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.

Customer service really is not for you is it

You are digging a hole for yourself now. This is ageism pure and simple.

'You can’t remove humanity from a service and then expect everyone to treat each other like humans.'

100% this! These days it seems like customers are being made to feel like a massive inconvenience at every turn, rather than the people who keep the tills ringing.

When I worked in retail during my studies, the cashiers were always told 'never let a queue form' (ie, serve customers swiftly). Fast forward to a few weeks ago and I and several others were stood in a long queue in that very same retailer for the one manned till they had open - they were clearly hoping people would get fed up waiting and use the self-serve. That was more important to them than making sure the customers were served quickly.

Customer service is not a thing any more - and staff wonder why shoppers are grumpy!?

Also OP - could it be that customers are picking up your already 'pissed off' vibe and responding accordingly?

By the staff not being ageist

"I'm not ageist, my parents are 70". Is that what you're saying here?

Absolutely agree with this post in its entirety! I worked for a while in a supermarket - on Customer services. One incident I remember vividly was a lady who returned something for a refund. Legally it had to be refunded to method of payment - in this case a credit card. Customer was very nice, really, but wanted the refund in cash as she didn't want the refund to take several days to get back to her credit card. When I said I couldn't do that she asked politely to see a manager. All fine!

Manager listened to the lady ( apparently), then told me to refund to the credit card!!! I tried to explain that was what the lady didn't want but she told me not to argue with her (the manager) and to just do it. I couldn't open my mouth without her cutting me off. I was left trying apologise to the customer and giving her the refund on the credit card. Fortunately the customer didn't kick off - and I kept apologising to the customer. That was terrible 'service' from my Manager

You're not happy in your job, you seem to resent a whole part of the demographic using your shop whenever they like. I imagine customers can sense you don't like them and that can't be helping them feel warm towards you either.

Seems like everyone has a hair trigger and shoots from the hip these days ☹️

Why I've noticed is a complete lack of understanding o what good customer service is.
Good eye contact
Polite & friendly
Announcing the price total before accepting payment
Saying good morning.

I could go on! Half the time our shop assistants barely look up, or talk to a colleague over the top of me. It's incredibly rude and lacking in the basic requirements for the job. So it cuts both ways.

Think someone else mentioned it but the intro if self service (which I personally like) has dehumanised the checkout process

My general misanthropy comes from years of working in retail and customer service.

I threw in the towel on retail and just walked out and never went back when some manky bint spat in my face because I couldn't refund the cardigan she'd spilled egg all over. It was not even close to the first time I'd been spat at.

I threw in the towel on customer service based roles entirely the 50th time someone told me I deserve to die because they were in debt and being chased for it. Yes I kept a tally. I also got told my mother should have aborted me several times.

So to the people who want cheerful hellos and exemplary customer service, sorry, but that's been spoiled for you by the disgusting behaviour of other people. It's not the staff's fault customer service has become soul destroying.

I work with animals now and it's fucking bliss.

It also makes sense that retired people would shop at that time. They've avoided rush hour and want to get the day's work out of the way before lunchtime. If it is known that there will be an influx of shoppers at that time the business should respond by bringing extra workers in. It would be a good shift for mums who have just done the school run for example.

Also, 4 years ago people were not happy to queue for 40 minutes outside the store but we accepted it was a part of the awful global pandemic we found ourselves in.

Ageism seems to be ingrained and tolerated on here it's fucking depressing

Why was my message deleted? I called out the OP's ageism? Perhaps the OP's message should be deleted for its ageism?

If it is known that there will be an influx of shoppers at that time the business should respond by bringing extra workers in. It would be a good shift for mums who have just done the school run for example.

This is very optimistic. Low paid 2 hour shifts in the middle of the day are in fact not popular with school run mums now, which is why so many lunchtime organiser roles in schools are going unfilled.

You can't simply assume that there are people waiting to be brought in just because that's when a cohort of customers want to shop. Demand for a service doesn't create people who are willing to provide it. It may be that people who want to shop between 10 and 12 are going to have to accept that the price of this is they'll be queuing longer.

I’m 60 and Dh is 64.

Im tempted to go shopping on a Saturday morning to piss off all the ageist posters on here. My money is as good as yours.

No one set of customers trumps the other though.

This post demonstrates nicely how selfish people have got. "They should shop at a different time because they inconvenience me" - no. It doesn't work like that. So what if someone in the shop is busy and has other things to do. That's life. Doesn't give them the right to expect others to change their behaviour to suit them.

So self-entitled.

Btw, why do posters keep claiming people were happy to queue up outside shops 4 years ago? They clearly weren't.

It was a very stressful experience, which many people were doing because they couldn't get a delivery slot so had no other option. Some of them were obnoxious to other customers and staff too. And this is when millions more people than usual genuinely didn't have any other time constraints so at least didn't have to worry about that. It'd have been even worse if the normal percentage of shoppers also had work and school runs to work around too.

Demand for a service doesn't create people who are willing to provide it
I agree, the people who could potentially provide the service will need to be incentivized with money!

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

Then they need more staff between 10 and 12, finding staff 9:30 to 14:30 should be easy.

True true, if they paid double for two hour shifts in the middle of the day they might find them becoming a popular option! You can bet the people who want to shop then wouldn't want to pay more though.

@Kalevala ironically when I started working in retail in the 90s the 9.30 - 2.30 shift was a standard one aimed mostly at women who wanted school hours. Many had term time only contracts so didn't work during school holidays (their roles were taken over by the 6th Form/University part time lot).
It worked really well.
But that doesn't exist in the retail world now and shops can't get staff.

I say hello, smile etc. Many customers are not bothered about on that. Plus an increase in no manners.

i have refused to serve customers for being rude.

i said to one customer ‘could you please explain what do you want to achieve from being rude to retail staff?’
He stayed silent.
’The reason why you haven’t said anything is because there’s nothing positive to achieve from being rude’.

Would love to change jobs but the one problem is all the work I want to is 25 miles away- I walk to work (yes I have a car) but I will be worse off than in my current job. Or a couple of roles i saw recently but no parking at all or nearby (go on a waiting list for parking) and buses don’t run to hours.

Elderly people are people too - of course they can do their shopping when they bloody well want to. I highly doubt 'working age' customers are annoyed with them.

OP you sound awful, and that you weren't cut out for this job in the first place.