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.

If being a 'Luddite' means avoiding tech that has already been seen to replace actual humans in the workplace, then I'd take that as a compliment, not an insult.

More than happy to be a Luddite if it keeps someone employed.

I have to say that I loathe the self serve tills - and not because they are 'taking away jobs' (which, in our shop, they aren't because there aren't enough staff as it is to do all the work that needs to be done, customers tend to forget that supermarket work isn't just manning the tills, there's an awful lot going on behind the scenes). The bastard things don't weigh things properly, the cash ones break down all the time, they don't allow very small items, or very heavy items, they are CONSTANTLY flashing red lights. And we don't have enough staff to have someone manning them, so it's me, basically, on the kiosk, with a queue of customers also trying to run eight self serve tills.

It's no wonder customers lose patience. I physically can't help them if I'm in the middle of a big trolley full of goods, and I will radio through for help but sometimes nobody else is free to come down and customers walk out (usually taking their shopping that hasn't been through the till) because they can't wait. Our fault, because we are understaffed, but they really can't excuse taking the unpaid for shopping just because I didn't immediately drop my customers to rush to their aid.

Phew. That was therapeutic.

Maybe we should all be annoyed at the customers who commit fraud then

I've been lucky I think - I can't remember any supermarket staff being offhand in or rude to me. They are doing a job I value and I'm open and pleasant from the beginning. Some of the staff in my local shop often ask me about my mother, who's in a care home.

During Covid I was talking to the Sainsburys checkout lady serving me, asking her how people were coping and she said a lot of staff were being verbally abused - why on earth would that happen? I get there was a great deal of anxiety but that was the same for the staff too, who were doing a great job. 🌹

Sometimes if the refund is 50p or less (cashier put in two lemons when one was purchased, bread has scanned at the higher reduction price) - I give the customer the refund as cash

These threads always go the same way. There's always several posters, who, state that because a shop staff member was rude to them, OP must be wrong to suggest rudeness to staff is increasing. Holding two thoughts in our heads at once really isn't possible!!!

Occasionally staff can be rude, and they're definitely not pleasant to deal with. But chances are, as a customer, that interaction is then complete and you go home and carry on with your day. When you're staff you get a nasty one, then you have to dust yourself off and wait for the next nasty one, and the one after that. Its overwhelming.

@Auburngal yes sometimes giving the customer a refund - even when they aren't actually entitled to one - just cuts out a lot of grief and hassle.
However it's not that new though (customers being demanding over refunds). Circa 1996 when I worked in a shop that sold newspapers a woman bought one (probably 25p in them days) and an hour later came back saying she didn't really want it and can she have her money back.
Now we probably could have sold it again (and newspapers are sale or return) so it wasn't a big deal. It was just the cheek of it. Who returns a newspaper ffs 😂
My manager said no. The customer huffed off.
People are just weird.

I told my job centre coach [I'm late 50's, and having to return to work] Don't even think of pushing me to work with the public in retail or hospitality. If someone gets in my face I'm likely to hit them with something hard. As I have a very short fuse with twats and rude people, so would have no problem doing it.
Not bothered about the outcome either. He got the message and has never suggested it once in the 6 months I have been seeing him.

I’ve worked in customer service roles for many years and I can see both sides. As a customer it’s frustrating to be on the end of bad service when it’s literally someone’s job to help you. I’ve got numerous examples of where it’s clear people working in retail in particular just obviously can’t be bothered or make it clear they have no interest in serving you. I get it but unfortunately this is the job you signed up for so you might as well just get on with it. We all have bad days but one of the key things in customer service is not letting that show no matter how frustrated you might be in the moment. And I agree that a lot of staff attitude comes down to bad management. When I started we had regular training and a focus on customer service and to be blunt this made people give a shit. Less so now when it’s all money money money for the corporations.

The bad mood thing goes both ways though and there is NEVER any excuse for taking it out on retail staff. The fact that there are posters in most shops and on public transport reminding us not to abuse staff doing their job is perhaps one of the most depressing things I’ve ever seen. There does seem to be a general attitude of hostility from both sides.

I once had a shop worker complain to a colleague (when I obviously wasn’t supposed to hear) that it would be better if I didn’t bring my wheelchair bound father to the shop at a certain time as he got in the way. You can bet she got short shrift from me.

Fundamentally if you work in any type of service industry you will get horrid customers. It’s not right and it’s not fair but it will happen. You need to make the choice in how you deal with it. There are boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed and people are right to call out abuse but if I have to twice interrupt your chat with a colleague to get some help which you are being paid to give and you serve me with a face like I’m dog dirt on your shoe then it’s not really surprising if I’m a tad grumpy in return.

Edited for typo.

Well, yes, those of us who worked on tills knew it was a 'well known trick' among a few customers. However, I always preferred to operate from the basis that most people were decent.

A lot of supermarkets now have gates after the self-serve, so you have to scan your receipt to prove you've paid before you can get out.
This is clearly saying to customers: 'We want you to use self-serve but don't actually trust you to use self-serve.'

All of the above perfectly highlights WHY customers are getting pissed off!

Some of you have put that I'm unhappy - I'm happy working on the shop floor. But increasingly, I am asked to do breaks (don't mind doing them mid afternoon onwards) and jump in the kiosk to get the queue down. Some customers just pop in to buy a newspaper and leave. Yet there are 3 other smaller shops within a 2 min walk. Why can't they use these? The more time I am on customer services dept, the less work that shop floor gets. The other day, I was code checking and if I wasn't asked to jump on the tills, I would have finished the work but left three bays of fresh for another colleague to check later.

All the colleagues on customer services are getting more and more unhappy - a combination of fewer staff, ruder customers and expect to do new services - when we are stretched as it is. Just Eat is an example.

I’m not arguing or disputing with what you do or did do. I’m saying I don’t agree you should have done it.

Less training is done at work. Some colleagues don't read the tickets and the products. For example, I found dog food in the cat food. Does the image of a dog give the clue away?🙄

That's disputing it! 🤦‍♀️

You said 'Respectfully, you really can't argue with what I would do because it's what I would do.'

I am not arguing with the fact it's something you would do. I'm saying I don't think you should do. Can you engage your brain before you respond please.

So, if I've read that correctly, putting stock out is more important than 'jumping on a kiosk to get a queue [of actual customers] down'?

And: 'The more time I am on customer services dept, the less work that shop floor gets.'

Yup, totally regarding the customer as an inconvenience. Wow! And you complain that THEY are rude. Erm, OK...

I code check (putting reduction stickers on products) which we could be fined if enviro health does a sweep around the store.

A lot of supermarkets now have gates after the self-serve, so you have to scan your receipt to prove you've paid before you can get out.
This is clearly saying to customers: 'We want you to use self-serve but don't actually trust you to use self-serve.

Yes, my local Sainsburys does this. I've not been back since they introduced it. Apparently it is a six month trial. If they stop it again, I'll go back. If not, I won't.

If they start doing it everywhere I'll just have to start using cash at the (wo)manned tills again!

You sell newspapers. So don’t complain that people come in to buy them.

You need to leave. You are annoyed about customers buying your products. You are annoyed about older people coming at weekends. And also annoyed at them coming from 10-12? And some weird comment about the bus.

I know all about abuse. I work in nhs front line. I have to ‘serve’ rude people. But I know I have a job to do. And I know a lot of issues are due to cost-cutting, not the patients.

I am such a friendly, appreciative smiling customer. I regularly email HQ to commend good service when it happens. But often am met with rude staff who are incredibly unhelpful. That’s not on.

I think you need a change of job. You are seeing the worst in people.

In @Auburngal 's defence what she is describing is being expected to do 2 different jobs at the same time (tasks on the sales floor plus being on the customer service counter/till).
As a result of this sales floor work doesn't get completed. So food dates not checked, reductions not labelled up, stock not replenished etc - which customers do complain about.
It is frustrating as a retailer worker. You need separate floor staff and till/counter staff. Different people - not one doing both.

No need to be rude. I know perfectly well what you mean.
Whether it's would or should, that you disagree is irrelevant because it's nothing to do with you. HTH.

But yes @Auburngal . You need another job. This isn't good for your mental health.

I'd suggest you don't post about it on global chat forums then

I consider myself to be a a happy friendly person, always say hello and thank you and am quite meek in that I would never say anything back to someone in public even if they had been rude to me, and bloody hell….oddly, pretty much all the shop workers in our small town centre and supermarkets are rude/unhelpful to deeply unpleasant, the same with our GP surgery, they’re all awful - Doctors and the reception staff.

I’m sometimes flabbergasted by people’s attitudes to just a polite hello.

I think you need to stop navel gazing…..during Covid service providers rightly or wrongly decided it was an excuse to dial their levels of service right back….and some (many) individual service providers took it a step further by dialling back on there own service offerings even more then was being asked, and I many people used it as an excuse to be rude obtuse to customers…..like the man in Morrisons who couldn’t tell me where the coffee pods were….he knew but wasn’t allowed to tell me…no he wasn’t allowed to show me, I get that, but he took an inch and extended that to couldn’t (be arsed and now had a nice excuse) not to tell me.

A lot of us accepted this because, you know, Covid, some didn’t and reacted with aggression which is always wrong, however you (service providers) are still pulling this crap! And low and behold more and more people are not standing for it, and whilst physical/verbal aggression is wrong - nor should they stand for it!!

Something has badly gone wrong with customer service because it literally no longer exists. I have always worked in customer facing rolls, but have not worked in six years since having children. I cannot get over the difference from the professional manner in which I used to work to the way so called customer service workers are today. Every simple question is met with a shoulder shrug, or a "don't know" or a blood pressure enducing "it is available online" response. I can see the staff think there is nothing wrong with acting like this, and if a customer gets vaguely annoyed the staff are quick to announce they are being "abused' but the fact is a lot of staff go to work with a terrible attitude which enivtabley rubs off on the customers.