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.

I live in Spain with a mixture of Spanish, Brits and other Northern Europeans in our community, full tim residents and holiday home owners.
The decline in manners from visiting Brits is really noticeable, from complaining that staff are speaking to each other in Spanish ( in Spain 🙄 ) to throwing a tantrum because supermarkets dont sell medication ( I stepped in with that one, the twat was being really abusive to the staff).

You sound like a spoilt brat, do you stamp your feet and scream?

No I don’t. That would be pointless. I worked at the sharp end of customer service for a very well known company and some of my customers taught me very effective ways of being calmly assertive. If wanting decent service and getting what you pay for has now morphed into being a “spoilt brat” that speaks volumes about the current level of customer service.

I am a customer not in customer service, and yes you do sound utterly spoilt and demanding I'm afraid. Totally up yourself.

But why did you have to say that you are trying to help, when he was having a little rant after not receiving any assistance from the relevant dept. Problem is customer service lacks empathy towards a customer who has gone pillar to post and is exhausted.
It's great that you helped him depite being from another dept, but your conpany has already treated him appallingly.

Some examples here of people working in retail are really bad and it seems like some customers don't treat retail workers with respect, which is horrible.

But some retail workers can be rude too and act like they are doing a favour to the customer by doing their job.

So if I pay for something and complain because I don’t get it, I’m spoilt and demanding? How are you finding life on Planet Earth?

@ilikepinknblue the alternative was saying nothing
Trust me everything I said was wrong. I just said something along the lines of I was going to try my best to help him
I am not technically customer service so it was effectively like ringing I dunno, Barclays Bank accounts to shout about your barclays credit card
Same company, 2 totally separate things and complaining about a credit card to someone that deals with bank accounts and hasn't a clue about credit cards...

By entitled I mean customers demanding that they are seen tomorrow, ones that have assaulted staff by head butting them, and having to ban customers altogether from ever coming in again

Customer facing staff are often the lowest of the low for the company. A necessary evil, almost. They have to employ them but the job is supposedly easy and unskilled, so they get the worst pay and are considered expendable.

It's still the case now even though companies are massively short staffed, and where I live hospitality venues have dropped their opening hours and services because they can't get front of house staff.

A lot of these jobs are zero hours contracts where I'd imagine it's difficult to forge any kind of loyalty to an employer as a consequence, so I can't blame staff for having a lackadaisical attitude to service. It's a two way street that a lot of employers ignore.

The worst customer service I've ever encountered is in Tesco. I've only been in about three in recent years, and every single time the staff have been impatient, rude, and unhelpful! I don't blame them for it - the culture of the company must be awful! But I won't shop there again.

I totally agree with this.

I can’t remember the last time I experienced a good customer service - and it IS what you pay for!!

I can’t go to the kitchen of a restaurant to cook the food can I. I’m paying for someone to do that. And if they get it wrong, I’m certainly gonna think “Oh well COVID has been tough or “They’re probably on a crap wage” because it’s not my problem. My problem is I haven’t got the food I ordered and I can’t sort it myself so I DO expect staff to sort it.

We have been tricked into thinking we are not entitled to good service just because <insert a reason why life in customer services isn’t a haven of joy>. But we do no favours to ourselves or staff by accepting shit service.

I also see a lot of TikTok accounts with service staff taking the Piss out of customers (or Karen’s) and re-enacting scenarios whereby they were super reasonable and the customer was not. One woman moaned that she got asked to stop making the videos or resign. TBH if she worked for me I’d have sacked her at the first video. You can’t represent your company and publicly take the piss out of customers.

Customer service is bad in general. In my experience, UK has one of the best, it is on decline though.

I visit my home country regularly and customer service is thousand times worse than in the UK. I was wrongly charged a fees by bank, an officer in branch gave me assurance that it would be reversed in a week, a week later he had left the branch, new replacement gave me another answer, when I comolained, i got laughed at. Long story short after dealing with several staff members and all sort of BS answers, it has been over 6 months and my problem is not resolved. Another eg of an old lady ranting in a sim card store about how she was made to go to one dept to another over phone and still her problem was not solved, young staff member laughing at her. Also flight was delayed for several hours due to technical issue while passengers stuck inside plane, it was lunch time, passengers offered not even water, while flught attendants openly munching, chatting with one another. So customer service is universally bad.

I know!!

I’ve posted about this before but I recently booked an Italian restaurant, me my brother and our 3 kids between us. I booked well in advance, and we were seated near the door. There were hardly any staff in, and they kept getting people coming in who hadn’t booked and did the whole “ah we can squeeze you in”. We ordered drinks and after 30 minutes and 3 parched kids we asked where they were. We had only ordered soft drinks not fancy cocktails. They just barked they’re busy and short staffed and 3 people called in sick etc. I don’t care - just go and pour the drinks, it’s a 30 second job. And I did say if you’re so busy stop letting people in who haven’t booked as it’s not gonna help. They were so rude and seemed really annoyed that I wasn’t happy to wait

What I find is you deal with customer service people and in the main they are rude and obstructive. But when you push back or are rude you actually get your own way, so it actually becomes worthwhile and keeps perpetuating the rudeness.
I was at a English heritage house the other day and was told they didn’t have any timed tickets left, so went to move on, as I was putting things back in my rucksack, the man behind me in the queue absolutely kicked off being told the same thing (even though he’d heard me be told the same thing), at which point the till operator pulled out two tickets from under the counter and told him it was ok he could have tickets!!! All that has taught him is if you’re a knob you get your own way, and it has shown me that nice guys finish last.

So there's someone who has a company which says that tech companies need to act morally for young children.

They're also saying that because of social media we've lost the ability to speak face to face and that humans are social creatures and this is making us sit behind screens which isn't good for us because the thing that makes us different from other species isn't our intelligence. It is our social abilities and the fact that we can communicate correctly and work as a team

So you're absolutely right and because of that we're are literally losing the ability to speak to each other.

Sorry for the typos.

@TheObstinateHeadstrongGirl I agree.

You’re completely missing the point. If I’ve got an issue I want it resolved to my satisfaction. I don’t care how you do it or why you apparently can’t do it in a particular way, I certainly don’t want you to waste my time and try my patience with a lengthy explanation which is of no interest to me. Just sort my bloody problem out with the minimum of fuss and argument

Precisely this. You explain what you CAN do, not what you can't.

@Rebel2023 we all speak from our own experiences. In your eyes, customers act entitled, demand they see someone next day, in mine, companies are only interested in acquiring more customers but do not want to invest in proper customer service. You must be a genuinely helpful staff member but there are many who are not, and then after a while customers are at the end of their tethers. I have had really bad experience with a large bank (not in the UK), after chasing them for over 6 months and receiving responses that back office team has made the error and they need to get it resolved from them and then telling me next week for 6 months, I decided to move to another bank. This was after a long period of trying to gaslight me that I had signed for something I never did. It required a lot of chasing to find out the mistake was on their side. I was told on my face, I applied for premium service and hence premium fees. I never applied for it, even my high earner husband does not have that premium service.
Nor did I get any premium services but I am charged unnecessary fees, so how should i act next time an officer give me a BS excuse or speak over me confidently?
Banks have the worst customer service considering people trust the banks with their money, and when something goes wrong they treat us appallingly because suddenly we are powerless customers at the mercy of their wish to help us or not.

@ilikepinknblue I get that but
If I tell someone the first date is next week and they demand it's seen tomorrow - we physically can't fit them in. Demanding, swearing etc will get you nowhere
That's what I mean by more entitled, it's very much "you WILL fit me in"
And I take a lot of crap (despite not being customer service) to the point my manager has listened back to calls and given customers lifetime bans for how they've spoken to us

I don't know what you mean by something can't work the customers want it to.
As you are very vague and have not given any specific examples or even mentioned your industry, all I can say is you are generalising too much.
Most customers dont want things their ways, I bought a sofa from made, after 3 months sofa arrived in 2 pieces - in one part in grey, another in green. When I complained to customer service, I got lengthy response of some excuse and that I can return it and will get refund in x number of days. A staff with your attitude can vaguely say told i receiv3d a call grom customer who wanted to receive sofa the way she wanted, when reality is soda I order was in grey, but i received back in green after 3 months of wait and my money sitting in company's bank account, and there was no sense of responsibility from staff all they could say is ok then you can return or wait for 3 months, witjoyr offering any apology or showing any empathy. No wonder the company had gone bankrupt but sadly after selling too many poor quality products.

I can see both sides.

There are some entitled and rude people who get a thrill out of being rude and abusive to people who they believe are paid not to talk back or defend themselves. A lot of people really take advantage of the “customer is always right” ethos.

Bur it’s also the case that customer service provided by most companies is fucking awful. Staff routinely don’t know enough about the business to provide a proper response to questions. Impossible to speak to anyone on the phone because “COVID” or because everyone is now forced to use apps or chatbots. Very difficult to negotiate refunds or discounts due to “computer says no” mentality. Just dealing with companies as a customer nowadays is an utterly soul destroying experience.

It’s no excuse to be an arse obviously as this is rarely the fault of the staff but I do think you need to remember what a miserable experience it is dealing with most companies as a consumer.

@ilikepinknblue for an example for me it would be
Customer wants to do a Saturday
I explain why we can't rather than just saying no
Customer says they don't give a shit and want a Saturday
Explain we can't do a Saturday, offer alternatives
Customer demands manager as "you're a stupid cow working off a script who doesn't know what they're doing"
Manager explains exactly the same as me, why we can't do a Saturday

I will accept some complaining. I won't accept being sworn at directly, being threatened, assaulted or screamed at just because I've said something someone doesn't like. If someone from say your dentist rings you with a check up reminder, you don't need to tell them to fuck off and rant about how shit they are

YANBU. I’m a small business owner and never experienced so much entitlement as last year. Wanted lots of extra work done for free. That’s not how it works!

This is alarmingly common. The amount of period stained worn clothes returned to the changing room rail was terrifying. We were taught to count the hangers (they had a tag with the corresponding number of items on it) but it was virtually impossible to check each item due to how busy the store was. Bras were the most commonly swapped items - and it’s scary how worn peoples bras are 😂😂

Golden sticker for anyone who guesses the shop 😂

Golden sticker for anyone who guesses the shop 😂

Primark

Yes, both customers and staff can be HORRIBLE

Life is so ridiculously stressful now. I've heard people on phones being rude, a woman being rude in the bank queue but when you listen to them they're pretty much at the end of their rope - the woman in the bank queue was cry raging because they'd charged her £50 for going £7 overdrawn

And the bank teller literally shrugged

We're getting so UTTERLY FUCKED OVER by companies and the poor service staff on minimum wage are getting it in the neck