Retail workers- Whays the rudest thing a customer has done or said to you ?

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I work in retail and provide good customer service and always help customers.

Last week I had one go in to a full blown rage as we did not have any hand sanitizer and it was apparently all my fault. So I said dont speak to me in that manner and turned around and walked away from her.

Therr are many other moments I could mention but we would be here all day
So what is the rudest thing a customer has done or said to you?

That's horrendous @WendyMad. I despair.

I worked in Primark in my teens. My God. That was an education, not just due to customers but due to other staff too. I've often thought I could write a successful drama out of it.
I was a Saturday girl but used to (no doubt illegally) work extra hours where possible during the school holidays (I was at 6th Form)
The sales were mental, grown women actually having fights over discounted vests and trousers.
By far the worst though, and where I nearly quit, I was working on returns.
This is before Primark as it is now, with big Customer service desks, this was a small booth by the changing rooms. It speaks volumes that we were meant to man it with two of us.
Well, my colleague that day was a right shirker, she had been there for years and used to take the piss with fag breaks. So she disappeared for the third time that shift (shift was 5 hours).
As it was Saturday, the queue was long, it used to take a bit of faff to do returns as it had to be done with a form filled in and we had to mark on the garment with a safety pinned tag the fault. If they had paid card we had to call the upper manager too.
This woman comes to the front eventually and I said, I am so sorry for the wait, how may I help you?
She immediately swears at me calling me dim and a fucking prat who has deliberately kept her waiting. I tried to remain polite (first job, she'd get told now) and said no we are busy today but I would help as quick as I could.
She throws the bag on the counter and says she wants to return these. It was a bag with underwear in. Primark didn't and no doubt still doesn't, accept returns on pants. It's unhygienic after all. So I explained unfortunately I wasn't going to be able to refund her but thanks for coming in.
She starts screaming at me that I'm a cunt who has called her dirty. I said no, I didn't, it's company policy. She started making threats and then the customer behind said to her "stop screaming, they cost like 50p, get a grip", and moved round her to get to me.
So off this mad harpie goes and I think "thank fuck for that"
Only no, she hasn't given up.
She's taking a run up.
I heard a blood curdling noise the likes of which I imagine soldiers in battle made before charging at the enemy. I see her coming towards me, and just had time to move to the door which was a little area with another door which led to the changing rooms and a door to outside. I held that door with every bit of strength I had, and shut it just in time to see mad pants woman, fist out, jump over into the booth. She was kicking and screaming at the door, I didn't see but security had to lift her up and throw her out.
My boss (who was lovely) gave me £50 bonus that day.
My section boss though was a bitch, she proper thought herself above us and let us know it. Primark changed from black skirts to navy blue after I had been there a few months. Full time staff were provided a uniform, Saturday girls were not, so despite earning £2.30 an hour I had to sort one. I bought a secondhand M&S one.
This section boss comes over and despite a huge queue, makes me stand out of my till booth for a "uniform inspection" then bitched that my skirt was black and gave me an infraction notification. These were not store or Primark policy, these were her own invention.
I pointed out the skirt was navy, it even said on the tag navy. She wouldn't have it and said if I continued arguing I would get my final notification and she would move for me to be sacked. She was clearly enjoying embarrassing me, until my next customer told her what for and she needed glasses if she thought the skirt was black. She let me jump back on the till but then bitched me that my queue was too long for her policy.
She was awful and ended up being sacked after she told my colleague to run after a thief and the poor girl had a knife held to her throat, our security guard used to just stand round chatting.

Many of these stories are so horrible, and unfortunately so typical of working in retail/customer service.

Here is mine...

Worked in a fast-food restaurant through Uni.

I hated it but I always took great pride in customer service and held myself to really high standards. Bent over backwards to please. I was promoted to Crew Trainer and there were talks of me doing the Manager program.

Had a lot of run-ins with unpleasant customers over the few years I was there, but it seemed to get worse towards the end. Went through some traumatic personal stuff and a several months later, at work, the following happened:

I was having a really good day even though we had so many customers waiting; running the front counter on a busy Saturday while the Manager was out back. As well as running the front counter, I had my own till with customers to serve, as well as two trainees needing my help... I’d gathered a customer’s order into a bag but left the bag inside the hot production chute while I was waiting for one more item to come down the chute to complete his order.

I was just about to serve the next customer when out of no-where he looked at me and said loudly ‘I’m going to EMBARRASS you now!’ I looked at him, puzzled. He then berated me for leaving his food ‘to get cold’ - I stammered ‘I’m sorry, I’m really sorry’ while holding back tears and then he goes ‘Oh, you’re SORRY are you? GO GET YOUR MANAGER!’ I ran off out back to get the Manager and burst into tears and couldn’t go back on the floor for a good twenty minutes.

Turns out the Manager just apologised and replaced all his food. Can’t remember if the guy got a refund too or not. We weren’t technically meant to leave food inside a bag inside the production chute but only because it was hot! However I did so because of how busy we were and needing to ensure no-one else took his food for their customer. I was just trying to be efficient :-/

Along with what was going on in my personal life, I feel this really broke me. I lost a huge amount of confidence in my work and it wasn’t the same after that. Started making lots of mistakes and suffering anxiety thinking every customer was going to be like that, even if I was just telling them food was delayed a few minutes or something. I even had one elderly chap sweetly say ‘it’s alright it’s not the end of the world!’ when I told him his food was delayed by a few minutes a couple weeks later. I was so on edge.

About that time we started to see a regular customer too who seemed to have it in for me. The first time I recall serving her, she had a large order which I was getting together as quickly as I could for her. She complained about how long it was taking and once it was all together I did something to save time (maybe just grabbed a plastic-wrapped spoon from under the counter or something instead of one of the larger spoons) something really trivial like that. I also gave her an extra sauce for free that I should have charged her for- I said ‘Don’t tell anyone ;-)’ then immediately she said ‘I want to speak to your Manager!’ Then she complained to my Manager and in front of them both I said I just did what I did ‘for quickness’ - it was a busy night and she had a big order - and she said: ‘I don’t want quickness, I want SERVICE’

Then one evening (I don’t even think I was serving her) she called over the counter at me: ‘You shouldn’t be doing this job’ :-/

So glad I have an office job now but these things stay in my mind.

A bit outing, so NC. Not exactly retail, and I was only a bystander, but I still remember it years later.

Years ago my cousin was at an expensive boarding school (our family aren't rich, she got a scholarship). One day her dad drove her to the station to catch the school train (yes, they really exist), and I went along to see her off. We soon got talking to the other people waiting for it, parents with their children. But then it was announced there was a problem on the line, and the train would be delayed for around 2 hours.

One man marched straight off to the ticket office and started ranting at the man there, ordering him to have the train diverted to another line and stopped at a station on that line. It was a stupid idea – we'd all have had to drive for miles to meet it. But it was the ranting that amazed me.

I was about 15, and I'm ashamed to say that I briefly thought, “So that's how rich people behave! That must be how you get rich.” Then I saw that all the other rich people there thought he was ridiculous.

But I really admired the response of the man in the ticket office – no matter what the ranter did or said, he just calmly, politely and implacably replied, “I'm sorry, we can't do that.” This went on for about 15 or 20 minutes! I just stood there the whole time, watching. Eventually, to the relief of everyone, the ranter gave up.

I had someone ask me if I could change a ten pound they had. I explained I couldn't open the till unless they bought something. 'But I don't want anything, I just want this tenner changed' I reluctantly repeated myself and was then told to go fuck myself

My colleague had 2 today. One was a lady moaning at all the cages in the aisle and told her to do it when the shop was closed The next one was another lady moaning saying she nearly had her feet run by the cage even tho she could see my colleague pushing it along and she just didnt move back. So untold her I'd move back next time as these things when full are hard to stop. She had loads of room as well to move out the way

iheartislesofwigh

I'm with you, I'd get fired on the first day!!