I left home young too - absolutely no excuse for this rudeness and poor customer service.
I’d be taking my business elsewhere too and telling them why. It’s the only way customer service has a chance of improving. Companies don’t change things unless it costs them!
With this particular business with the nature of it, what’s happened is actually a great way of them shooting themselves in the foot as I imagine a fair bit of business comes from students or parents of students and you could not be blamed at all for letting others locally know that they are patronising towards younger customers.
“Most 17 year olds would know what an invoice is.” Rubbish!!
Not least because few companies operate this way now. Most businesses you pay upfront for the type of services and retail 17 year olds are likely to use!
I didn’t know what an invoice was at that age and neither did my dd she never had one until she was 18, so why would she? Or I? I’d never had one till I was an adult either.
NO WAY would this person have spoken to an older customer like this!
In fact I’d be tempted to send someone older in asking the exact same and see what response they get!
But yes, I’d be voting with my purse.
Unfortunately such attitudes are not uncommon. My dd and some of her friends (only about 8 in total) went to a venue to partake in an activity popular with her age group. They were old enough to go alone, well behaved children. The person initially serving them was an arsehole about it!
It’s an activity frequently undertaken on a group level yet she tried to tell them they couldn’t be admitted as a group.
Then dd (politely but assertively, she “role played” it out for me) pointed out that they had a variety of discounts available based on group size.
Person ummed and Ahhed and then completely made up a rule that groups of certain sizes had to be accompanied by an adult - not true, nothing stating that and they’d been several times before
Then when they were paying she said they couldn’t have the group discount if they were paying “separately” but they weren’t paying separately dd merely did it that everyone gave her their share and she would then be the person
paying...
By this point dd had pretty much had enough and asked to speak to the manager.
Person at first tried to stop her from doing so but dd insisted.
Manager came to speak to dd, dd explained what had happened and manager admitted that was NOT what should have happened at all, apologised profusely, other person had to apologise and then processed dds booking with an additional 20% discount AND a voucher for another visit for all of them.
I can well imagine that the employee who dd had been dealing with got quite a ticking off and indeed the next time dd and her friends visited was very helpful and polite (which she should have been in the first place!)
It’s absolutely unacceptable to be rude to customers.
I'd complain to the manager, but then I'm really petty about things like this op has said this was the OWNER speaking to her daughter. Pretty stupid in terms of encouraging more custom!
“Then they loudly wonder why so many people would rather shop online. Yes, sure. It is s total mystery!” So true! The edge real life shops SHOULD have over online shopping is good, friendly, personalised service but I agree the majority of British retailers seem oblivious to that fact and then bemoan they’re being outdone by online retailers!
“and not particularly bright, given small traders like that can be made or broken by their reputation.” Exactly!
We used to have a fantastic “greasy spoon” cafe here been running for many years very successfully, always full. When the owners retired (their dc had moved to other towns and opened their own places which were also doing very well) the people who bought it were clueless!
They changed the menu to fancy coffees/paninis/salads & similar, made it table service but the wait staff were poor, and the customer service was grumpy and miserable!
Place closed in 6 months! And apparently the owners didn’t understand what went wrong and put it down to people only having gone before because they knew the owners!
No! People had gone before because:
It was the only place locally that did a full but basic “greasy spoon” menu - cooked breakfasts, hot rolls, chips with everything BUT home made chips and home made good quality accompaniments, the macaroni cheese was amazing. Soups and stews, massive baked potatoes cooked properly (not microwaved) with proper crispy skins, and basic popular cakes and pastries like scones, tea cakes, shortbread, strawberry tarts... pots of tea and ice cream sodas.
Had a democratic “first come first served” you buy before you sit setup - so no people hogging tables while someone else finished shopping elsewhere.
Good, very friendly service, spoke to the children and did “jokes” and “magic tricks” with them, let them choose what colour straw in their soda (minor to an adult great for a kid), remembered you as a “regular” after only a few visits “2 sugars and milk right?” “Are we having baked potato today or blowing out on a breakfast?” Lovely lighthearted atmosphere, a few of the waitresses (some dishes you had to wait to get eg if they’d just put a new batch of chips on) were related to the owners or to each other and we’d hear family anecdotes etc
It was lovely.
New people completely ruined all that, sacked all the old staff, changed EVERYTHING.
Now change happens fair enough but these guys took on an existing business with a certain ethos/selling point and then removed the very thing that the customers wanted!