to think behaviour of retail workers has got worse?

[todayday]

I do mystery shopping audits of retail stores. I have been doing it for quite a few years and have noticed the standards for shop workers has really slipped.

A lot of basic politeness is missing. If I ask where something is, often they say over there which is not very specific rather than taking me to the item. Other staff will not move so I can access an item if they are doing an online shopping order. People restocking often refused to move or sigh when asked politely.

Knowledge of accessibility is poor. Staff often look miserable and look like they don't really care. Others will be chatting away and ignoring customers.

There are great retail staff too who go out of their way to help and always have a kind word to say. In one store, the shop worker would not just assist people struggling with self scan but she would scan their entire shop for them.

More needs to be done to ban rude customers. If these customers are only spending £30 in a supermarket, then they will get that back from a few nicer customers buying clothes or an extra bottle of wine. If that customer doesn’t drive and supermarket is the only one they can walk too, more fool them for being nasty to the staff in the first place.

Another thing that I hated about working in retail was the teens that hung around the store, threw stuff, shout swear words at customers and staff. Management and security throw them out. Only for them to return 10 mins later. Police do fuck all

This happens in fast food chains too

I think there is a general decline in how people treat one another and I think it’s a trickle down effect. People feel the government doesnt care for them. People feel Britain is disrespecting itself, mental health is crumbling as a result. My local Supermarket shocks me nowadays. It is always full of unpacked boxes and staff shouting across the aisles to each other, it’s a horrible place to go and as a customer you feel like an afterthought. Nobody on a till, staff in clusters talking.

It's a vicious cycle, staff are rude to customers which makes customers frustrated and react badly to staff, which makes staff rude to customers. Doesn't matter who started it, what matters is that it's within the power of the employer to hire enough staff of a decent enough capability to handle rude customers without resorting to being abusive or rude to other innocent customers.

It's not within the power of the employer to ensure customers are polite to staff, sure they can ban people but normally only after an incident. Even then they have to be wary because someone might have a hidden disability which explains their behaviour. Apart from banning unaccompanied children, shops can't generally ban a certain demographic, that's discrimination.

My point is the employer is responsible for how their staff behave. It doesn't matter whether the vicious cycle began because of the staff or because of the customers, the only way it can be resolved is to ensure the staff behave themselves and are capable of dealing with abusive customers. It won't end all the abuse but will end a lot of it.

I've not had any problems with retail staff, ever. What am I doing wrong?

As children we were always told 'do as you would be done by' and it's served me well.

Or perhaps we just don't accept abusive behaviour full stop? Rather than just shrug our shoulders and reckon it's all 'part of the job' and expect the staff to just put up with it? And further more frame not putting up with it from others as staff not 'behaving' themselves?!

That would solve the problem too, but means that people can't hide behind being a customer to validate their poor behaviour and get away with it.

Maybe the abusive people need to be the ones who are made to 'behave themselves'.

There's not an endless supply of people willing to be abused, belittled and humiliated for minimum wage unfortunately and poor recruitment and retention is as much an issue with customer service as deliberate staff cutting to keep costs down is.

I've seen budgets and hours cut since I started ten years ago, so I know it's getting worse. We used to have many many more 'person hours' for bodies on the floor, now they've cut it to the very minimum (to the extent that, if one person is off sick unexpectedly they have to ring round desperately trying to call other people in or the shop can't open). It's down to the bone - and that has definitely worsened over the last few years.

It must be due to poor training and leadership. I worked in retail for around 5-6 years in a variety of stores including a pound shop, retailer similar to Next, and a higher end gift shop. I would always check for stock for customers and do whatever I could to help them. It never occurred to me to be miserable or unhelpful because I was on minimum wage. But I was trained and I copied my colleagues who mostly all wanted to do the job well.

I also really appreciated my job, so maybe that had something to do with it too.

Oh god,the teenagers

I dread them-99% are lovely kids and I speak to them in an adult,polite way and they are great

Then there are the 1%

Vaping,swearing,throwing food/drinks,fighting,pissed up,having sex in the toilets and i have to deal with it-you name it,I've seen it

One little brat smashed a glass wall and ran off

Police did fuck all and his mother came in swearing and screaming at us because he needed medical treatment (he'd smashed the wall and cut himself)

We ban them,they swagger back in,we phone the police because its trespass,the police either don't bother coming or talk sweetly to them and don't throw them out

Rarely we get a copper that does uphold the law,and then we get angry parents in,who are shown what their kids did via cctv

They them either get pissed off that we film them or claim its not their kid

I hate dealing with them-and it's always me because I'm 'good at dealing with tricky customers' (read,management can't be arsed)

I'm a picker for online groceries in Waitrose. We have very tight timescales to get the picks done. We do the majority in the night when the shop is closed but some have to be done around the customers. There absolutely is not time to constantly move for customers if our trolleys are in front of products they may want. It's only a few seconds usually that we're blocking something. We'll move away in a moment. On chilled item picks, it's even worse as you can't have refrigerated items out of the chiller for more than 25 minutes. We just HAVE to crack on. Please don't bother the pickers!

You can be grateful but refuse to be nice to customers who treat you like shit

I've said YANBU, but I'd imagine a lot of it is to do with cuts to staff numbers.

When DC worked in retail, staff did a specific job- checkout, customer service, shelf stacker etc. There were also pay uplifts for working on a deli counter, taking in deliveries, or being permanently on checkouts.

I think now there are far fewer staff, and they have to do everything.

Yes, far fewer staff, massive cuts, we are expected to be in several places at once. It's exhausting and extremely hard work.

I have refused to serve certain customers due to their behaviour. I said to them there is nothing to achieve from being nasty towards us.

Shop staff do have the right to refuse service

I have asked rude customers "what do you want to achieve from being rude to us?". They remain silent. Then I said "the reason you can't answer my question is because there is nothing to achieve from being rude to us"

That normally knocked a bit of sense into them.

I worked for nearly 30 years in the retail business, I've seen the good and bad customers plus good and bad staff.
Customers have more and more demands.
Staff are being paid as low as possible but expected to give more and more service.
Everyone always remembers an error but forgets the good service.

‘it varies in supermarkets - imo Aldi, Lidl and Waitrose have very polite and helpful staff.’

We don’t use Lidl, but Tesco, Waitrose and Aldi staff are all very pleasant and helpful in our town. B&Q were dire until they got a new manager , now it’s a pleasure to browse around , staff are knowledgeable and helpful.

We do go at not busy times, though, so perhaps that is the difference?

I do enjoy my retail job, but partly that's because it's not my main earning job so I am very aware that I don't HAVE to be there, I could survive very well if I never went in again. It means that I can be nicer in a strange way, because I feel that the job is a nice addition to my life rather than being totally necessary.

So it always makes me laugh when we get the 'you're just a retail worker, you can't get anything better that's why you work here' customers in. One customer tried it and there was a general intake of breath from my co workers on that shift. I just laughed. I'm extremely well qualified, I work there because it suits me. Not every retail worker has two GCSEs and is desperate to get out.

I agree with @Allthegoodnamesarechosen that the time you visit shops can make a difference. For me, its the elderly customers who come in on Saturday mornings complaining that it's busy really annoyed staff and working aged customers. Even heard a man, guessing mid 50s saying to an elderly couple "I spend 55 hours a week travelling and working and you have those 55 hours to shop in". Then a lady in her 40s (again guessing) said to him nice one. As working aged customers want to shop as quickly as possible without being stopped/slowed down by dithering customers.

I shop first thing to get shopping away and have the rest of the day to job search, attend interviews etc.

I feel sorry for my former colleagues who are in their 50s and 60s who unable to leave due to hours work suit their DGC/DC care and dealing with their elderly parents. Plus most jobs need more IT skills than they have. Have IT skills plus a fast learner and got very little commitments

That’s because a hell of a lot of customers are rude, entitled arseholes who speak to you like shit and expect you to just smile because “the customer is always right” well fuck that, they’re not

Any job where you have to deal with the general public all day is my idea of hell, so rather them than me.

All of this! Which doesn't excuse customers behaving badly, but yeah.

You saying customers are that bit more snippy up front I can relate to! Partly because I've been faced with a sign hectoring me about not abusing the staff. All the sign has done is make me think about the ways the store is driving customers to be crappy to staff (again, not okay to be abusive to staff). I genuinely wonder if those signs are normalsing the idea that being abusive to staff is just what normal customers do. And that therefore people have to shout louder to make themselves heard. Which is a vicious circle.

Along with teaching in senior schools, working in retail would be one job I would avoid!

I find the staff in my local M&S and Waitrose very friendly and efficient; and the staff in my corner shop (the Co-op) are heroes. Co-op staff never get to sit down at the till - there are no chairs for a start and they seem to be always on the move stacking shelves and completing Deliveroo orders.

And dealing with threatening shoplifters!

I think shops need to make this clear to customers! Shop staff are meant to be there to help so if there's a group who are explicitly not expected we need to know. Although I bet you know where every product is if you're picking all day!