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

My ds walked out of an apprenticeship at Aldi because of the customers.

He said Covid made everything awful, the customers were rude and aggressive and one said to him that he would kill him and his kids if he didn’t let him on the store to do his shopping. The customers stayed awful after restrictions lifted.

hes doing great now, he’s in a factory in a management role.

A customer told me they was going to rape me and then hang me from a tree all because I wouldn't give him a bag for free

I hear you OP. Covid was a terrible time for retail staff and it's got a lot worse since.

I think that head office has to take some of the blame because they are cutting staff but customers should also remember it's not us on the shop floor that choose that.

I've been spat at, pushed, threatened and it's become part of the job now. The public can be brutal to work with and it's definitely not for the faint hearted. It doesn't help when retail staff are looked down on either, people have short memories and shouldn't forget that it was us they needed during lockdown, it's a distant memory now for most people.

There is no excuse for any of the behaviour you've stated above but Covid was shit for everyone.

I lost count of the amount of retail staff who were unbelievably rude during that time and seemed oblivious to the idea that everyone was scared and struggling. Shouting at customers for accidentally going the wrong way round a one way system/using their own hand-sanitiser rather than the one the person on the door had/buying things staff didn't approve of ("Is that REALLY essential?") was just as bloody bad to be on the receiving end of.

Yes but staff were trapped at work and had no choice but to mingle with the public.....terrified of covid... customers tried everything to test the covid rules.

Staff were scared. Nobody ever cared about them or their families though...

In the gentlest way OP, if you're on antidepressants & some shoppers give you panic attacks, perhaps it's best to look for a move of location and/ or job. Life's too short.

OP, no matter how many threads you post, ultimately winding back to the same themes, particularly that of elderly people doing their shopping when you don't feel they ought to, you're not going to impact or change anyone's behaviour to that more aligned with your wishes.

The only person's behaviour or circumstances you can change is your own. Can you change to a less customer facing role, or a graveyard shift where you're less likely to be affected by customer behaviour?

They were put in an impossible position, charged with making the shop as safe as possible, and were held responsible for it if it didn't happen, and that required cooperation from the customers, who didn't want to cooperate and certainly weren't going to do so when asked by people they have zero respect for, who were angry at the situation and saw a whipping boy for their frustrations.

I remember a news report that showed staff being assaulted, spat at, the shops being trashed and generally staff being subjected to verbal abuse and a couple of CEO's from the big companies were asking the public not to behave like that because it had dramatically increased - I mean why do people need to be asked not to behave like an arsehole?

The people working in shops were also living through it, they were under the same conditions as the rest of us, and then getting abused to boot because people couldn't handle their own negative feelings about the situation we were in.

Who says? I dont get fed up with them at all, not even when the check out operator leaves the till to push their trolley to their car and leaves me waiting

If I cant spare a few moments of my day so that someone else gets the service they need , Id be a pretty poor excuse of a human being

Btw, changing your name doesnt hide that you post constantly the same old moans. You have been told time and time again, on here and on another well known forum that retail isnt for you and you best go find a new job

And I shall say again that in 45 years of front facing roles, within retail, hospitality and the NHS, I have never had anyone "flip" be rude or assault me

To those who suggest that the working people should do online grocery shopping. Maybe they have been doing so in the past but got stupid substitutes- lemon shower gel for lemons, tampons for Twix (true examples from family), crap dates, bruised apples etc.

They have forgotten how to behave with basic manners and politeness.

Ha ha. I would say we are about two generations in now, where many many parents have failed to parent properly. As this continues (and it will) people get more feral.

You can see it everywhere in the UK, not just in shops, hospitality etc. You also get it now FROM the people behind the counter.

It’s got to the stage now where I’m made unbelievably happy when someone is nice to me or helpful. So rare…

Our local council offices had the ‘Be Nice’ posters on the wall. They hid behind this mantra if you dared to be even the slightest bit assertive about their atrocious service.

It cuts both ways…

...customers tried everything to test the covid rules...Nobody ever cared about them or their families though...

That stance was part of the problem - no, not all customers were "trying to test the rules" and no, it wasn't the case that "no-one cared". That mentality drives the combativeness against customers that we still see today.

@Maverickess it is an unfortunate fact of human nature that being scared often comes out as aggression, unacceptable as that was in those situations. Don't remember anyone telling shop staff not to be arseholes too, though, because that was also unacceptable.

We don't see it still today at all!

It's quite apparent, in some places. Anyone who indicates that customer service is lacking is "abusive" and even the most benign of requests for help is met with an attitude as if you've insulted their first born. Thankfully a minority but the embattled and embittered attitude that customers are only ever a problem definitely still exists.

I used to work in retail, and dealt with some total fuck ups for customers and colleagues (also lots of lovely ones, of course) but the most messed up retail story I know of belongs to someone I know who also worked in retail for many years.

A customer had a massive heart attack and hit his head on metal shelving as he collapsed.

The on duty first aider went to do CPR, an ambulance was called and my friend threw all the other customers out of the aisle and "stood guard", only allowing in the paramedics when they arrived and took over.

So, there's a dying man lying there with a first aider then paramedics performing CPR, blood all over the floor from his head wound, and customers start arguing with my friend to let them in the aisle to get some cheese?!

Sorry I'm not understanding what the issue is with elderly people shopping at the weekend? They're too slow and get in other people's way when it's busiest? That's kind of tough to be honest, elderly people have just as much right to shop at the weekend so I think you're being unfair there OP.

Understaffing and rudeness is something that needs to be addressed by your management so in that respect I sympathise, not sure what can be done about it though if your seniors aren't willing to step up.

Also my doctors surgery has a long recorded message about how they won't tolerate abuse of staff which they only need now that it's so utterly frustrating trying to see a doctor.

My surgery want you to do everything online, using a system called Anima. I booked an appointment via the system yesterday, and included in the confirmation was a request for me to send the doctor a form that explains the need for the visit beforehand.

The form was completed online and I only have it saved electronically. I don't have a printer. And the surgery is in a part of town where parking is near impossible.

There is no way for patients to upload anything to Anima for the surgery to see. The only way of doing it was for me to email it to them, but they don't have their email address publicly available anywhere. I rang them (20 minutes on hold) and the receptionist was quite reluctant for me to have it, but she conceded that if I brought in a hard copy, they would scan it and upload it to their system, then destroy the hard copy. How mad is that?

I can quite see how people get so frustrated that they lose it, tbh.

Yes it was unacceptable for any that behaved like that, though as you say, fear often comes out in aggression, or do we think that should only apply to certain people as a reason?
Though I don't recall news of shop assistants assaulting customers, throwing things at customers, trashing the shop? And I'd say it'd definitely make news because behaviour like that is deemed more unacceptable towards customers than it is from them - it's acceptable to most people to treat anyone in that type of job that way - oh people will say it's not, as some sort of disclaimer, and then there's the 'but' -

But people were scared.
But people were frustrated.
But people were angry.
But my gerbil just died.
But I was stressed.
But I was tired.
But I was in a rush.
But I was hungry.

Which then justifies the behaviour.

If it's unacceptable towards customers, it's unacceptable from customers - because we're all human beings at the end of the day.

The biggest gripe I have is when people arrive at the tills 7.30am on a Saturday trolley full of shopping to be told there’s not a till operator on til 8 and they kick off and huff and puff and then do it again week after week. If you know you want to go through a manned checkout then don’t arrive when you know good and well there won’t be one open.

I do try and be pleasant and sympathetic to people when they’re annoyed there isn’t a checkout open ‘I know it’s frustrating, we don’t like it either. Could I get you the email address for customer services?’ Usually diffuses people enough for them to realise that we’re just at the whim of head office and shouting at us won’t make a blind bit of difference.

Which then justifies the behaviour.

I don’t think it justifies the behaviour at all. Explains the underlying reason for it, perhaps, but it’s still not acceptable.

If it's unacceptable towards customers, it's unacceptable from customers - because we're all human beings at the end of the day.

I agree, but the following is also true:

If it's unacceptable from customers, it's unacceptable to customers - because we're all human beings at the end of the day.

The shop assistants who were rude to me would have been the first to complain - and rightly so - if I’d treated them as they treated me.

@CammyChameleon we had that where I used to work. I customer has a stroke and we only had myself and 2 other staff members on site.
I was seeing to the poor bloke along with another staff member and one was on the phone to 999

The amount of people kicking off because we wouldn't serve them was insane. One even contacted head office to complain! Utter scum

Being rude or aggressive to retail staff is not acceptable, and you need better support from management to deal with this behaviour.

But honestly sometimes customer service in this country is so shit it really wears you down. And I feel that staff don’t always know how to deal with complaints in the initial stages and so things end up escalating. Maybe it’s lack of training or maybe working conditions are terrible etc.. but when the server in my local independent coffee shop can’t even say hi or raise a smile or make eye contact it comes across as if I’m a pain in the arse for ordering a drink! And this is just one very small example from many others. I don’t think it’s too much to ask to expect friendly and professional service from retail workers but it’s becoming increasingly the exception rather than the norm.

We had a customer fell in a similar way and closed part of the aisle (was accessible the other end) and some tutted at the first aiders and couple of colleagues reassuring the sick customer's wife. The wife had the brave thing of shouting at one of the tutters "can't you see my husband has collapsed. Have some sympathy!"

Two years ago, I had an asthma attack whilst on the kiosk - the dust from the sawn MDF from the partial refit caused it. Had a customer shout "you shouldn't employ people with health conditions". FFS! If that rule applied, then expect about just 15-20% of the staff to remain. Some are diabetic, some are asthmatic, some had joint replacements to name a few.

Its other customer service roles that have shite training. One call centre job, I was expected to take live calls after just 3 days of training and knew only about a quarter of what was needed.

Noticed the young workers get little training and the other day, found some standard pizzas in the free from range. Good job I spotted them and moved them to the free from section as someone could got very poorly from eating a standard pizza when they are gluten intolerant. Sometimes the brands just put a tiny difference between standard and GF

Work in retail - I think this is mainly why we're unable to recruit and know it's why we can't keep a reasonable amount of staff. It's a viscous circle, can't get staff so less stock out, less staff serving/advising, which means more customer frustration.

It's the minority of rude/ungrateful people that are the problem but makes a really difference if it comes across it's aimed as you and your fault, especially if someone is swearing, hemming you in, grabbing you. A few don't really engage with us, no thank you, appreciation but that's better than treating people badly. Luckily, the vast majority are lovely though with a smile, joke, sympathising as they can see you're doing your best.