To expect better customer service when shopping?

[FairyAndLavender]

Out shopping in a few places this week. B&M, Next, M&S, TK Maxx...

AIBU to want a friendly face to serve me, someone who doesn't look like they'd rather be anywhere but doing their job?

The loveliest bunch of sales assistants I can think of work at our local B&M! There's one nice guy at our local Next but the rest of the team seem to let him down with their miserable faces and lack of customer service skills.

I know it isn't a well paid job in general but it's still their job, isn't it? I bet the local toilet Cleaners, who I see regularly about the town centre, aren't paid much better. Yet they always smile and have spoken to me a few times?

Just makes me not want to bother shopping. It's a pleasant experience for me, or should be. I go for the overall experience, a little day of it. Not just the product itself.

Maybe I am being grossly unreasonable, I don't know..

I work in an Office role and I'd be sacked for the attitude a lot of retail workers have. There's noway I could speak to anyone work related, external or otherwise, like that and not get a swift exit fairly quickly

In my retail days I always checked the stockroom even if I was 99percent sure it wasn’t there. It gave me a 5 minute break away from dealing with the general public.

I work on our customer service desk and I spend 10hr shifts getting complained to, yelled at and generally just constantly hear negative comments and it wears you down, especially when you're 9hrs into your 5th 10hr shift of the week and you just have no more energy to pretend to be happy and smiley all of the time when you are asked for the 7634th time that day if there are any more XYZ in the back.

Not only that but where I work we are still short staffed since covid so we are all fucking exhausted - I have personally noticed that my patience levels and ability to tolerate rude customers has definitely reduced.

As for "can you check the back" - where I work 90% of stuff is on the shop floor, either on the shelf or top stocked above. If it is not out, we probably dont have it. Additionally I spend 10hrs a day in the store and walk through the warehouse multiple times a day - I can guarantee that I know what we have out there - if you want crisps or boxes of beer, we almost always have extra in the warehouse as they are staples and arrive in massive boxes/pallets that we can't bring out onto the shop floor during the day, but bottles of gin or boys school socks - that come in smaller boxes that can be carried out to the shop floor during trading hours - will all be on the shop floor.

The only exceptions is if a delivery wagon arrives and we are short staffed it is too busy to put the stock out immediately, so I assume empty shelf + top stock = none in the store, when the department colleague knows a delivery arrived an hour ago but they just haven't had chance to bring it out to restock.

Oh, and if there's a black ticket on the shelf edge? We're out of stock. The black ticket means it's been gap checked.

So, no. There won't be any 'out the back', I know from seeing the black ticket. I don't need to go out into the warehouse (leaving the till unmanned because there are three staff on, one in the office, one (me) on the till and the other one trying to do all the jobs on the shop floor) to check.

I expect that most start out being friendly, but after a long time of unpleasant customers, unreasonable ones, those who fit the 'Karen' stereotype (and the male equivalent) and the powerlessness over things such as head office policies and stock control, it wears them down.

Even in normal times.

Personally I go into a shop to buy something not have general chit chat or get smiles from the sales assistants. As long as they are not rude and are able to do their job then I don’t see what the problem is. I worked in retail as a student and honestly would never go back, it was the worst especially at Christmas!

I love my job in retail. Tiny little local food store, mostly serving regulars and everyone was so happy to see us staying open during lockdown. I love it!

I am generally very cheery at the start of my shift, go off a bit half way through and then pick up again at the end. But beware anyone coming in two minutes before (late) closing and wanting to wander around with a trolley...