To ask retail staff your worst customer stories?

[JaneTheVirgin]

There's been an influx lately of people complaining about the most minor perceived slight from customer service staff when in reality what they deal with on a daily basis is 99% of the time worse than not kissing your backside for buying a £5 chicken or £2 nail polish.

So, current and former retail staff - who was your worst customer? What shit do you put up with daily?

*Disclaimer for the whiny and chronically offended, I'm not talking about ACTUAL terrible service, which does happen but at a much lesser rate than terrible customers treat staff on minimum wage.

Had a few crackers during my 4 years in the industry as sales staff and management.

• Regular customer. My ex boss gave her a discretionary discount as she bought lots. Ex boss got fired and we became very careful about stuff like that. This woman got told this as we explained why she no longer got money off at random. She'd still try it on with every new staff member. I got pulled off my break once to make her leave a distressed colleague alone!

• Same woman was also very stupid and arrogant and lazy. I was on a break once and had popped out for a hot drink. Had to walk past our fitting rooms to get to staff area. Dozy mare was in there, heard footsteps, whipped the curtain open and tried to dump clothes into my arms and asked me to fetch other sizes. The hat, coat, gloves, scarf, huge bag and hot cup of sludgy hot choc apparently didn't denote that I wasn't on duty. Told her no, called a colleague over. When told anything that wasn't "yes, ok" her mouth used to fall open. It did so spectacularly when told "I'm not serving".

• People referring to retail as not a real job. Including somebody who knew from chit chat that I'd trained to do something else so said triumphantly "I bet that paid better". Said it didn't matter wear I did as I came from so much money I just did this so I wasn't bored. That shut her up. Plenty of students etc work in retail. There's no shame in it.

• T shirt thrown in my face because I couldn't remove a left on security tag without proof of purchase.

• Used tampons and dirty nappies left in fitting rooms.

• Screamed at so upclose that the sound physically hit me and gave me palpitations. Customer didn't get away with trying to defraud us though.

• A dude no pants on trying on shorts with the curtain open just enough for us to see. He then bought underpants.

• Anyone who screamed at us when the refund policy didn't favour them. Including an absolute bitch who hissed that she would complain about us USING SOCIAL MEDIA if I didn't break policy to refund her. Luckily our area manager was good about trusting our judgement on stuff like that and let me do it so she'd fuck off.

• Worked with a lady who said "my love/lovely" to customers. Not really my service style but I picked it up slightly without noticing. Said "my love" to a woman who immediately went bananas and said how DARE I, I had devalued the love of her partner for her and banged on that she wasn't a chattel. A simple "I'm not your love" would have sufficed.

• Opening at 11 on Sundays; I'd get in for 9 and do all my admin etc and sometimes get a start on floor displays etc. A man wanted to collect a parcel. Could see me on the floor with the lights on, door clearly signed that we opened at 11. He stood across the street from 10am and stared in the window for an hour.

• Anyone who tried to come in with the staff in the morning before opening or tap on locked doors at end of trade expecting to be let in. Including people who'd bang on the doors at 8pm when we were setting up for sale etc. It would be sodding obvious what was going on ages after the hours advertised on the doors and they'd still think we'd let them in. Full blown tantrums.

• My boss had a customer from her last job who set fire to stuff. Also "Silky pocket man" who wanked into things with silky feeling linings and left cum in the pockets /on linings for people to discover.

• Anyone who ignored their kids/let them play around. One woman had a daughter so unruly we called her The Toddler from Hell. Mother was also rude to us and the husband was a walk over. See also someone who let her son lock 2 of us in the disabled loo. Out of control little brat.

• Have to say the least pleasant group overall to serve were late middle age and older ladies. Really rude, practically contemptuous. Including one who had a tantrum because I wouldn't break off a transaction to get something off a shelf for her. I had to stop what I was doing in the end as she took my step ladder and tried to do it herself. The shop was empty bar her and person at the till so she would only have had to wait 2 minutes! I do think for some older women it's generational and they missed the day that they could walk in and expect 3 people to hurry over and start arse kissing. We had neither the time, woman power nor inclination to do that.

2nd rudest group: Very Important People of ages. I always wonder about the parenting skills of people who throw wobblers and treat retail staff like crap infront of their children. They'd be the first to kick off if someone did the same to their kids working in retail.

Just the other day-a bloke walked in and demanded a white coffee

I took his order,made the coffee and gave it to him

He went mental-hed ordered a white coffee but wanted a latte (20p more) and I should have read his mind

I got a box of tampons thrown at my head as he stormed out,clutching his coffee

We have a family that come in (they seem to live on our food)

Mum just sits,slack jawed on her phone,snarling at the kids to 'fuck off'

These kids are feral-i thought mine had their moments

More than once,I've had to run out of the door and grab one of the kids who have run out into the main road,they can unpick locks and have attacked our cleaning products and bits we keep to hand out to kids and try to steal anything that's not nailed down-including out of people bags and pockets

They piss where ever they like (as in just stand there and piss) they leave a massive mess,I've seen them fight-i refuse to break it up,its that bad and I've never heard language like it from all of them (eldest is about 10,youngest about 18 months)

Management do nothing-they hide in the back and leave us to it

I had a lady come in and order,but when it came to paying,she was £1.50 (ish) short so said she'd run out to the car to get the rest

Cue the bloke behind her-he started snarling that he 'wanted to order and I'm not waiting for that stupid bitch to come back'

I can't take another order while in the middle of another one-i have to complete or delete the order that's there

In the 45 seconds she was gone,he got so angry at me 'refusing' to take his order,he leapt over the counter,punched me and smashed the till screen

The police arrived and he was still screaming that he should have his 'coffee for free,due to the fact I've waited over 15 minutes!' (More like a few seconds)

A bloke came in a few days ago,pissed out of his skull

Asked me on a date,I said that I'm married (big fat lie but i do have a dp) so he smashed up a table and stood just outside,sobbing that he loves me (Cue much piss taking from colleagues) and as he was being bundled into a police van,he punched the police man

Came back the following night with a bunch of (half dead) flowers and still trying to tell me he loves me

They did ban him for that as I said I'd quit if they didn't and we are that short staffed,they can't afford for anyone else to leave

Blimey, @Pebblesflintstoneandbambamrubble, life gets interesting at your café!

IVFfirsttimer91 · 07/10/2023 23:30

I don’t know whether it slipped her mind for a moment that I was there at 8pm because it was my job or what, but needless to say she didn’t get an appointment for any time soon.

I did Amazon deliveries during lockdown and had one woman who wouldn't come to the door, I needed to see ID. She answered the buzzer, but didn't come down. I buzzed a couple more times and eventually, she came down, with a phone headset and snarled,

"Why do you keep buzzing?" I said, "I've got your parcel and can't leave it without ID."

She said, "Well, SOME of us are working." I said, "Well what do you think I'm doing?"

I reported it to my boss when I got back to the van and sure enough, she'd complained about me, but my boss had already backed me.

Not retail but a few years ago I worked as a hotel receptionist for a couple of months, and people were just vile. I don't just mean customers either. As receptionists we were apparently the scum of the earth to both customers and staff.

I can't think of any particular stories but just the rudeness, entitlement and arrogance I had to deal with meant I didn't stay in the job for long.

So many customers assumed that because I was working as a receptionist I was either thick, poor, or usually both!

“He argued with me back and forth until I gave in and refunded him via card.”

This is often the problem, people see twats getting what they want. So had he been polite it would’ve been a no. 🤔 There should be a bit of common sense surely. You can tell if the pants have been taken out of the pack, like you say 20 mins had gone by so it was unlikely she had worn them.

Ah well see the customer is always right as we're always told.
If a customer has decided I'm thick and treats me as such, then wouldn't it be really bad customer service to disprove that by being competent? Seeing as the customer is always right?

If a customer has already decided I'm thick and convey this on their first interaction, then that's exactly what they get! Very slow and wide eyed responses and one finger typing, how rude it would be of me to disprove their assumptions in my lowly place as receptionist by being efficient and competent.

I don't recognise what you say about the staff, I haven't experienced that attitude from other staff, although there's plenty of 'Just sit on your arse' comments - hmmm, I do, I also do a lot of organising for each department across the entire hotel - do you want that done well and so it all works, or made harder than it needs to be? 🤔

Yep same for working in pubs. You have to be made of tougher stuff to survive hospitality.

We had one guest (hotel on site) who would click his fingers at us ladies and demanded table service in the pub. He also brought a rotation of "ladies" to entertain his lonely nights. Boss wouldn't ban him despite his rudeness.
I reported him to his company. Turned out he was using the company card to entertain these ladies too. Should've sent his face when his boss turned up. We got flowers and a rather impressive tip from her for being kind enough to let her know.

Then there was the drunk girl who went for me for refusing to serve her- we had been warned of her imminent arrival by the pub up the road as we were all on pubwatch. She was swinging a bottle at me and my colleague who was 18 and petrified. Told colleague to go up to the flat above (my home) and stay there and not to let my teens down until I text her.

Luckily, one of my more hardy female regulars grabbed the bottle, and stuck her out the door. It's why I am always nice to my regulars, they do grow fond of you and happily help whether you need it or not.

Im not at that pub now, I miss it dreadfully but owner had it taken back so we are looking for our next one now but it didn't put me off!

Did you say no?

Care in the community eh???

I hated retail work with a passion. Kids clothing shop was the worst and Morrisons. Always men being vile and shouting. DH is still in retail and has some very funny stories. He had an exact Borat sound and lookalike asking obscure questions about a product. He said one of the staff members had to go hide to cry laugh. He kept repeating a word very loudly over and over, which didn't help things.