To think that customers are behaving in an increasingly unreasonable, rude and aggressive manner?

[TheyBrokeMeToday]

Customer service. Love my wee job. The customers broke me today. So much rudeness, aggressiveness and just general unreasonableness. It seems to be becoming a very regular thing lately. Anyone else? Broken.

YANBU. Customers expect us to bend the laws of physics for them. We must do the impossible while being screamed at and all for near enough minimum wage.

I feel like Covid was a real turning point in how customers behave. It’s like everyone forgot their manners after lockdown. We went from refereeing loo roll fights to being essential workers and now we’re bottom of the pile. I think everyone forgets that we still rocked up at work every day and had customers loom over us coughing in our faces sans mask.

Too right. I think I lost all my people skills today. Enough is enough.

YANBU. There are some horrible folk about, entitled, aggressive and weird.

Entitled is the word. And very lacking in basic human manners.

I find it completely the opposite experience. Staff attitudes in public facing roles has really gone downhill lately, rude, abrupt, abrasive, ignoring you, chatting amongst themselves and then being huffy when you ask for their help. Someone was so rude to me the other day in a shop that I'd had enough and after I paid for my things I said to them "I hope a computer replaces you by next year".

I don’t know, I worked in customer service from 2004-2012 and they were pretty awful then too. Someone took a shit in the changing room and wiped themselves with the curtain.

I would say the opposite that customer service has really hit new lows. I have banked with First Direct for 25 years and they have been amazing. I phoned a couple of weeks ago to check that dh hadn't paid a bill a few months back and the app didn't go nack that far. The person on the phone was incredibly rude, I asked her what the problem was as she seemed to be getting quite stressed and upset - she said I was confusing her, I was asking a fairly straightforward question. I went to the post office - standing waiting, the customer in front was having a joint bitch fest with the counter assistant about how awful the general public are...I felt just a little bit awkward. Dd went out to Wagamma with her friend - they were given ramen and no cutlery - after 25 minutes they asked and got their head bitten off because the server was busy they waited 30 minutes and by the time they got cutlery their food was cold and they felt their night had been ruined. No need for rudenes but it seems that there are two sides.

People are rude to Customer Service folk because it makes them feel better about their own insecurities. I learned this working over the 9 years to support myself whilst studying 2 degrees and my banking exams.

They've had a hard day; take it out on the Receptionist; had a row with their partner/at work/with a random stranger; take it out on the first friendly face they see.

I KNOW how hard it is; I was screamed at, sworn at and threatened to be blown up. You have to try as much as possible to separate things into ‘them’ problems and ‘you’ problems. If they want to be rude to you, that’s a ‘them’ problem, not a ‘you’ problem. Then reset and start again. Don’t carry it with you; it’s not yours to carry. I do totally get it though; some of the stories are just farcical! Xx

Customer attitudes and customer service seem to have both gone downhill since lockdown.
My friend was telling me some driving test examiners are wearing cameras now because they're getting so much abuse.

YABU. They've always been unreasonable, rude and aggressive. I've worked in retail for over 20 years and they're no worse (or better) than when I started.

Yes. I meet rude people every day at work yet am always surprised by just how rude they manage to be. Young children behave better than some adults.

I don’t think YABU

but I also think that customer service has taken an absolute tumble. Partly through cost cutting - the covid excuse is piss poor now but still used, so things like a simple call takes forever to be answered

but also attitudes of customer service people - shop assistants seem to be surly and unsmiling, they sort of bark BAG? then don’t pack it, then don’t say anything else to you including asking you to swipe your credit card etc. I went to a lovely restaurant in London the other day and the staff basically spoke to everyone like it was a huge chore and they were doing us all a massive favour by even letting everyone in.

basic manners go both ways though, and I wonder if everyone is just rubbing each other up the wrong way

Service has been on the decline too. Customers are treated with complete indifference these days.

Staff and businesses stopped caring before 2020, but covid gave them licence to drop all the pretence. Increasingly, it's our way or the highway and "I don't care" if something goes wrong etc etc

I'm sorry if you are feeling the consequences of this, but don't lay it all at the feet of the customers.

What's the backlog for tests these days?

People are being prevented from getting on with their lives due to the complete indifference of these people who wish to have authority over others.

I think as a lot of people have said, people are increasingly frustrated by terrible customer service.
It seems to be everywhere.
You are treated as an inconvenience or treated as though you’re bone achingly stupid for not knowing the rules or procedure in the particular place you’re in, even if it’s not clear or no one has told you.
There is little to no excuse for people being rude to you but it is easy to also be ground down from the other side of it.

I'm afraid that I absolutely WILL lay it at the feet of the customer when they are criticising me for doing my actual job, and being unreasonable in not accepting that there are store policies which mean that I can't just do it their way because that's not how it works. I will also criticise them when they are just plain rude and aggressive. None of these have anything to do with genuine customer service, and everything to do with customers who think they know how to do your job and you don't, and that they can take their bad day out on the retail staff who don't count as actual people.

Yes!
Part of my job is dealing with complaints from parents about schools...oh lord, the abuse staff face, the selfishness of parents, the lack of responsibility and accountability, the time it takes to address serial, vexatious complainants ( even when they been through all avenues of school complaints procedures, OFSTED, local councillor, leader of the council, MP and in more than one case the PM!), they still don't accept that their complaint is unfounded. So much time and public money wasted.

Unfortunately OP customer service has declined in many areas. I don't think there's a customer service phone line that isn't experiencing an unusually high volume of calls at the moment, for example. This is because there's often not enough staff to do the required workload and the people at the top wan to make sure they get their bonuses and payouts. It means some otherwise polite customers might be a little fed up.

There's no excuse for customers being deliberately mean and unpleasant for the sake of it. Sometimes I imagine some of the very rude ones go back to their friends cackling about "so I told her! I said (insert totally unnecessary mean comment here)" and then the friends all laugh about how hilarious it is.

Exactly why I left retail. Couldn't bare some of the customers. Constant abuse while being professional and getting minimum wage. Never shown any appreciation from customers or managers. Wasn't worth the mental stress.
YANBU.

Not sure. I'm currently on the receiving end of appalling customer service from a garage (big uk dealership) who are currently holding my car hostage as the wait for the part continues. I know whoever answers the phone aren't responsible for the fuck ups but at the same time they are the one's at the end of the phone. I've tried to be nice, but am at the edge of losing my shit.

I think customer service reps should be given cattle prods 😂

I work in an office now but I'll never forget being called a 'carrot n-word' for having a ginger boyfriend at my bar job. Not being told a regular (lovely young woman with a small boy who played darts and drank lemonade) being called a race traitor who should be killed.

Theres all sorts of horrors out there. All you can do is smack them with a pool cue 🌝

I work in a local food shop and mostly customers are great, but some just seem to think they are superior or it's our fault that things don't work.

One customer got incredibly rude because none of his lottery tickets won. Demanded to get the manager then stormed off shouting at me that I was to blame for not winning anything.

Another customer comes in constantly, buys alcohol (sometimes claims it's not for him despite smelling of booze) and demands we serve him, even when we're clearly busy and understaffed. Obviously we should serve people, but when you have chilled and frozen items from a delivery and only 2 people it would be great if customers could be more understanding.

My friends works on the trains, serving drinks and snacks via the trolley through the carriages.
Daily she is berated and blamed for train drivers striking, trains being late, trains being crowded, not enough carriages, ticket prices... she didn't realise she had so much authority within her role 🤷‍♂️ but it seriously gets her down to the point she wants to quit her job

I think this is a sign of how stressed everyone is in the uk. The country is at breaking point. People are taking out on each other.

You hear people saying it's just as bad abroad. It's not. I have been to 2 other countries in the last few months: australia and a scandinvian one. People so helpful, polite and friendly. Two completely different ways of running a country, but in both things work.

Also another thing - everything has to be done on the cheap. Such a false economy as well. No wonder the customers get pissed off and customer service narky and defensive.