Customers’ behaviour has made colleagues leave

[Hmlp]

This year had:
. Colleague A left because he was grabbed by the wrist and told to FO
. Colleague B said to me that she will work another Christmas and retire after that. She mentioned this in Jan. Three months later she left
. Colleague C has worked for company for 45 years - first 5 years at a different store. She handed in her retirement notice as she is getting fed up with customers’ behaviour. She came home on Thursday in tears - the first time in 45 years. She is not retiring until next month.
. Colleague D had two weeks off sick and handed in her notice as customers have upsetted her.

These colleagues will not be replaced as according to head office we are 320 hours over a month!

We are stressed. We can’t cope as it is. No idea how HQ say we are 320 hours over when it feels 320 hours under!

Customers need to understand that shouting at retail and hospitality workers is bullying and totally unacceptable. What happened to treat others as you wanted to be treated yourself? Ie don’t talk down to retail workers like they are piece of dog shit on your shoe.

We can’t say to customers that we are 320 hours over. They will go ballistic.

Any ideas on how to stop customers being rude and bullying

What kind of establishment are you working in?

As above. Can’t believe you didn’t mention what type of restaurant/hotel/shop you work in…

"Any ideas on how to stop customers being rude and bullying"

You need to be given authority by management to ask those customers to leave and not come back. Management need to have your back on this.

You need to be clearer about type of customer interaction

When I worked in a call centre we were allowed to say that swearing and abuse were not acceptable and as calls were recorded, if that happened they got a warning then disconnected

In retail when it's face to face it's harder

Large notices in stores stating that abusing staff is not tolerated can help, but you need tough managers to step in when needed or call police if necessary (especially physical assault)

I had to run and lock myself in the foreign exchange booth once when a customer took out his holiday complaint on me personally and grabbed me by the neck. In hindsight, I should have phoned police then!

I also think they should post on social stating incidents which have actually happened, both to make people aware of what staff go through and educate people on what is not acceptable

Feel for you and your colleagues

Can you explain what 320 hours over means?

Either way, I sympathise. Shops need to be more proactive at protecting their staff, and give the staff the confidence to refuse to serve people at their discretion.

I assume total contracted hours? HQ saying they are over staffed

I work in a job where customers can become really abusive, luckily for me it's never been physical, but I have been threatened and talked to like shit before. I have always barred the customers and stated to them why I am doing so. They are welcome to discuss it with my manager, but they will tell you the same. I work in a bookies, and have always had the backing of my managers and from the company as a whole. We don't tolerate and kind of abuse, no one should.

As above. Can’t believe you didn’t mention what type of restaurant/hotel/shop you work in…

What does it matter what type of place op works in? Abuse of staff by customers is unacceptable in any workplace.

Had this myself.
I worked for a popular coffee shop and customers were so aggressive if we had sold out of product.
We didn't have any large takeaway cups and one man threatened to hit me! I was 7 months pregnant at the time

Customers think they can treat you like shit

If a person puts their hands on you ring the police maybe the company will cop on a bit when they have to deal with questions from them.

That is ridiculous carry on. The company should be protecting their employees.

Your poor colleagues. I am so glad I no longer work in a customer facing job it ruined about 3 Christmases . People are so rude and think they can talk to retail/hospitality workers like shit. I loved chucking the rude ones out the shop 😂

The important thing is to recognise that this is a management issue. Your management are not empowering you to tackle poor customer behaviour. They are also not providing the stores with the appropriate level of resources to do the job they want you to do.

The next important thing is to realise that there is probably little to nothing you can do to change decisions being made in head office.

So, the ultimate response for you is to look at opportunities elsewhere and move on when you can.

Management will either figure it out eventually or just slowly destroy their business - that is what they are being paid for it seems.

The trouble is, it's a management issue. If management won't support their staff it will never change, and they're unlikely to do so when things are tight and every customer is critical. I do also feel like people are more quick to anger these days. Maybe the world of everything at your fingertips available next day means people have no tolerance for "normal" service in shops?

I totally sympathise by the way - I don't even like the whole "I'm too important to temporarily come off this call to treat a mere checkout worker like a human" BS and that's before we get to some of the actual abuse workers have to deal with.

I hear you OP.

It's relentless some days and the constant negativity wears you down, you start to feel like it is actually your fault but you physically cannot do any more than what you are doing - and it's still not good enough. I'm sick of being blamed for everything that's gone wrong in a person's day/week/life because they see me as an outlet for their emotions because they can't control them.

The thing is it's socially acceptable, and if they haven't already there'll likely be someone talking about being thicker skinned, more resilient and being in the wrong job - deflecting poor behaviour onto the person recieving it and their reaction rather than the person dishing out the poor behaviour. You're absolutely right that it's bullying - because people can behave this way with impunity, there's no redress for the perpetrator, usually the opposite and they get apologised to and free stuff to placate them - rewarded for making someone elses day a misery.

There's clearly a mismatch between what customers expect and what companies are willing to deliver and the 'shop floor staff' are caught in the middle of it and getting the shit from both sides, there's no wonder that places can't recruit and retain staff under those conditions - even if they want to that is, yours apparently doesn't.

Massive sympathy OP for both the abusive customers and the stinginess of available hours- ours are being cut back constantly but the company recorded profits again…

I will say that we back each other up including management- abusive customers get the boot and banned. Some are very persistent and keep coming back 🙄 retail is way harder now than 20 odd years ago when I started. Partly less staff partly customers are way more vicious when things don’t go their way.

Retail/hospitality bosses have created the perfect storm for abuse.

They keep rising prices, have fewer staff, the staff that they do have are under paid and under trained, and when there is a problem, the bosses have made it almost impossible to complain, leaving the floor staff on their own.

Abuse to staff isn't right but I understand why it happens.

Blame your bosses

@Hmlp leave. It's poor management not just the idiot customers and it wont get any better.

There are hundreds of retail jobs out there where you won't be treated as badly. Go find another and jump ship. Your mental health is worth more than this.

Customers need to understand that shouting at retail and hospitality workers is bullying and totally unacceptable.

Totally right - if it were me and a customer spoke to me or treated me in a way i found unacceptable - I would be telling them that and getting a manager.

"I cannot understand or help you whilst you are shouting at me. can you explain your issue to me, then i can help you. If you continue to shout at me i cannot understand or help you"

If they grabbed me, or tried to grab me id be telling them that i will be reporting them for assault.

Pass them onto a manager.

Don't accept poor behavior.

The more you pass onto the manager - the more gets to the HQ that you are understaffed and there are issues?

I think customers are getting ruder because they are fed up with poor service. You are constantly understaffed with staff who are poorly trained.

I don't think this gives people the right to treat staff the way they do but I can see it from both sides.

The last time I had terrible customer service they decided to cancel a train while we were on it. Turfed us all out at a station and told us we needed to wait 25 minutes for the next one. No sorry, no reason why. This was at 4pm in half term. I had three tired and grumpy children and I was fuming. I had only got on the train 5 minutes before. They must have known prior to the train being cancelled that it couldn't complete its journey but decided to wait and cancel as we were already on the train. If they had planned a bit better I could have planned by getting an earlier train or bringing snacks. People were annoyed with the staff and no one had any idea what was going on. I can see why people were being rude to these staff

Do you work in a supermarket? Is it one of the big four? They are all slashing man hours every which way they can because they are having to compete with Aldi and Lidl.
I left one of the big four 4 years ago after 10 years. I went when they sacked all the managers with decades of experience and brought in a bunch of youngsters with no experience and no people skills.
There have always been abusive customers but they are certainly getting worse. I took no shit from them and just called security. None ever put their hands on me though, if they did they would bloody well know about it!!

Have you noticed the huge increase in signs in shops and waiting rooms that state something along the lines of :

" Abuse and intimidation will not be tolerated in this establishment, offenders will be not be tolerated and will be refused service and reported to the authorities where appropriate "

Our local pharmacy also refuse service to those that they know have posted aggressive and abusive comments towards them on social media

People are a lot less happy than they used to be due to the state of this country.

They have forgotten how to behave with basic manners and politeness. The people in charge of our country over the last 10 years or so have been rude , entitled nasty pieces of work and that seems to have given the green light for everyone else to behave appallingly .

I would simply refuse service and remember what constitutes a legal offence, threats, physical abuse etc. If you can find a role that is not people facing, that's the route to go down these days.

I guess the Op works in ASDA.

@Alltheunreadbooks of course all these thuggish people will morph back into paragons of virtue when Labour win the next election 🤣🤣🤣

It’s a supermarket and one of the big four.

Our main issues is that 85% of customers shop in 15% of the trade hours. Then the elderly shoppers come in at Saturdays, which infuriates those who worked all week “leave Saturday shopping to those who bloody worked all week” I heard a man in his late 40s tell a doddering couple.

HQ don’t look at the demographics of the customers who shop at each store. The typical customer at my work is elderly and doesn’t do technology.

There’s very few colleagues who are not on antidepressants.

That’s awful but I’m afraid given what you said it sounds like you need to find something else and vote with your feet.