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.

Two sisters bought £300 of chocolates from a store about 120 miles us on a hot summer day. It was for a wedding round here. Both came in wanting the refund as chocolate was melted! Even the manager said no!

Why on earth would anyone buy £300 of chocolate on a hot summer day, 120 miles away, put in the boot (which isn’t air conditioned) and leave in car overnight? Yet the two larger stores in the area sold the same chocolate! No sympathy there!

I reckon the sisters have done this before and successfully got refunds

@Auburngal , total stupidity, glad the managers stood up to them.
The worst one i had was a customer bringing back a soft pink silk suit, jacket and trousers, she had worn to a wedding and complained that she'd spilled red wine down it and couldn't get it out so she wanted a refund...

Had a customer wanting a refund on a swimsuit. The hygienic tape was missing and had skidmarks on gusset.😖I said to the customer we cannot do a refund as the hygienic tape isn't there. Customer wanted to speak to a manager. Called for one on tannoy. Manager came, looked at swimsuit then said "would you buy this swimsuit like this?" Customer shrugged her shoulders. No refund.

On a few times, we had emails from other stores in area of customers trying to get a refund off certain products and a quick description plus sent out e-mails to those other stores.

Best one I had was a customer purchased a £180 electric toothbrush they purchased from another store about 9pm the previous evening. I said I need to get a manager's approval for this, The customer's phone rang and he left store, leaving the toothbrush plus receipt behind. He never came back for the toothbrush. It was still in the lockable expensive toiletries cupboard - on my last day, 6-7 months later.

I've been called a 'fucking disgrace' today, with finger pointed at me and other niceties.
My crime was being there, working on a completely different department, as the prices have increased for what they wanted.

I mean I get being annoyed, but I'm not even a little bit personally responsible, to warrant a personal insult like that. And I too face increased prices for goods like everyone else, I'm not immune to the cost of living. Apparently fucking solely responsible for it though, because I work in the service industry.

A customer recently asked me the price of something...i told her...(yep, a woman my age..)...she sighed loudly and shook her head at me and said contemptuously "I can buy it cheaper on the website (of the brand), I will buy it there"!!....i think she thought I'd be offended or something, i said to her "I'd buy it there too if its cheaper ", that took the wind out her sails, she spluttered I'm not joking, it is cheaper, I'll prove it and got her phone out, I said you dont need to prove it, i believe you.
She was desperate for a fight or at least a confrontation, and she was so pissed off i just agreed with her

I know it sounds like i hate customers but most of them are lovely, unfortunately its the PITA's that we remember

People spend 6 times more talking about rubbish customer service and speak to more people about it.

The same applies to retail/customer staff. I remember very few stories of nice customers.

One day, I had a customer who was asking for a yoghurt flavour that a brand did and he can never find it. He had been asking this question almost every day for a good month. I took the customer to the CSD and went onto the brand’s website. Clicked on products where all the flavours, pot sizes etc were listed. Increased size of display so customer could see. Could not find the flavour he wanted. As (flavour) is not listed anymore on website, it’s likely that it’s been discontinued. “That’s not good enough” was his response.

Retail workers are not responsible for brands to change recipes, drop flavours, shrinkflate stuff. I gave him the brand’s phone number

I got a few things in Sainsbury's tonight. I used the self scanner and it requested a rescan when I got to the till.

The shop assistant comes over, scans some items, mumbles something, puts a scanner on the staff desk and walks off up the other end. I'm standing there with no scanner and no idea what to do.

I pick up the scanner from the staff desk but can't scan the screen. Second shop assistant hasn't a clue so I have to wait for the other girl to come back to be told she has PUT MY SCANNER IN THE HOLDER IN MY TROLLEY WHICH IS BEHIND ME because that's clearly the most logical place to put it. I didn't even get an apology.

I had really poor customer service in the Argos in this particular branch of Sainsbury's so that's the last time I'll be shopping there.

There's definitely been a decline in basic manners from customers in recent years. We always say hello to everyone who walks through the door and vanishingly few people will acknowledge you. Please and thankyou are rarities and it's a nice surprise when people show courtesy.

Last week I got called a 'stupid cow' by a man because I couldn't tell him exactly when our deliveries arrive and he demanded I find out for him. We don't get sent tracking information from the suppliers, so deliveries show up within a few days of them e-mailing the invoice. I'd politely explained this to him a few times previously and that our system is that we e-mail customers when their items come into stock. Ended up banning him as he's got progressively more rude and entitled each time he's come in, to the point where other customers were also commenting on it.

Our deliveries usually come 5am-8am. Sometimes, the deliveries came late due to traffic issues as depot serving the store is 30 miles away.

One day due to an RTA near to the depot, our deliveries were screwed up. Customer came in and notice his pie wasn't in. He asked a staff member, when can he get his pie. The staff manager he asked was a manager. He said due to a RTA near to the depot, all our deliveries were delayed. Customer said "that's not good enough". Typical phrase said by elderly customers which pisses me off. He then left.

About an hour or so later, he returned back to the store showing the pie he bought from another supermarket chain. He shouted at the manager "how come (supermarket) got the pies in and you don't?" Could be combination of 1. The other supermarket has stock in and 2. Their depot is west of the supermarket, where the depot serving my work is south. Can't remember what the manager said but he was banned for being aggressive. If he didn't storm in later on demanding to speak to the manager, he would not be banned.

I worked in hotels for 30 years but left the industry a couple of years ago because of the increasing number of despicable guests. In the last 18 months at the hotel, (2022) I encountered some truly awful people.

My decision was made on Christmas Day when I spent all day dealing with a dreadful couple who had made a waitress cry. In my head, I just said 'that's enough.' I moved into a different industry, still customer-facing but interestingly I find that customers behave differently. Very few rude customers.

I think some people just see hospitality and retail employees as people they can be rude to.

I live near 2 Ada's and the staff are lovely. They are very helpful. I feel sorry for shop staff when shoppers are horrid.

100% this. I left my retail job today after 2.5 years. Staff numbers have been cut making it miserable for the ones remaining

I agree. Staff were not replaced like for like in hours lost from staff leaving.

Staff working a combined 120 hours in a week get (eventually) replaced by newbies working a combined 40-50 hours.

I left my supermarket job 13 months ago and my job hasn’t been fully replaced. They only give 12-16 hour contracts which isn’t enough for those who want actual part time work of around 25 hours.

Plus I was fully trained on tills, CSD, delivery, code checking, trolleys, changing widths/caps on the system. When I left, colleagues said they felt 5 colleagues left.

In my new job, I feel better. Be speaking to some people but not many.

Can you not refuse to serve them? Ban them from the premises? It's absolutely disgusting what you have to go through.

I worked retail when I was a student and absolutely hated it. So many people were rude that it actually stood out when someone was kind. I remember a guy coming in to buy something who worked in a store close by being really sympathetic, I guess we’d both had a tough day with endless horrible customers. You then get paid fuck all for the trouble. No wonder they’re miserable!

This is awful. I live in a small town where friendliness from staff and customers is the norm, and feel shocked on the rare times anyone is unpleasant. It must be stressful to have that every day.

People think retail is where stupid people end up when they've got no qualifications and can't do anything else. But many of us there are very well qualified, plenty of us have degrees and are doing the job because the hours or location suit us. Nobody should look down on retail staff, because when you sneer at one you might find them teaching your evening class next week, or tutoring your children!

I think people in general are just ruder these days. Customers and those working in a lot of customer facing roles, and everyone else besides. I mean obviously not everyone, but a cross-section.

I do hate it when being treated as a pain in the neck for doing normal customer things like eg buying something or sending a parcel. I would also hate it if I was working in a shop and customers were habitually rude and disrespectful.

I think it is to do with there being a lot less money around as a pp said. Shops are cutting down on their overheads as much as they can, and requiring more and more from staff. Customers also stressed because probably their own jobs are a nightmare too, or they’ve struggling for money or whatever else.

It’s not been a great time for a while! I can’t remember the last time when things in general felt optimistic but I am sure it started well before the pandemic. Maybe before 2015 or so? Or even 2010?

In the late 90s and the 00s things felt good!

I did work in retail when I was very young as a holiday job and I know I was awful at it. I remember the tills were quite complicated and I’d get it wrong a lot!

Having been quite good at things in general at school, I got a bit of a shock that I was so bad at it - obviously I’d already been bad at things like a lot of sport and learning to drive (I did pass in the end) but still was an eye opener to going over-confident me.

Its not new. 20 years ago I worked in a few shops as a student and the rudeness from customers AND management was on another level back then too.

However rude customers i could deal with but toxic work environments are also so common in retail. The worst culprit ime was Next. The managers were AWFUL, would fuck off every morning for a 2 hour staff meeting in the office where they bitched about everyone, relentlessly pushed us to sell those Next directory catalogues (which customers had to pay to receive, we were supposed to pedal them anyway and hope they didn't notice the small print about signing up for a credit account) They searched our bags every time we left the shop during or after a shift, in case we were thieves. One teenage girl injured herself after being left to move a load of railings alone, Next didn't even have a first aider onsite and she was reprimanded when she had to take the following day off to go to the minor injuries clinic. Told us all to park on the main roads rather than the actual huge car park outside, so we wouldn't clutter up spaces for potential customers. But every manager then parked right by the front door, obvs. They released a new TV advert when I was there and then blasted the song from it on repeat for hours on end. Even the customers were complaining about it! Xmas Eve they'd have staff there till midnight prepping for the sales, which started at 5am on Boxing Day, so staff would be back in for that. No overtime pay whatsoever.

I still won't shop in Next all these years later.

I'd love to but the big bosses swear it never happens and we have to serve them (they have never seen it happen and refuse to watch the cctv)

I'm very tempted to 'accidentally' cough drop their latte in their laps but knowing my luck it'll be me that gets into trouble

(one girl did drop a cup of tea on a customer's wrist-pure accident and she was hauled over the coals as the customer kicked off over it)

When I was a teenager I did a YTS and got a City & Guilds in Retail. We did extensive training both in the classroom and on placement, and were frequently observed and scored. I have no idea why they stopped doing the Youth Training Schemes but they should definitely think about bringing them back.

I agree, given the ever increasing numbers of young unemployed, we desperately need schemes like that back.