Customers’ rudeness and impatience is causing retail workers to leave

[Auburngal]

I have worked for a supermarket for 16 years. The rudeness, impatience and aggression from certain customers is making retail workers leave retail.

Just under 4 years ago customers were ok in queuing outside for 30-40 minutes to enter the store. Now they tut and sigh if they need to queue for 30 seconds.

I have changed departments from customer service to shop floor due to panic attacks as one problem is that customers think we are only open for 16 hours a week when my store is open for 100. It’s the elderly who think they have to shop between 10am-12pm. Only about 5% of them travel by bus. The other 95% are not helping themselves or us on insisting shopping then. Stubbornness is a sign of weakness.

We are so short staffed that at least once a week i have to go on the kiosk and hate it as get moan moan moan. How would these moaning Minnies like it if we moaned to them for 5-8 hours a day?

No wonder half of us are on antidepressants.

There needs to be something done to tell people that their rudeness towards retail workers is making the workers leave. Have seen two colleagues having mental breakdowns over the constant abuse, rang in sick then hand in their notice in ten weeks.

There’s no positive gain from being rude n nasty towards retail workers. Those who are rude and nasty towards shop workers have never worked in retail and wouldn’t last a minute.

Like with other retailers, staff leave and not being replaced fully. We get it in the neck from customers. They don’t contact HQ about their complaints. That way they are recorded on a system. Whereas moaning to us does nothing apart from getting headaches etc.

I will point out that he asks politely and does not complain, he's late 70 s and disabled so it's very difficult for him to manage.

Disclaimer - not sure how valid my perspective is because I avoid shopping like the plague and try to do everything on online or make DH go (he likes it).

I think there's an element of treat as you find. I always smile and say hello first and almost never get rudeness back.

However, there is definitely a feeling that the whole country has become a bit more bad-tempered and rude than it used to be. I'm not sure if that's genuine or being fed by media but the perception is certainly real enough.

What I find more of about customer service is not that people are rude and deliberately unhelpful but that they are accidentally unhelpful. Things are so automated now it's really difficult to get to speak to someone and when you do it's usually someone who's really junior and ooorly paid and has no authority to actually do anything. You have to escalate things massively to resolve something fairly simple. That leads to a lot of frustration among customers.

I think people in general are stressed , often busy, stretched thinly. That’s both customers and staff. and a lot of that comes out as rudeness.

Rude - like expecting old people to shop when it suits the staffing. If management know those 16 hours are busy, they need to staff accordingly. Clue is in the title ‘ manager’

I am sorry people are rude to you op but you need to look to your managers to fix it.

Customers are fed up of being treated with contempt by massive corporate businesses. It’s unfortunate that the front line staff, who are no doubt also treated with contempt by their bosses get the brunt of it, but it’s inevitable.

My local Morrison’s has recently taken away the facility to pay cash at all its self-service checkouts, so people who want to or have to use cash are forced to join a long queue at a staffed till, even when they only have a couple of items. That’s what I mean by treating customers with contempt. Customers are furious. Management aren’t interested & don’t care. So who gets the blame?

There have always been horrible customers with a general belief that bottom rung retail staff should behave like robots - you'd think they'd all love self-service checkouts, right?

I have no doubt that for some of the customers who hate the machines, it's because they don't react if you shout at, threaten or grope them. Once someone realises this and gives them the ability to make sad or happy faces in reaction to certain tones of voice, they'll be much more popular.

My local Tesco is shocking. Staff gather at the self serve tills gossiping. If there are two isles open they you are onto a winner. I do embrace the self scan but the last two times all my shopping was rescanned as a security check. Five items fair enough, but the whole trolley? Supermarkets in other countries are a delight to shop in, fully staffed and you can pay for your goods in a timely manner.

It's not just retail, a lot of people are rude in general. The amount of shit I've had to put up with this week from clients ( charity job giving advice) is awful. It's a free service yet people expect to be prioritized, expect a service way beyond what we can offer, completely waste our time etc think it's fine to rant at us regarding government decisions etc. I appreciate people are stressed as public services are falling so short, councils are cutting services etc but we are not sounding posts for their anger.

I agree with this. Used to work as a waitress as a student. Of course, there’s the occasional difficult customer. But if you explain delays and look after people, they rarely want an argument.

but I go out for meals at a variety of places and the standard of service is appalling. Same with retail. It really costs nothing to be polite and friendly to customers- especially if they’ve been friendly to you. Although to be fair- the staff are clearly untrained.

i was recently in a chemist where the assistant was really rude and obstructive about giving me a prescription for DD, which was partly out of stock. I remained polite throughout and had to suggest to her a number of solutions, which he eventually agreed to, but as means of an explanation, she then started moaning on about how customers are often rude to staff! ( I think she was apologising for her defensiveness).

absolutely no reason to take it out on me!

It's a vicious circle really.

We have a society where the demand for face to face services outstrips the capacity of workers who are willing to provide them. Retail jobs are increasingly unpopular, because they're inflexible. They have to be done in a set place and at a set time, and people don't want that. It's even a barrier to some people. None of which is to say owners etc don't take the piss, but it's not like the sector is beating staff off with a shitty stick at the moment.

This leads to some shops shutting, while others stay open with reduced staff. They either have shorter hours, which leads to complaints like we've seen in this thread about queues and not having tills open. Also in the thread about pharmacies closing when the pharmacist has their break. Or they try and keep the same hours, and the staff are more thinly stretched which again pisses people off, makes the job even more unpleasant and makes customers less likely to go to physical premises in the first place.

It may be that the model is just unsustainable, with our current labour market.

The problem lies with the supermarket owners: they do not care about their staff and they certainly do not care about their customers. Waitrose and M&S are marginally better.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHA! 😂

I will point out that he asks politely and does not complain, he's late 70 s and disabled so it's very difficult for him to manage

I understand. But he does need to speak with management not the shop workers as they cannot make those decisions. Could he not get a delivery if its difficult?

Exactly. Customers are making people leave AND stopping them from applying for retail work.

The town where I live and work has a B&M store opened end Jan. Already heard three members of staff have left already.

I don't think it is a new thing. I worked in retail before, after and during Covid.
I can still clearly remember before Covid a customer threatened to smash my colleagues face in and that wasn't an isolated incident. Four blokes beat up one of our security guards.
Never had any violence myself but customers moaning that things were out of stock, too expensive, that shop staff were in their way was a daily occurrence.
I went off sick and handed my notice in.

I’m sure he is polite but he needs to recognise that the shop floor staff CANNOT do anything to change the status quo. He is asking the wrong people. As I said earlier, it is a PITA but front line staff have no authority. And, as pp said, managers will not respond to staff complaints, only customers.

@Auburngal it's a B+M that's opening in my hometown 😂
I personally love B+M and the staff at my nearest branch are lovely people 🙂

Another thing is that retailers are not recruiting enough hours for people to work. My employer only issues 12 hours a week. People need twice as that for part time work.

Recruitment does not happen overnight. Talking a minimum of 4 weeks between putting job online to staff working. Then another 4-8 weeks of side by side training depending on how fast the staff learn. You can’t expect a newbie to work on the kiosk/CSD on their own at the start.

I will point out that he asks politely and does not complain, he's late 70 s and disabled so it's very difficult for him to manage
At the very least, the employee should help him scan all his items as long as he can pay with card. If he wants to pay with cash then he'll need to talk to staff/management.

...managers will not respond to staff complaints, only customers.
If this is true then the managers need to rethink how they manage.

He doesn't harass or anything he simply asks if it's possible to open a till for him and the staff will say , we only open the tills at 10 so you'll have to use the self serve. They did open them at Christmas time so In Nov / Dec in the morning but back to not doing so I think its a little frustrating for him that's all but he's never rude , just tries his luck . When the self serve first came in there were lots of staff to help customers like him but now it's just 1 or 2 and they don't have the time . He has tried online shopping but he doesn't like it . He's fine using the self serve for a basket full but a full trolley is more challenging. He's going to start going after 10 now anyway . I just think it's a shame for people like him as the op was saying about old people going after 10 can't say I blame them .

I keep reading that there's tonnes of vacancies but my friend who has retail experience just went all the way though a whole recruitment process with a big retailer only to get turned down at the final hurdle. And apparently they turned down loads of others and the hours were not enough to live off as a sole earner, either, as pointed out above. The recruitment process she described to me was absurdly complex relative to the hours and pay on offer imo.

@Tittyfilarious I just googled and lots of supermarkets do shopping slots for older people (where I am presuming there is more help available for packing and it's a bit quieter and less pressured). Except Asda which is a bit rubbish. I wonder why they haven't done this too?

The issue is staff shortages, poor training, and impatient customers.
Why are there staff shortages? Are profits so low that they can't pay enough to attract and retain staff? A friend used to work at M&S cafe and over the three years she worked there they cut the staff back and back so that it was impossible to give good customer service. You can't man the till and serve the food and clear tables in a busy place. She left in the end because of this.
Training? I worked at Harvey Nichols for a year in my youth. We had a lot of training, a staff restaurant, and strict rules. Do retailers not bother now?
Impatient customers can be a direct result of the above two.
I'm sorry about your grandmother, but frankly if you were too upset to work, then you should not work.
I grew up in America where customer service is much more valued. It's not just because staff rely on tips or commissions (though that helps).
I recall the first major issue I had with a large retailer in England. I mentioned customer service and the manager said 'that counts for nothing here'. He almost seemed proud of that fact.

I grew up in America where customer service is much more valued. It's not just because staff rely on tips or commissions (though that helps).

I'm not quite sure how we could separate the two out!

I've worked in retail and customer service in various jobs for years so I can totally relate. Alot of people are rude but what I'm noticing more and more especially in supermarkets is one of the reasons the public probably are huffing more and being rude is because the staff are more unhelpful these days. Especially places like Aldi where they make you feel like you're in the way for shopping when they're shelf stacking when it's busy or have to open a till, not everyone likes self check out. Because I've worked in customer service for years I always say good morning or afternoon and goodbye and I usually say it first as they server often doesn't say a word wherever I am or even make eye contact, so many supermarket workers are to busy chatting with their co workers to even notice customers alot of the time. They just don't care anymore or they just assume we're all going to be rude so don't even try. I often end it now with a 'i hope your day's gets better or 'thanks you've been really helpful ' just to amuse myself with the element of surprise on their faces when they realise a person with manners is actually stood in front of them for once. Retail has become very bizarre and I'm glad the customer service industry I work in is one that strives on 10/10 service as much as possible because when you get crap service doing my job god you notice it even more. I'd never complain about something pointless or make someone's job difficult so if you work in retail and think all customers are the same they're not, some are actually nice and appreciate you so smile and say hello back 🙂

You've just reminded me of this. 😆

In my experience as a shop worker it was often older people who were really rude (with exception). No need to make the checkout person cry is there?