Is there any actual benefit of being rude, abusive towards any staff?

[Mokel]

Retail, other customer facing jobs (including call centre), medical etc

There is no benefit to being rude to these staff imo.

All it achieves is negative stuff
. Takes longer to resolve problems as waste time calming customer down
. You may not get the best customer service
. Others have to wait longer to be served
. You may be asked to leave or in call centre, get call terminated
. In extreme situations, you may be banned or struck off the list etc
. Staff leave. This is the case with retail. Staff are fed up with rude behaviour from customers. Then because retailers are cutting back on hours they won’t get replaced. The general public need to understand that if they behaved in a neutral manner, there would not be as many staff leave and they would not have to queue up as long to be served etc.

No benefit of being downright rude, I do think you get better resolutions when you are assertive though and politely advocate for yourself if you feel the service fell short.

When i worked on retail the loudest, rudest customers always got what they wanted. My manager always gave in 😅.

I would follow the rules as of our store and be yelled at and called stupid etc and customer would ask for manager who would not back me up!

I ended up just going straight to her when a difficult customer came in. No point in me being yelled at for no reason.

No, no benefit in practical terms. I guess people do it because they are walking around in public like unexploded bombs, just waiting to release all the tension they have from their own personal lives.

It is horrible. I hate reading about how much worse things are getting for so many workers in customer facing roles. A big hug to you all. Remember that when someone is giving you grief in public, loads of people are probably watching and thinking 'what a wanker' about the grief-giver.

Oh, that sounds horrible, @CynicalSunni .

Long time ago now 🤣
Luckily it didnt happen every day. Learned quick enough if i did my return spiel and they reacted certain ways i just got that manager.

Having worked in Local Authority for many years, I would say that sadly the people who shout loudest are the ones who get what they want. It is a fallacy that if you are reasonable, you get the best results.
My experience is same as PP. As an individual worker you apply the rules. When someone complains vociferously, managers just cave as they can't be bothered with the hassle.

There's no benefit but the bit that amazes me is that there is also no detriment. I don't know what I want to happen to them, struck down by a thunderbolt perhaps.

So true!
In another job I had as a receptionist one of the managers downright refused to speak to a particular person who kept ringing in.
It was always 'take a message/ tell him i am out/ in a meeting/ i will ring him back' cause hebdidnt want to deal

So of course I got the receiving end.

Though I dont know if they ever got what they wanted cause i left.

I think attitudes societally have changed a lot. It also works both ways. Being assertive doesnt immediately mean polite either. I
deal with complaints and listen to calls etc and am shocked at what people think polite means. I never understand the need to swear at people no one gets paid enough to pit up with that. All they are doing is creating fear and creating a situation more likely to create mistakes and anxiety. I also find though that a growing number dont care and will hide behind the term ‘assertive’ as their defense. Sadly not all people wanting to be assertive are successful. That said, the attitude of staff also needs to be looked at in equal measure, not all staff have the right approach!

I know someone who goes through assertive into rude and it does seem to get him results. I think people think it’s easier to give him what he wants than deal with him any other way.

I worked for a local authority in customer service as a manager for years until fairly recently.

I could and did ban the obnoxious from the premises. Worked on a three strikes and you're out basis. Assertive is a different thing from abusive. Also being nice and asking nicely made my staff much more likely to be helpful above and beyond.

It's a bit easier at the LA because you cannot bend rules about most of it because you are applying law/official regulations. Shops can just give people what they want to get them to leave.

I also had back up from security guards and police worked in our building too.

We also had what we called vexatious complainers who were basically complaining for their own amusement because they enjoyed it.

Wow, a touch rude and aggressive there… do you yell at cashiers by any chance?

No, none at all. The person you’re abusing is most likely not the one who makes the decisions.

Best way is to find out who is in charge, and complain properly (even by letter), to that person.

I work in retail and I swear to God some customers just come in to piss off and be nasty us overworked retail staff.......by and large older people are the worst for this. I honestly do not get it, surely they have better things to be doing with their day ?? 😬

These days I just point them in the direction of a manager and hide in the warehouse. It's absolutely ridiculous the behaviour of some people.

I think your example is not alone, and makes people such as those feel justified in their behaviour. Being assertive is not the same as loud and rude.

When I worked in retail I often got thanks from customers for the service I gave, I love helping people. But not the rude ones, they got polite stick to the rules. Anything I could have bent to help I didn't, save that for the polite/ justifiably upset but not abusive ones.
I am nice but not a doormat.
The horrible ones lacked emotional control. They were like toddlers in my eyes, but having been raised in a high conflict house it takes more than a tantrum to make me bat an eyelid.

Supermarket workers are the forgotten heroes of the pandemic. They got thanked for working through it.

Now they get moaned with millions of things - most are beyond their control. My friend who works at one, not for much longer as she's on notice period - got customers asking "why can't the bread have longer dates" a few days before Xmas. They don't realise that they date the bread the same X days ahead throughout the year when made in the factories.

When i worked in retail sadly the ones who were the rudest got what they wanted because our manager was a soft touch and soon word spread. Examples, paying someone for dry cleaning who said milk spilled in her car. A man who just so happened to have the receipt on him for the expensive jeans that bleach had opened and spilled on him, whilst walking around the store (definitely a scam the jeans were certainly not as expensive as he claimed) and the worst and what made me want to leave was the customer who accused my colleague of short changing him saying he gave her a £50 note. I checked the till in front of him and we didn't even have any £50 in the draw. So the customer accused my colleague of taking it. When i stood my ground and said the till wasn't short and said the customer had made a mistake the customer hit the fire alarm so we had to evacuate the store. He stood outside all smug arms folded, my store manager when back inside and did a £50 refund on the till and handed the man the money to make him leave.
I was so angry and wanted to walk out.

Will be hated for this but customer service is generally appalling. I am not talking face to face but insurance companies etc. It is no wonder that people get so infuriated and made to feel helpless when they are the customer and you have a job because of them; without them your job would not exist. The call handlers are the face of the company and their repeated incompetence and don't care attitude is frightening and dangerous. I get scared that they are managing something important so badly; that I might need their help in the future and yes I get very angry. What is not their fault is that once you hit the end of their knowledge there is nowhere to go nowadays ie another dept that you are immediately transferred to except as a pp said complain to the big boss. This should not be necessary.

Anything I could have bent to help I didn't, save that for the polite/ justifiably upset but not abusive ones
Yep when I've worked in customer facing roles I've never had a problem with angry people as long they direct their anger where it belongs - businesses often have stupid policies designed by muppets who never have to deal with the fallout and when customers fall foul of them you often have nothing but sympathy - it's when they turn on you that it's a problem.

I listened to Anthony Scaramucci talk about an analogy of 'going up the field', which is how I think he referred to it: a soccer team coach going blustering up to the referree and creating a scene, not because anything major was wrong but because the coach would then know that their capacity for that kind of behaviour would be noted by the referree, and in future, refs would be more likely to give the coach's players the benefit of doubt.
I have a family member who operates a bit like this: in dealings with services and institutions they're in an ongoing relationship with (GP surgery, DC's school, high street bank branch etc), they make themselves 'uncomfortable' once over some trivial matter in order to signal they're not to be trifled with. I find it a really shitty and cynical strategy.
I've always worked in customer facing roles, from hospitality through call centres to education, and always make a point of being extremely nice to anyone providing me with any kind of service.

It goes both ways.
Being told I'm lying by a customer services representative when I'm not isn't going to get me at my most polite.

There is a saying that you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar, which is true if you have a legitimate complaint and are dealing with a reasonable organisation who have properly trained staff.
On the other hand, if you are dealing with an organisation that doesn't care about customer satisfaction - and they do exist - with indifferent staff who don't give a damn, being reasonable will not get you anywhere. In this case, it's often be who shouts loudest and longest who gets at least some resolution.

Not without getting their faces rearranged!!!