Man complained about me re yoghurt brand stopped doing a flavour

[Auburngal]

I was at work. Man (early 80s) asked me why we stopped doing a certain flavour yoghurt and the other two supermarkets stopped selling too.

Had my work’s handset on me and went onto the brand’s website and there wasn’t the flavour listed. Brand have dropped the flavour. On hearing the news - he flipped

He then went to the CSD asking for a manager. Manager said the same thing as me.

Do people realise that behaving like this is making staff leave retail?

Worked in retail many years in CSD. The rudeness from some customers was unbelievable! They don't see you as a person just an extension of the shop an inanimate object like a shelf. Very thick skin is required!

Used to be on customer services which included manned tills, self scan and kiosk. Customers’ shouting made me cry and give panic attacks.

Now on the shop floor and it has improved my MH massively. Despite of the challenges of some days we have loads of food to reduce. It’s an algorithm of various factors- what’s on offer, the dates on the products, weather, time of year etc.

I did once while working at McDonald's and got a written warning 😑

I hate rude old men, think they can talk to you like shit and you have to smile and be nice. You owe him NOTHING.

I used to work in retail and some of the customers were horrendous. I was actually fairly lucky as I only got verbally abused. Two of the men I worked with were attacked. Head security guard ended up in hospital after 4 men beat him up early one morning (always had two security guards on at all times after that). Other one ended up with a black eye. Both these incidents happened way before Covid, proving some people are always assholes
So glad to be out of it. Massive respect to anyone who works with the public.

Clearly, he was a dick. In his 80s is no excuse. He’s just an old dick. You have my sympathy .

You are telling me you didn’t go and milk a cow and make his flavour yogurt! Wow can’t get the staff these days!!
🤣🤣

Clearly he’s not all there … he probably had dementia poor guy. Maybe his wife who did the shopping all his life is now unable to to it. I would have tried to have a bit of compassion and said I will ask the store manager to contact manufacturer on your behalf & I would have told manager & pointed out the manager & mentioned to them. Imagine being old, senile and out of touch with modern world one day…
However , if someone is being rude to you and genuinely upsetting you, you’re within your rights to say, I don’t have to put up with being spoken to this way and walk away off shop floor if you are afraid / upset.

My manager got a couple of bricks thrown at him in the summer holidays. The teens were mucking about and he asked them to leave. Came back and repeat. The teens got bricks from a few doors down as a shop had a window replaced with a smaller one and bricked up the difference. He didn’t see the teens throwing the bricks as they were at the bottom of the alleyway to the side of my work. He was knocked out by the bricks and was bleeding. He had about 10 stitches on the side of his face.

The problem is with this country nothing is done until someone dies from being beaten by aggressive customers or annoying brats. Or commits suicide.

A colleague had a mental breakdown after he was shouted at by a customer because of something trivial. He rang in sick then his sister handed an envelope with his notice.

We need a national campaign now. With a short punchy slogan “Manners Matter”

I used to love hazelnut yogurts - haven't seen them for years........

What flavour yogurt was it op?

@Auburngal

Again, tou have been asked numerous times, when you say "flipped: what do you mean. Explain to us what "flipped" means to you means

I for example think bursting into tears on the shop floor is excessive, as is having a "Mental breakdown" after being shouted at, because you are not giving perspective or explaining what you mean by your terms

Yes i had a breakdown, many years ago, but was it the manager saying something perfectly in order but in the wrong tone that sent me spiralling or was it the fact that I was so under pressure from all angles and was juggling way more then I personally could handle for way too long?

You dont explain clearly what you see as aggression and flipping after being asked time and time again

Sadly, with healthcare crisis mental health issues are falling through the cracks. I also think we are stretched too thin with col and various demands in our lives. Hasn't been this bad in decades.

@Gessy I have refused to serve some customers as their behaviour was appalling. Said to them I am not going to serve you as not going to be spoken to like that. A few weeks ago, a customer had a go at me for not smiling at them straight away. “You are speaking to someone who has lost their grandmother a few days ago. We are human with feelings and things going on outside work”. The customer was speechless. Love shutting up a customer esp if it’s moaning.

I had a customer have a go at me because l didn't know if a particular Sainsbury's had something in stock or not.
I don't work for Sainsburys. And l said (honestly) that l didn't know where that particular Sainsburys is.
Whereupon l was informed that l 'must, it's just up the road.'
I now live 100 miles from my home town. I work 12 miles from where l live now.
I only know the immediate area. I've never been anywhere near where this Sainsburys apparently is.
My fault entirely, for not having an encyclopaedic geographical knowledge of Leeds, though....

I used to work for a senator in California, so basically customer service.
A young couple came in and I set them up with social services, food banks, etc, etc.
The next day the guy came back and threatened to kill me because I didn’t give him any “free money.”
It was frightening because I worked alone.
The state police finally caught up with him at another state office (he was threatening them too) and arrested him.
To his great surprise, the police explained that there is no free money.

@suki1964 sorry flipped is when someone shouts at you as it’s not an answer they had in mind. Go from ok, pleasant and neutral to shouty, aggressive and horrible in the flick of a switch.

The man in the OP asked me about this yoghurt we used to sell and stopped selling it 2 years ago. He then mentioned he visited the other two supermarkets and they didn’t sell it either.

I thought hmm, check the website of the yoghurt brand. As I had a handset on me - I was code checking. I used that. Under products it listed the flavours and the flavour was not listed. Showed (zoomed in) and said the flavours as listed. I said to him well the website isn’t listing the flavour you are looking for as it’s been discontinued by (brand). I was about to give him the customer service number. He then flipped - shouted waving his fist at me “That’s not good enough!” Then walked away in a huff.

He went straight to the CSD and demanded to see a manager. He said I went on the internet and I listed the flavours on there and she lied to me as the flavour wasn’t there.

To be accused of lying is horrible.

I went beyond what was needed and got that nasty response. Why?

@Auburngal you mentioned his age... possible dementia/Alzheimers? Let this one roll off your back. Sorry you had a bad interaction, though. Customer service is bloody hard. 💕

I will do. Some people’s Alzheimer’s/dementia is difficult to tell until it’s too late.

Not as bad as the customer who asked me what biscuits his wife buys. Do I have a memory of everything every customer buys? Have I been into their kitchen cupboards? No!

Went through questions about which biscuits - sweet or savoury, shape etc. Turns out to be fig rolls!

I hope you dont feel like I was accusing you of lying, I just wanted your definition of flipped

I never allow a customer to go from neutral to shouty.

In this case id have said , yep, its a pure shit, I love those yoghurts myself, but this is where we are, we count for nothing ( IE getting the customer to understand its not personal, we are all in the same boat ) so Ive been trying these and they really are pretty bloody good, have you tried them?

Yes id be lying and gritting my teeth , but I do not go into work to take abuse so I have learned how to deflect. I get the customer to know I am a customer, the same as them, let them know I too am getting it hard and disappointing and before you know it, there's a trip down memory lane - the good old days, and you have a friend for life. None of this take long, id still be working but chatting away

Yes I may be weird , I love customer facing roles ( NHS, Bar,Shops, Reception. waitressing etc)

But then I have learned how to deal with "difficult" customers and as I say, I have never in 45 years been reduced to tears, nor had a breakdown due to the customers.

Staff and management - different story

Dd1 went to return some unopened underwear as she had picked up the wrong size. After ranting at the poor customer service lady at m & s for about 5 minutes ( yes she takes after my ex dh) she realised the underwear was from Morrisons. Cue apology and embarrassed retreat.

It's always your choice to leave retail. But do you not think that anyone in a customer facing position does not put up with crap, if not every day, every week.
Society consists of all intelligence and education levels.
Society consists of all entitlement levels.
Society always has bad attitude or criminal people - and people don't get nicer or mellow with age.
If you work in a supermarket - you're there dealing with all categories of people.
You're going to meet unacceptable people. We all do. But at work, you need to pull in supervisors to deal with them.

Why was it so hard to reply about the biscuits?

Seriously I'd reply, "how on gods earth would I know the answer to that? I know Im bloody brilliant but even I cant work that one out " and then prompt the customer - chocolate, cream, plain, ?

Dont be feared of customers. They are human, they have the same fears and worries as us. They also have the same sense of humour ( usually, I have had a complaint ) but what all customers want, is to be heard . They want their displeasure to be heard and understood. They want you to say yep, I get it, I hear you, I get what you are saying, I totally agree. Then you swing it back to them - but I just work here and unless you tell head office, what you tell me is ignored . Get them on your side and believe me they are more then happy to be heard and come away knowing its the BIG BOSSES fucking their lives up

Its a yoghurt, a poxy yoghurt, But to that customer that simple yoghurt probably brought a wee bit of joy to their lives and your customer only wanted someone to hear that

Please tell us the yoghurt flavour, op.

It's not identifying lol

I think it’s really important to remember that you just don’t know what is going on in a person’s life. To you it seems like this man lost it over a yoghurt being discontinued but the reality is that a person of sound mind with no major life issues would be able to handle that information and move on. This man clearly wasn’t in that position. It could be that the yoghurt issue was the latest in a long list of things happening to this man that make him feel completely out of control. He could have lost his partner recently, he could have been diagnosed with a serious illness, he could be a carer for someone who will only eat that particular yoghurt. You just don’t know, so treat people kindly and assume the best of them.