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

One of my relatives, not in the UK, their local supermarket has 10% off for pensioners on Wednesdays til 3pm or something. I thought that was a smart way to encourage older folk to use the quieter weekday hours for shopping. I guess people would say it was unfair for them to get a discount but it made sense to me - also means all the local oldies see eachother there, from what I’ve heard it’s become a bit of a social event which is quite nice.

I used to work in retail. I don’t anymore. But everytime I go into a shop I am completely over nice to anyone in there. If I have a problem I would never shout. I would say why and act like a rational human being. Someone at Specsavers the other day stayed with me during my ‘complaint ‘ at the end it was dealt with by someone higher up. After the problem was fixed I went and found the original person who I made the complaint to and thanked them for being so helpful , gave a smile and wished them a good day. Didn’t raise my voice once, wasn’t rude or offensive. I don’t understand why people think u can treat people who just turned up for work that morning like crap.

shouting and screaming at people is what my father used to do. And not a chance in hell would I get treat anyone with the amount of distain and disrespect that he did. A smile and a Thankyou for ur help doesn’t hurt anyone or cost anything.

More power to you @Andtheworldwentwhite!
The least we can do is set a good example to others. I also make it my mission to be as polite as I possibly can!

I've no idea who started the quote about 'the customer is always right'. As a small business owner I categorically disagree with this. Good manners between both parties is what is right, not 'the customer'. In my experience the customer can occasionally be very, very rude, and I do not want to, and nor shall myself or my staff, do business with them.

@Horseebooks Iceland have a 10% discount on a Tuesday, I think, for pensioners. Fairly sure HomeBase do too.

That's actually a really good idea - an example of a creative policy!

Tesco have cut hours back to bare minimum - some staff only get 11 or 16h of work a week - since the minimum wage went up.
The board are trying to "profit" by keeping the staffing bill as low as possible. Instead of creating value of any kind, they are profiting by keeping their staff poor. My heart breaks for staff members who have rents and mortgages to pay and zero notice of their hours being reduced to peanuts.

Seeing all this cuntish behaviour has all of a sudden made me despondent about my work duties. I didn't go into work on Sunday. Just cause. We don't get paid for sick absences anyway. It's time off on my own money. I didn't even pick up the calls asking where I was. Why call - thought we were overstaffed to the hilts? Should they not be happy I chose to lie in instead of taking £60 from the bulging pockets of Tesco?

Luckily, I have a back-up option for earnings and no mortgage to pay. But I can relate to being unable to manage a decent face for the customers. I don't know how those with a family to house&feed have any length of fuse left. Combine that with the customers struggling with their own COL issues and the retail environment is just not conducive to positive interactions.

TESCO SUCKS!!

I guess Waitrose because of use of the word colleagues.

Members of the public also talk to us NHS staff like shit.

I don't know why they think it's ok. I understand that it can be a difficult time and patients are often in pain and vulnerable but there's a limit to how much a staff member should take.

We've been screamed at face to face and down the phone, threatened, and had general rudeness.

Erm.. did you sign up to some sort of policy not to bring the company into disrepute?

@Hmlp my late in-laws were the exact opposite of your parents. They were long, long retired, but still did things at the weekend, like the 'big shop' and then would complain about the busyness of the supermarket. When I asked why they didn't go during the week when it was quieter, they looked baffled, as it had never occurred to them that they were free to shop any day, and didn't need to still adhere to their old shopping habits when they were working.
I used to work in retail after I left school, which was many decades ago, and I worked in a fairly prestigious department store chain. We would get the odd entitled customer demanding stuff, but I would say back then around 95% of customers were polite and courteous.

I think there is plenty of evidence that dealing with parents of pupils and even the pupils themselves can involve similar confrontations as those in retail and hospitality, therefore the example is more than reasonable!

Similar in health care.
After I was kicked across the room by a patient, I left my profession.
That was one incident in a long line of incidents.

Ive been hit, scratched, punched, kicked, screamed at, shouted at, spat at, called lots of vile names by patients and relatives.

I know many many others who have left over the years due to aggression and violence. Throw in chronic short staffing and shit pay and there’s no reason to stay.

Are you for real?!

It is what is factually happening with employment hours in Tesco at the moment.
Employees will be forced to apply for benefits to keep a roof over their head and buy food. But it can take up to 12 weeks to get the first payment... Can you imagine being in this situation??

Others will require much larger state top-up via the Universal Credit to plug the hole in their earnings. The tax payer will be subsidising the profits of Tesco.

As I said - colleagues have been crying on breaks.
But you want us all to be happy-clappy, to plaster on a smile and pretend all is fucking marvellous?

I suppose no one likes a disgruntled slave...

Ideally companies should enforce a zero tolerance policy and ban abusive people.
But they don't.
In fact they bend over backwards to appease horrible people.
It's bonkers.

@nobeans

I also think it is totally legal and should be encouraged to call out all employers who don't pay minimum wage.
All those employers giving 0 hour, 11h, 16h contracts are NOT paying a National minimum wage. It is even further from the National living wage.
I don't care what the pay per hour is - an hour's work won't house my children!

This is how much my contract with Tesco pays me a month : 713.06

Whilst all the management got end-of-year bonuses for a great financial performance 🤢

This. Op it’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard in a long time. It’s probabably better for everyone if you just quit and find a job that suits your mental health problem.

UK seem to not have many people left nowadays who are without MH problems.
I’m not from the UK but it’s striking what a problem it must have become or will become for the country.

Something needs to be done with customers’ behaviour and shite head office attitudes with poor management and high expectations with skeleton staff.

If this continues without any improvement, more staff will leave, making more customers more angry and pissed off.

Retail staff need to strike. Dont give the media any warnings. A store per city/town per day. If warn the media, shelves will be like March 2020 all over again

Remember that supermarket and other essential retail workers are probably one of the few key workers groups not been on any strike since Covid. Trouble is that the other key workers groups are paid by govt and heavily influenced by trade unions.

I worked retail for 15 years in various different areas and levels, and finally threw the towel in a couple of years ago for similar reasons. Some old bint spat in my face because I couldn't refund something she had damaged, and I just gave up there and then. Gave my keys to my boss and told him to stuff it, I was done.

I will never, ever go back. I've watched people get more and more vile, rude, disrespectful and vicious over those 15 years and it shows no sign of improvement. I'm done with the general public, I did my time.

My DH takes his 90 year old mum shopping on the weekend because he can’t in the weeks as he and his siblings work🤷‍♀️. She struggled with home delivery moving the bags around so DH carries the bags and puts away. But she is very very slow but loves her outings with her son🤷‍♀️what about elderly in this situation 🤷‍♀️

If I keep on the topic - I haven't had any issues with the general public yet. Nor as a customer, nor staff member.
The morale of the staff is at all time low though due to pay and conditions mostly.
To be fair, even the customers are mostly disgruntled as a result of those "pay and conditions". All complaints about understaffed tills, under-stocked shelves, lack of training, closed off changing rooms... All relate back to the same issue.

We can't change customer behaviour or head office, though. We can only look after ourselves. Have you considered looking for a new role?

@GirlOfThe70s stubbornness achieves nothing positive. My store has your late in-laws types.

“Ooh it’s busy”

What do you expect when you decide to shop on the busiest time of the week.

Also my store has a load of elderly shoppers coming in at 10:30-12pm on Wednesdays. Yet most of them walk or drive so no need to come that time.

Op you have posted about this before. I recognise the tone of the posts.

If you are that unhappy at your job you need to look for something else. You are going to make yourself really unwell.

You won't change the time customers come in - and nor should you. But you can change your own circumstances.

It doesn't help when management tell retail workers to make conversation with customers at the checkout and threaten you with disciplinary if you don't .

I've explained that when it is busy all the customers in the queue see is you waffling on and in their eyes socialising and not working. This sends customers into a rage , especially if it's their lunch hour and it pisses off most men too .

Most customers just want eye contact , a smile and a greeting and then for the cashier to get them through the checkout asap .

Heads of retail take note .