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

I hate it when customers moan about prices. We have ZERO control over original prices!

A manager has banned a customer as he followed colleagues doing code checking (reducing products) and asked could they reduce some pastries as it’s today’s date. These pastries are baked daily and only got that day’s date on them and we can only allow to reduce them after 4pm, or 1pm on Sunday. The handset will not let us do this before this (unless head office lift the restriction- such as Xmas Eve, if it’s snowing).

I said it’s too early for us to reduce the pastries and he shouted, grabbed things off the shelf and threw them on the floor (some things were in glass jars) and was about to attack me when a manager and a colleague followed the shouting and smashed glass and asked the customer to leave.

This happened about a year ago. I was shacking. Work gave me the rest of the day off (about 1.5-2 hours) and the following day paid (the following two days were my normal days off).

.

Sounds like working in a school but with less violence. Honestly, it sounds awful and I can see why employees are leaving. I would seriously consider looking for somewhere else, this must be terrible for your mental health and wellbeing!

@Auburngal @Hmlp - please please keep to the one ID when posting here. You arent doing yourself any favours pretending to be two different people just to bolster your argument

Elderly people can shop when they like! Maybe they help out with child care during the week for grandchildren, maybe they like the interaction with people, maybe family members are coming Sunday and they want to stock up.
whatever the maybe is, if other people don’t like it, then click and collect is there for a reason 😂

That is the problem. The manager and security should have detained him until the police arrived and arrested him. Shop staff need the police to quickly respond but shop managers need to call the police.

@NotTooOldPaul police take forever to turn up. Should be tougher sanctions for abusing retail workers and more priority towards retail

It's easy to say work to rule but the targets retail staff are set are completely unrealistic. We've still got bills to pay so could do without being dragged in the office for a "chat" regarding our performance.

I genuinely think people have lost the "art" of interaction. Sorry, I'll rephrase that. Some people have lost the skill of interaction.
My daughter works in retail and puts up with some amount of abuse.
Also feel sorry for medical staff/health centre staff too.
No job is worth your mental health ...

I remember going into a shop a few years ago. There was a lady sitting crying with three staff members standing next to her. I heard her ask to be taken into an office away from people. The manager told her that she was stealing in public so she would sit in public until the police arrested her.

I think store staff need to be allowed to be far more ruthless

I would have done all the jobs being assigned by management but the bloody Just Eat picks we do are ridiculous. Sometimes I am the ONLY one available to do them. I pack the bag(s) for one then the flipping handset beeps again. The other day, I must have wasted at least 45 mins doing them. I would have completed the tasks if it wasn't for JE.

Have no idea why we do JE as we don't have the staff to do the jobs and serve customers in the store, let alone do JE.

WTF, how was the train cancellation the staff's fault?! 25 minutes, wow where is my violin.

What are you going to do when you have a real problem? 🤣

🤣

I pack the bag(s) for one then the flipping handset beeps again

That your job. What else are you supposed to do when you finish one - go for a snooze?

The other day, I must have wasted at least 45 mins doing them

You didn’t waste anything. You completed a work task in work time. That’s all.

I would have completed the tasks if it wasn't for JE

It. Is. Your. Job.

Have no idea why we do JE as we don't have the staff to do the jobs and serve customers in the store, let alone do JE.

What if the JE customers are old people who don’t want to come and get underfoot in your store?!!! 🤪

Either stop whining about perfectly normal aspects of your job, or get another job!

Just Eat orders get in the bloody way. Seriously doubt that many JE customers are elderly as need a computer or a smartphone to order and a card to pay on. Plenty of elderly customers without all of the above.

Customers need to realise that we have zero control over staff shortages. “Why don’t you get more staff”. We don’t do anything with recruitment etc.

@Auburngal they are under the wrong impression that managers listen to what staff say.

I'm not sure of your definition of elderly but I am 77 and will probably order a delivery on Just Eat. I may use my smart phone, or I may use my PC or my laptop.
I did a click & collect today, I ordered it on my PC last night and used my smart phone to scan the QR code to collect it.

I’m talking about the customers who shop at my store. I know two elderly customers who don’t have a mobile or landline! How do they cope?

In " the bloody way" of what exactly?

Sorry but you work as a sales assistant in a supermarket and without the elderly and the JE orders, the click and collects - YOU WONT HAVE A JOB

These tasks are YOUR JOB - why don't you understand that ?

Im working atm in a in-store restaurant, oh how I thought I would be meeting and greeting and taking orders, pouring the perfect cup of coffee, and yes I do those things, but the majority of my shift is spent cleaning and tidying and running after customers. Today I spent half my shift helping the KP, its all there, in the job description. All these jobs are required to keep the place open and running and hopefully making a profit ( without the profit id not have work ). We, the staff, are responsible for our place of work. Its up to us to make sure the place is stocked, the place is clean, that everything a customer wants is available and yes it means there are some jobs you dont actually want to do. Yes we run around lifting and laying for customers ( when it is self service ). We move tables and chairs to accommodate wheelchairs and prams, we help customers get their coats on and off, we escort them to the loo if that's what's needed because without the customers we have no jobs

We arent tugging our forelock and bending the knee, we rib and banter and have a lot of fun in work. Our reviews always mention the customer service ( might be slagging the food which can be shite at times ) but every review , even the negative ones mention how friendly , helpful and accommodating the staff are

And this is where being suited to hospitality/shop work comes in to play

If you feel your customers, your orders , your tasks are a PITA, you are in the wrong job

And people have been telling you thise since the day you started there ( on another forum )

Can I ask why walking or driving would mean that they have no need to come at that time? Is 10:30 to 12 not for people that can walk or drive?

Wednesday is pension day and will be why there's a high number of customers that are pensioners.

Leave, get out run a mile, it’s not worth it, best thing I ever did was get out of hospitality

This is typical retail,I was a retail manager for 32 years and it went from bad to worse.At my last store in 6 years the hours were halved,so I retired 5 years early before I had a meltdown.

My guess as a supermarket worker is a supermarket

This.....

No-one deserves abuse or aggressive behaviour in whatever role they are in, and whatever background they are from.

If you're acting like "normal polite customers" are the enemy and punching down on them then of course every shift will be a battle. Becomes a vicious cycle.

You see the difference in some stores where the whole team has a positive and helpful attitude, the customers are nice back and nice people come back....So you have good interactions to get you through the day.

I've done my time in physical customer service work, and enjoyed some of it for sure.

Unfortunately you do see some people with a "too cool for school attitude" where staff saw themselves as above the customers. Just show some humility and be polite to people and don't judge or try to get one over them!

There's no need to get into an argument over a reduced price bun. The store isn't going to close over 35p. It's not like you're debating the existence of evolution. You don't even need to be super-extroverted, do the shift on emotional auto-pilot and look forward to finish time.

I agree working in customer service, or a posh shop, isn't like in some romcom novel where a rich alpha male customer sees your sparkling eyes and decides to marry you.

But like @suki1964 says you can still be civil and polite and take pride in helping people.

It's too common to see staff giving appalling service to non-white people, solo women, elderly people, anyone perceived as vulnerable/early dementia just for the sake of it. Then the profits drop and the staff are under more pressure.

As a customer, I'm not white and I'd say I'm just about the perfect customer (techie so super-quick on the self-scan, polite, don't bargain hunt. I consider myself civic minded and would probably intervene if I saw someone being rude to a staff member).

but to be honest I'm just fed up with being treated like shit or an inconvenience in many places - you frequently see some frustrated customer service person deliberately lash out at me due as they don't think its right that they are in a "service" role for someone with my skin colour.

(and the great pity - I'm probably the last person in the world who would be looking down on a shop assistant, or anyone).

I now vote with my feet and mainly use online not physical... I don't overthink this and I'm lucky to have the budget, but I often even TIP the polite gentlemen who deliver my food (and if it's a family or group order I'm bossy so we ALL tip). I also run down the driveway so they save time.

I'm sorry you've been treated that way by anyone at all, it's not acceptable from anyone, regardless of who they are.

I do think that a lot of the issue is that people who have spent a lot of time in customer service and are like OP is they have been punched down on and have reached their limit.

Combine that with the only thing that matters to the companies we use as customers and where people also work, being profit, and their lack of investment in their staff and customers, and you have a very pissed off workforce who aren't engaged, who aren't invested in the business because they are seen as an inconvenience and a necessary evil and treated as such by the company, by managers, and by the customers because they're pissed off at the money saving corner cutting and lack of service.

It makes a huge difference to work somewhere that invests in it's staff, that recognises that they are the lifeblood of the business - staff engage, they are invested in the business because they recognise that the company is also invested in them and their customers, I can't remember who said it but there is a saying that you don't need to look after your customers - treat your staff right and they'll do that for you. I've worked in places where the contempt was barely disguised by the company and it was a culture that went right through. I now work somewhere that invests in their staff and the staff invest back, we take pride in the service and genuinely feel bad ourselves when things go wrong as they sometimes inevitably do and try to put it right - because our bosses care about the customers not just their money and they care about their staff, not resent the money they cost.

It's a societal problem really, that money comes above everything else, staff and customers. Sure there are some customers that will never be happy, will always look for something, who will treat service staff badly just because of the job they have. And there's some staff that aren't interested and not people orientated and will never deliver good service because they don't want to engage.

But the bottom line is that so many companies are putting their workers in the situation of having to work to standards that are nigh on impossible with the resources they provide, knowing fine well that their staff are going to get hassle for it from customers annoyed by it.

As I said in a pp, there's a mismatch between what companies are willing to deliver and what people are demanding they deliver.

That hurts me to read

Anyone who makes a customer feel like that is in the wrong job. Anyone who make anyone feel "less" really shouldn't be allowed out

45 years of hospitality and retail behind me - main job or causal PT, Ive seen and had to deal with everything you can possibly imagine and I really really hope that I have treated everyone with total respect, regardless

Sure I turn the air blue at times off the shop floor, but on the floor, its a big smile, sometimes gritted teeth, but a sense of humour and an open mind and customers dont need to know Ive not slept, my mum is in hospital, my cat just died, my husband has left me or we are short staffed