To think that customers / members of the public have become increasingly rude post Covid?

[BusyTeal]

Without posting too much info to be outing - I work in a public facing role where I am required to issue reports & other documents to members of the public or companies etc. These documents can take some time to process and (as with many other companies / sectors) we are seeing greatly reduced staffing levels and thus higher volumes of work for existing staff.

Many of my colleagues have mentioned this while we’re together, but it is becoming increasingly more common for members of the public (predominantly) but also other professionals who use our service to send ratty emails and call constantly to moan about the poor service we are providing. Pre-Covid, this was a fairly rare occurrence (maybe once a month) but it’s more like nearly daily now despite being completely transparent about the difficulties our organisation / service is facing. Side note: we have experiences recruitment difficulties long before Covid, in 2018 I was only one of two team members on a team that should have been 8 strong!

Not only are we seeing higher numbers of “complaints” but also the tone of the correspondence is much more tense, often to the point of being blatantly rude, disrespectful and downright offensive to staff and the organisation as a whole.

Am I being unreasonable to see this as a “post Covid” after effect, or have others seen this trend too?

I think there's always been rude people in the general public but I've been experiencing more rudeness from the other side of this exchange and frankly get pretty fed up of it so I'm not really sure if they're being unreasonable or not.

I used to work in complaints for a large company, and nothing you’ve said sounds of of the ordinary. However i think some people are just still angry, and i’m aware that kids’ behaviour has got worse since covid, as people and kids were treated like shit during covid.

The general cutting down of numbers of staff means there is more to complain about. But in addition, companies are making deliberately it harder to complain. It’s increasingly difficult to find a customer service phone number, or indeed, any sort of phone number.

Yes I think people are ruder.

But also companies need to recruit enough staff and train and pay them properly, instead of funnelling all their revenues to shareholders.

It cuts both ways.

Yes this is also true. Which? set out a "manifesto" of consumer related issues they wanted a new government to resolve in their latest magazine, but oddly, this didn't make the list.

A new government should require companies will have to deal with consumer queries within 24 hours (and I mean a sensible substantive response, not just "we've got your response and will respond in 6 weeks' time or not at all". Obviously there might be the odd exception eg in the energy sector where meters are mixed up, but the trend for companies not to talk to each other to resolve things needs to stop.

I agree @parkrun500club

We know that businesses are tightening their belts while increasing prices. BUt they are also delivering worse levels of customer service.

Automated chatbots only work for filtering queries to the right people. Its far too difficult to talk to a human these days - when you get an automated chatbot that doesn't understand your query or one that tells you to go away because they are busy (British Gas I'm looking at you), its no wonder complaints are soaring.

Also, add in the fact that many businesses won't invest in training for their staff these days, or give employees authority to use their initiative and instead stick to a pre-prepared script, i can see why irritation is high.

Obviously there's no excuse for rudeness

I think it's a mixture of things. There's a lot more alienation.

The experience of covid plus lockdown has pissed a lot of people off, and they lash out more at institutions and people in any structure that seems to have power and influence. Things like mental health and ability to cope with stress are worse.

People are experiencing generally worse customer service across the board. So even if your organisation was like this before covid, the climate is that lots of others are shitter than they were a few years ago. People resent that, they want it back and in most cases they haven't given much thought to the fact that it's harder to fill those vacancies than it was 5 years ago. You were probably shielded from some of the worst behaviour in the past because your customer service teams were unusually poorly staffed. So you were the worst rather than one in a long line, if that makes sense.

The random person on the street is also probably more likely than they were a few years ago to be experiencing other issues that might make them more likely to snap. Stuff like being on an NHS waiting list, having to do more unpaid care, being short of money etc.

It's a two-way street, I'm afraid. Nearly all organisations need to radically change the way they speak to people.

I used to be friendly and polite to everyone I spoke to. But all my goodwill has been eroded by call centre queues and protocols.

They need to stop the use of pointless chatbots, AI and the unbearable 3-minute recorded intros with 47 different call options.

And stop saying "Y'ok?". Just. Stop.

End of rant

FACT. i found undergoing tests for bowel cancer recently much less stressful than dealing with my housing association.

Just one example of their cuntishness

Well ive been proved right. On Sunday i said to DH Whats the betting they suddenly decide to change the fuse box now there is a heatwave. Lo and behold they turned up yesterday with no notice. Expecting me to have my fridge freezer and chest freezer turned off for HOURS in this sauna of a flat. No no NO! the electrical check was done back in JANUARY five months ago. An isolater was fitted at the beginning of last month also by a contractor who turned up with no notice and electric was turned off for that but this is a longer job.
They have had five months. FIVE MONTHS we have had a cool spring. This flat gets far too hot in the summer to be turning the bloody fridge and chest freezer off Im sitting here in a soaking wet T shirt because its so unbearable.

Example 2

I had a visit from my housing association income officer on Monday . Insisting we owe rent when we dont.

Get a load of this.

"OneSanctuary SAP is the name of a multi-million pound software system brought in by Sanctuary in 2016, designed for use by all areas of the business. It has been an unmitigated failure, and is a huge drawback of working for this company.
The issues caused by SAP are staggering and difficult to keep track of. Because SHA tried to implement SAP in a cost effective manner, they ended up vastly under-investing in critical elements. There is no tailoring of the generically presented system ('vanilla SAP'), which is an issue as social housing is a unique environment from a service delivery and CRM perspective, whereas vanilla SAP is more geared towards providing a solution for manufacturing industries. Thus, the system uses corporate nonsensical buzzwords and methods of handling accounts which absolutely do not reflect industry practice.
Here are just some examples of the more specific issues faced by staff:
No rent statements have been issued since it was implemented in August 2016, and if a resident insists on a rent statement it has to be prepared manually in a spreadsheet
The rent and calculations for accounts are hard to use, and often completely wrong. Mostly because the system was never designed to understand housing benefit payments, and this has a very convoluted workaround which a computer cannot make sense of.
SAP cannot interface with Local Authorities Housing benefit systems so payments are missed, lost or misattributed
Direct debits do not work reliably, and for a long time following the implementation did not work at all. Front line staff are now preferring standing order.
The front end system of SAP requires far more testing and money spent on it. Each customer account is a total mess of information, with no discernible way to separate notes left between differing departments, with information left by staff often going into the wrong account entirely. This needs looking at as from a compliance (DPA) point of view the breaches are serious
From a usability point of view, the view of a customers account within SAP CIC does not display appropriate information to the user (as stated before this is likely because the system was never designed to be used by a HA) and the user often has to go trawling around back end systems to find obviously relevant data (e.g tenancy start date, account balance, property type etc). This is a seemingly minor but considerable waste of resources"

Our Horizon!!!

And just like Horizon and the PO they will not admit that anything is wrong.

This is very true in my experience. I try to be extra polite and patient as a customer/service user because I have to deal with so much rudeness in my own job. People have forgotten basic manners!

It does go both ways though. Eg. I was treated very rudely and dismissively by healthcare staff yesterday. I know they're probably burnt out and dealing with all kinds of shit, but everyone has difficulties. It feels like people generally just don't care and can't be bothered.

I saw an interesting comment recently that self checkout arrangements change the job of retail staff from customer care to crowd control - managing queues, preventing theft etc. It's much less about friendliness abs support.

@CantDealwithChristmas No, I was making an enquiry.

Monday morning and Friday are our busiest (but I don't work in insurance)
I would say if they have long opening hours your best bet is when football/corrie is on TV!

Customer service standards have been nose diving for years. Long before Covid, but yes, that's made it worse.

I've no doubt that some customers are rude/entitled, etc., but the majority really aren't. Yet, far too many customer facing staff are rude, unhelpful and generally unpleasant to ALL customers, whether they've been rude or polite.

The lack of customer service is what is causing more and more, usually mild mannered, customers, to be more assertive etc.

Ask a perfectly sensible/reasonable question in a shop or on public transport, and (assuming they don't completely ignore you), you'll get a grunt or a nod or a shake of head, with virtually nothing verbal, and no help whatsoever.

My OH is the most mild mannered man you could find, never raises his voice, never aggressive, yet our local hospital has driven him mad due to their incompetence, shoddiness, general "can't be arsed" attitude, etc., and he's having ongoing cancer treatment. I've accompanied him to appointments and during treatments, and the staff really couldn't give a toss - and no, they're not "too busy" at all, they've just got some kind of "attitude" that means they do the bare minimum and just spend most of the time whingeing to each other!

Same at our local post office. The young lad who staffs the counter barely ever speaks, no pleasantries, no "good morning", no "thank you", just grunts the price and has a general attitude that customers are interfering with his mobile phone watching. It's not surprise that some customers get annoyed with him when they ask for advise or ask questions and he just grunts back, usually telling them to check online! That's really helpful!

I think customer service has become so much worse since covid.

It doesn't excuse people being unnecessarily rude, but I don't think it's unfair of people to complain if the reasonable expectation of the service provided is not being met.

A lot of the complaints I get are over "your customer service is awful" when what it really means is I can't offer what they want

For instance (without being outing) saying the first appointment is August and no, there isn't anything I can do to get them in earlier
Without fail the next comment will be how awful my customer service is
All I have said is that's the first appointment. They don't have to come to us, it's not like it's a dentist or a doctor, they could go anywhere else

Nail on the head. And that attitude goes right down to the front line staff, many of whom don't give a toss, because they know that there'll be no repercussions to themselves if they don't do what they say, or aren't polite etc. The staff can just cite "staff shortages" or "we're busy" to get away with utterly crap service.

I think standards of service have deteriorated dramatically. My mother died this year and I have had lots of new customer interactions: banks, utility companies, council, etc. Some have been atrocious: people on the dedicated bereavement line who actually have no idea what they are talking about. Asking me if I had a grant of probate - no, she died last week, how could I possible have the grant! Calling me by my mother’s name, telling me they could not give me account info without a grant, despite that fact that I need the account info to complete the grant…
I don’t expect everyone in a customer facing role to know what to do when an account holder has died, but the dedicated bereavement team members should have a complete understanding of the procedures.
worst offenders: RAC, royal bank of Scotland and Nationwide, HMCTS - awful as phones only answered in the morning.
However, Octopus were excellent as was the council with council tax and DWP pretty good too.
I have always been polite, but it’s been an exasperating process.

I get the impression there's probably more burnout in customer service staff than there used to be too. Not new, I know. I used to work in a call centre myself, so I get it. But anecdotally, it seems to be worse now.

Plus are so impatient. They forgot just over 4 years ago, they had to queue outside to enter the shops and that was about 40 mins, based on my store.

Now they join a queue, tut, sigh and roll their eyes immediately.

So because customers had to suffer crap customer service during a "once in a lifetime event" like a pandemic, you think they should suffer crap customer service forever more! Sounds like you're part of the problem!

As I recall, the enforced outside queuing didn't pass without incident either!