MiniMum97]

I agree with the OP. Customer service is pants these days. It's either rude members of staff or awful shop practices (eg upselling). There is the odd organisation that still gets it right but it's more the exception rather than the rule.

[BeTheRabbit]

I work in Customer service. I love my job. But, I can tell you that I have noticed the increase lately in rude entitled customers who treat you like you are shit. It's incredibly demoralising for us, but we keep going and try our best. I wish the public could understand that. I can completely understand why some people in the industry end up fairly embittered.

[BonnyConnie]

We have a mix of extremely lovely and friendly and absolutely useless and grumpy where I am. DH keeps complaining that it’s because we left London. I’m from Australia so I’m pretty used to this kind of mix.

[Whatsitthingy]

Move to Northern Ireland, people are friendly and chatty, including the ones serving people...

[EmeraldShamrock]

To add a post office makes a tiny percentage on stamps probably 2p a stamp it is not cost effective for paid employees to be doing unpaid work.

[EmeraldShamrock]

Yab slightly U.
There are good and bad people across all walks of life.
I work in customer care I am extremely helpful often have a queue on hold for me.
Though today I had the worst cc experience with a large broadband company. V.
The chap was arrogant rude even after I asked him to stop speaking over me, he wouldn't. I hung up and rang back to complain.
The lady I made the complaint to was excellent at her job so it varies.
I never complain but I thought how bloody rude.
To balance it out some customers are extremely rude too.

[KenzoBaby]

Call centre workers are the worst. In the olden days (1990s) they used to apologise and at least pretend to be care or to try and help you. Nowadays, they talk over you and are dismissive, defensive and rude. Classic case of entitled millennials who don't think they should have to work for a living.

[scaryteacher]

In defence of PO staff, the lovely sub postmaster in our village told me to go home and he stuck all the stamps on my Christmas and change of address cards for me. The PO is also the village shop, and it wasn't very busy, but it was lovely of him to do it.

[70isaLimitNotaTarget]

The other side of this is the overwhelming in-yer-face interactions from the likes of Lush and BodyShop.


I personally don't like SelfService tills .

I don't mind if a member of staff spends a bit more time chatting to a customer (especially if they are elderly or infirm)

I asked a till operator if the customer before me was "one of her regulars" - she was and obviously planned her shopping when it was quiet and could go to this till. Most likely made a huge difference to her day .

[Aquilla]

My pet hate is when there's no greeting at the point of sale. Seems to be the norm now in a lot of shops - awful!

[BeyondMyWits]

If you work in a customer service role, you cannot win though... I work in a pharmacy. I go out of my way to be helpful - above and beyond type helpful. On a typical 4 hour shift I serve 150 customers - it is busy.

Around 100 of them will comment on how helpful I have been (10-20 of them will have come in especially because I am on shift), around 45-50 will be businesslike, do their transaction and leave, around 0-5 will whinge and complain -

like the customer today who whinged that I took too long popping out to put a large box of medication in an elderly customer's car (they could not carry it, they use us because we will help them, it took 2-3 minutes), and they were in a rush -

or the one I had to ask to return this afternoon as we had had to order her medication - not a stock item "the doctor said it would be there waiting", unfortunately the doctor didn't ring to see if we had any...

I just figure that customers using a pharmacy are ill or in pain, so need some slack, apologised profusely and helped them through their transactions and on their way. But those 2 customers will think they had crap service none-the-less.

[ssd]

I work in customer service. I'm friendly and helpful and I bend backwards to help people. I have 30 years experience. I get 10p above min wage. Then I go in M&S, tesco, sainsburys, today tk maxx and get someone probably paid more than me who is fucking hopeless.
I really don't know why I bother

[Rosebel]

You're annoyed because someone asked if you wanted some help? Others would be equally annoyed if they weren't offered help. Shop assistants can't win!

[BlaueLagune]

Coming back to this thread as I had an example of the "lets not leave you alone" sort of "service" today. I had a work meeting and was about 15 minutes early so decided to go into the local Waterstones book shop.

The shop assistant said hello to me as I walked in. That was ok.

But then she asked me if I wanted anything/needed help when I hadn't bought something within 30 seconds. I just wanted to walk around without being hassled. It's a book shop. You browse.

If this is a new policy of Waterstones they will drive even more people to Amazon.

(of course, I might have just looked like a shifty shoplifter)

[BlaueLagune]

People are poorly trained and poorly paid. And given zero incentive to show initiative.

But the majority are pleasant and do their jobs properly.

My biggest bugbear is that they let you queue for a till when they're doing something else (yes I know not all are till-trained, but most are and serving customers should come first).

Post office staff are a law unto themselves, they always seem to have something better to do than deal with a queue. You can have 4 members of staff and one desk open with a queue of 10 people waiting.

[Rosebel]

Basic manners aren't asking too much. I just wish customers would remember that too. So many come in with the attitude of I'm the customer I'm always right. You might be the customer but trust me you're usually wrong.

[Marriedtoapenguin]

You don't notice the normal level of service only the exceptional and the dire. The dire tends to stay with you longer though.

Overall most public facing staff are good even in the face of utterly entitled twattish behaviour.

[ScreamingValalalalahLalalalah]

But if I behaved rudely in my job because I was ‘having a bad day’ or otherwise underperforming, I would most likely get managed out.


You don't say what your job is, so it's difficult to comment on your circumstances.

I agree that rude, sullen behaviour and underperformance is never going to go down well in any job. My point was that in some jobs it's easier to cope when you are not feeling 100% (emotionally or physically) because you are not 'on show' all the time. I work in an office, so it's fairly easy for me to keep my head down and avoid too many human interactions if I am having a bad day. I am also sitting down, not having to stand up when I might be tired or borderline unwell.

[Aridane]

I've had instances of poor customer service of the type you describe - hasn't everyone - but I just assume the assistant is having a bad day - as we all do

You see, this seems to be the default response for sullen or rude customer‘service’.

But if I behaved rudely in my job because I was ‘having a bad day’ or otherwise underperforming, I would most likely get managed out.

I used not to think much of sporadically poor customer service until I travelled to other country where a higher priority is put on customer service

[AngelsOnHigh]

When I was working in banking, my very first customer of the day was a total nightmare.

I stopped the transaction she was making and quietly said that as it was only 9 am, someone or something had obviously upset her so early in the day. But it wasn't me so how about she take a deep breath and we'll start all over again.

Luckily it worked. Don't know if I would try it these days.

[Graphista]

Good, personal service is one of the major advantages of physical shops over online shopping and so many High St chains haven't adapted to create service that keeps customers in shops. 100% agree with this!

Think I discussed this with you on another thread op.

I’ve worked in retail (for several years) and as I’ve said on other post I don’t think there’s any excuse for grumpy, surly and unprofessional service.

“Real life” retailers are constantly bemoaning the online retailers for “stealing” their business but in addition to the convenience and prices online retailers can offer they also tend to offer better customer service.

And I don’t accept customers being rude as a defence either - again as I said on other post the best way to deal with awkward customers anyway is to “kill em with kindness” - the ones who aren’t arses but just stressed/having a bad day themselves will calm down and the ones who are arses will reveal themselves but you’ve covered your own arse and if they really push it they can be dealt with even barred.

And I certainly notice - and compliment good customer service and I’ve regularly emailed or phoned companies to praise their exceptional staff and made sure to give them top marks on any survey.

I would agree too that glasgow is generally very good on this score and I’ve lived all over Uk. Worst city on this I wont mention as I’d get flamed!

And yes the blethering nhs receptionists are getting on my nerves too it seems to be getting more prevalent, I even recently had a situation where I phoned a dept, the receptionist picked up the call and then carried on her conversation with her pal for over 4 mins (yes I noted!) and then deigned to say “hello x dept” and listen to me. Dreadfully unprofessional way to behave.

“But as someone who worked in a customer facing role, I always gave the same benefit of the doubt to my customer.” Exactly that argument works both ways!

I really don’t think expecting basic competency and good manners is asking so much.

[Bananablueberry]

I work in retail. Occasionally my colleagues can be rude/grumpy with customers. Sometimes it's because that's just what they're like, sometimes it's because they're tired or a bit unwell or just incredibly busy. Sometimes it's because the customer has been rude or grumpy first.

I don't get paid if I'm off work so I was doing an 8 hour shift 2 days after a traumatic car crash and had to run off to the toilet crying a few times. I probably wasn't being particularly cheery that day although I wasn't rude.

People working in customer service, just like all other people can be rude or simply bad at their jobs. Most aren't in my experience though, the majority of my colleagues are lovely and helpful. I do often find that many customers who complain about customer service are demanding we do things against company policy just for them (not saying this is you OP)

[PegasusReturns]

I don’t really buy the “too frazzled” excuse - I think people know when they can get away with it and when they can’t.

E.g. I fly a lot. I’ve never had cabin crew be rude to me when flying business or first. In fact to the contrary it can be uncomfortably OTT. Not so when flying economy where it’s not uncommon to be on the receiving end of a sharp tongue. I don’t believe the business crew are exponentially better at customer service. They just understand it matters more.

[managedmis]

I totally agree, op.

I live abroad and am always shocked by how crap customer service is, how rude people are and generally miserable when I return to the UK.