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 work in retail in a supermarket in a tourist area (and, I have to say, I love my job). It is very noticeably a different place out of season, when we have all the regulars, all the people who live around us (we're quite isolated and the only shop for quite a lot of miles). They are, almost without exception, a fabulous bunch of people.

However, once the tourist season gets started, the place becomes very different. Visitors (so, basically, people we are going to serve once and never again when they come in to fill up the fridge in their holiday cottage/caravan) are rude, abrupt, condemnatory and all round unpleasant. Not all of them, obviously, but a MUCH higher proportion than the people who come in every day. We can only assume that they don't see anything wrong in being rude to people they are never going to see again.

Even our regular customers are often taken aback by how rude some can be to us and I've had them wading in on my behalf before now! But the lovely people generally outnumber the awful ones, and it's a pleasure to serve those nice ones!

Yeah, women who want work to fit round school aged kids have a lot more options now. There are quite a few jobs that used to rely on that cohort being a captive market, who are struggling to recruit now they're not. School jobs is another.

Agree. Back in my supervisor days, I would have OK'd this for a cash refund. Our priority was to do best by the customer always - unless they were clearly trying to pull a fast one, then we'd revert to 'policy' mode. These days, however, 'computer says no' seems to be the default setting.

So many people working in retail seem to lack basic social skills these days. You're lucky if they break off from the conversation with their mate to even acknowledge your presence a lot of the time. Not so much as a hi/please/thank you/kiss my ass most of the time. Many times shop staff don't even tell you the total cost at the till. You're supposed to guess or read it on the card terminal.

I've worked in retail and we treated customers with courtesy.

It’s fine to moan as long as it’s done politely. The store has a responsibility to provide good service if it wants customer support.

I think commenting on the elderly and thinking there are times of day they ought not to be shopping is strange. It’s a shop, anyone can shop there when it’s open and the shop should adapt to its customers if wants their custom. Yes that does extend to adequate staffing, pay and training. It’s not customers at fault.

I’ve hardly ever complained anywhere, but I’ve noticed that the self checkouts at a lot of places are neither fit for purpose nor adequately staffed. It’s actually really embarrassing for the customer when the machines don’t work properly. Well that’s my reaction, I guess others lose their temper. I don’t condone that.

Sometimes staff are very rude to customers. This has happened to me. It was weird and inexplicable. I was in a branch of Gales - not our local one that is very friendly - I stood at the counter waiting for service and was blatantly ignored by two members of staff. I walked out and I did complain to the company because it was just such blatant poor customer service - not service at all in fact

To be honest I think it's weird that you'd refund a credit card transaction to cash.
The customer hasn't actually outlaid any money/ cash. You're effectively advancing cash on a credit card but giving the refund. The corporate policy makes complete sense.

Why would they!? We all have personal issues. None of them should impact on our ability to do a job.

They don’t contact HQ about their complaints HQ invariably make it exceedingly difficult to contact them to complain. Or, indeed, to contact them to praise goid service

@BetteDavisChin it’s all well and good saying that you expect them to be courteous back.. I work in retail, have done for four years and I’ll always greet a customer pleasantly, however I’m only human and I’ve had some days where I’ve had drunk people in the summer coming in kicking off over a tag being in a wrong place (easily resolvable situation) or where because there was one person on the till and a man told me the other day “I was shit” because there was literally one person in front of him and we had delivery to put out (there was already someone on the till all he had to do what wait a few seconds).. or where I’ve had to refuse customers due to following the think 25 policy and they start getting aggressive and calling nasty names..

if I’ve had a few of these customers during the day (which is common) I’m sorry if I might not seem as enthusiastic as you’d have hoped! I wish customers would realise were human to, we get abuse over things such as asking for ID.. I work in Superdrug and I do piercings as part of my job.. if someone tells me there child’s under 3yrs old.. I can’t pierce them.. the parents then start having a go at me! I’ve had parents literally shouting at me to pierce there child when if a child show’s reluctance and you can see they don’t want the piercing done the parents are there “just get on with it your taking to long”.. they then get nasty if you say you can’t continue the piercing..

this is what retail workers deal with on a daily basis.. it’s disgusting and wrong, people shouldn’t be justifying there actions.. no need to give,yell or shout abuse at me or any other worker, just politely get your shopping and leave..

I left hospitality last year for this reason. And that was after 20 years. IME people got progressively ruder and more entitled.

You're right. But, in this instance, it keeps the customer happy. Which should always be the priority. 'Policy' is taking humanity out of everything.

People are rude fucking bastards. Is it any wonder that now we see signs and pre-recorded messages everywhere about not accepting abuse to staff?

We are an entitled, selfish species. Lockdown solidified that for me.

Its not on, no matter how much people whinge about whatever cuts the company makes, the staff are not responsible for those decisions.

I disagree. It's been almost 15 years since I was standing behind a customer service desk but we didn't give cash refunds on credit purchases. It's such a normalised store policy (as in it's the policy of almost everywhere) that it's an easy red line for me. Now exclusively as a retail customer, it's something that I can accept - unlike some other things which are just bad service!

I've been in customer service my whole working life, currently deal with complaints. I can honestly say that during lockdown, many, many people forgot their manners & what the word respect means.

I find the majority of shop workers to be polite & helpful but when they are rude, they are full on rude or impolite. Everyone has the day from hell from time to time but as a customer, I don't expect for that to be made known to me.

Likewise, if I deal with the complaint from hell, I don't move to the next person & take it out on them. I take pride in what I do & being resilient is key but it is what is lacking in a lot of customer service these days. You have to take the rough with the smooth & never take it personally.

I'm happy to say that I haven't experienced any staff rudeness or observed any customer rudeness where I live in the Southern US. And no one seems to have a problem with my elderly self shopping in the morning.

I agree 100%. As a trade unionist, I boycott self-service tills as much as possible because they replace jobs. They irritate hell out of me when I do have to use them.

How do we stop customers from being rude? How do we tell them that THEY are the REASON as to why retail staff leave and struggle to recruit?
How do we explain that we cry, have left a shift early from their DISRESPECTFUL behaviour?

Unless customers are told this. The problem is going to GET WORSE!

Plus everyone thought they might end up on a ventilator each time

Its also reducing fraud

I think the low pay, shift work, and even more than that - the lack of full time (or even good part time) hours is more of a reason.

That’s not to say that customers aren’t rude too, but I don’t think it’s the deciding factor at all.

Move then. The world is your oyster

Fair enough that you would disagree. I would use manager's discretion (in that instance, not routinely) and do things differently. Respectfully, you really can't argue with what I would do because it's what I would do.

I dare say I would feel the same in your shoes, but that doesn't mean you're not a luddite.

Indeed it is. And that's clearly companies' priority now. Not customer service. Which perfectly answers OP's original question of why customers, these days, are rude.

"You're right. But, in this instance, it keeps the customer happy. Which should always be the priority. 'Policy' is taking humanity out of everything."

I disagree in this instance. It was a well known trick to buy stuff on credit cards then get cash refunds and not pay the credit card bill. In this instance the policy is correct.

The priority isn't always the customers happiness.