Sick of customers moaning to shop staff about things beyond our control

[Jdot]

Please do not show your frustrations to the stressed and burnt out staff with:
. prices
. company’s policies
. the law
. supply issues - including local, national and global
. traffic issues that delays with deliveries
. staffing issues- both short staffed and if staff are on the sick
. your lack of planning. Waiting til Dec 1st for advent calendars and 31st Oct for pumpkins

Do you realise that this is unacceptable and unnecessary to shout at staff. Many staff are leaving mainly because of customers’ behaviour.

Think about this before you open your mouth at staff

There’s never any excuse to be arsey with retail staff apart from when they try and tell you they can’t give you a printed receipt and have to email it to you.

I used to run a servce point in local government. One saturday (busiest day of the week) with queues at both counters and only two of us servicing a woman tried to jump the queue. She pushed another person out of the way. I told her "Sorry but as you can see people are queuing. So I must ask you to join the line" "Are you refusing me service?" "No, I will be happy to attend to you in your turn. We operate a policy where people are attended to in their turn because thats the fairest way." The customer who had been pushed out of the way then let the rude woman have it with both barrels and told her to get in line or leave. She told me that if the woman complained she would be happy t make a statement of support. The woman did complain and she recieved a letter from management suggesting that if time was of the essence she visit the premises at a less busy period.

Lol - I remember being on a till on the 23rd December. Must have been about 4pm, I know I'd been on there all day, had another few hours (the supervisors were genuinely doing their best with breaks - but we were packed) when a woman came up and crossly said 'Do you know you're out of lamb on aisle 2' (Christ knows how she knew aisle numbers) - I believe that I lost my cool a tad and told her that I'd been stood at this till (we had chairs, but it was hard to scan turkeys and catlitter when sitting down) since 8am, so no. I didn't know our current stock.

On the other hand, I remember a regular who'd spend so long wandering the store that all her frozen goods would be defrosted, so we'd always try to persuade her to wait while we replaced them (she was clearly lonely and wanted a chat).

Till staff deserve kindness - it's a relentless job.

The transferring of cash whilst stood at the till is so bloody annoying!! It’s a fairly recent thing too, last year or so?? It’s not too bad if there’s no queue but when it’s busy and the person you’re serving is trying to log onto their banking app to transfer money from savings to current account… 🤯🤯🤯🤯

Oh god that one drives me mad with the transfer of money. Why not use the calculator on your phone - add things as you put them in your trolley. Check your bank balances, transfer money - then go to the checkouts!

Bless you for thinking that's how it works 😂

Sorry. That feels mean, but the chain I work for literally employs hundreds of thousands of people. They don't even hear me, and if the could they wouldn't care what I said. Sadly.

If you’ve really worked in retail you’d know that someone on checkouts can’t fix pricing issues because it’s a totally different department and down to price integrity. Neither should they be expected to stay after their shift ends, I’d expect my staff to pass on the problem but not work for free past their shift times.

Absolutely!! I always make a point, if I'm behind a difficult customer when it is my turn, to smile and ask if they're ok. They always apologise too and I always tell them "don't worry, it's not your fault".

I encounter this too much in shops and in my local pharmacy! They will stand there shouting at the person dealing with them because their prescription isn't there but they've only phoned in for it that morning or some other silly shit. My local pharmacy is always busy, they're always run ragged and yes, I've often thought that they should try take on more staff because one person serving isn't optimal but I would never say it to them. I'd never say anything other than "no worries, thank you, have a nice day" with a smile because they deal with some right arseholes every single day.

And actually this goes for any job!

I work with the public in healthcare and the entitled and rude attitudes have hugely increased in recent years so i can empathise with you completely.

No it’s not a certain demographic it covers all ages and walks of life. Obviously it’s not everyone but those are the people that make everything so much harder and stressful.

Why click on the thread then? You could just scroll across. It’s a public forum where people can discuss what they like. You don’t have to read or comment on the ones that don’t interest you.

I never understand the arguments that they’ve seen the threads before every year blah blah. That’s practically the whole forum/many of the subsection's But it’s not the same person and quite often not the same people replying.

Do you direct frustrated customers to that email address?

I think as a customer, it is reasonable to be frustrated by many of the things mentioned. Obviously as a shop worker you cant do anything about it, but you can direct them to someone that can or at least say you'll feedback to your manager. People just want to be sympathised with

I agree op.
However you are the face of the company a quick " I understand your concerns and I will feedback to the managers ".

So many things are wrongly price marked now, it's an issue. Shrugging doesn't fix it.

I hear you OP. Also, for the love of god stop snatching reduced items out of my hands as I’m reducing them. Stop rifling through my trolley looking for items you think Ive hidden from you. My trolley is full of unsalable items that you are not entitled to (broken, OOD, poor quality). The price you pay is the price of that item when you picked it up. It will not be reduced again unless it’s still in the reduction area or it’s on its final reduction.

Last year I had to leave the shop floor to mark down items, as it was a free for all that I couldn’t control.

Happy Christmas. 😁

This is what I’m thinking! Those who think it’s ok to hurl insults at shop staff?

Why click on the thread then?

Because I wanted to read and comment.

You could just scroll across.

See above.

It’s a public forum where people can discuss what they like.

Yes, but I'm not sure you can see the irony in that ^^, given you've decided to pick on my post discussing what I like.

It is never on to shout at staff, but staff are the representatives of the company so it’s not unreasonable for feedback to be given to shop floor staff.

And as someone who did a 5 year stint at the start of my career in retail, there is no getting away from how bad customer service is in most shops nowadays.

Tbh I work in healthcare, in tertiary care dentistry, and people are just very frustrated.

No one can access a dentist, they cant get into their GP, they are waiting over a year for surgery, they are in pain, they can't afford private care. They've waited 10hrs in A&E. They're scared. They've seen a million different healthcare professionals who've just fobbed them off

All of these things are frustrating, and I'm the first person they've been able to speak to face to face. Some people are rude and are entitled but most of the time they actually just want acknowledgement of their frustrations

I just direct them best I can to someone that can help and sympathise, and 99% of the time they warm up. If they are just a rude persom they will go away at the end of their appointment and someone nicer will come in 🤷🏼‍♀️

Customer service is part of a people facing job, and part of that is listening to people moan.

If you ‘roll your eyes and mutter to yourself’ during a basket check enough to annoy the person checking, they can press a button that says to carry out a basket check again next time.
Best to be nothing but nice.

Whilst I agree that I have seen some appalling rudeness from customers and no one working in a shop deserves to be treated that way, as a customer I've also been on the receiving end of some pretty rude service from staff in shops (although this is outweighed by the many lovely staff I encounter)

For example, I appreciate you might be in the middle of something but it takes a second to acknowledge a customer and say "I'll be with you in a minute" in M&S I was ignored for over 5 minutes at the currency exchange while two staff faffed over a computer and didn't even bother go acknowledge me. On a weekly basis there will always be till staff who lack manners "That's five pounds" with no please or thank you, sighing if I ask for a bag etc. Or the ones that get shitty with you if you don't want an e receipt or to sign up for a 20% discount.

I think society is becoming much ruder in general.

Or they could just accept that the customer is annoyed by something quite annoying and not be a dick back?

The problem with this country is people whinge and moan to the wrong people. Shop staff don’t have the time or the resources to pass on complaints to elsewhere. You may as talk to a brick wall.

If people contact the customer service number, email or on the website, fill in the contact us form, your complaint is registered on a system, not being forgotten by a staff member.

Contacting retailers this way is miles better. One example I can think of was when a neighbour who passed away earlier this year, contacted her usual supermarket as the number of wheelchair trolleys went from 4 or 5 to 2. The others went astray or damaged by the ‘delightful’ teens. The head office weren’t known about the missing trolleys and about 6 weeks later, they got about 8 trolleys

Yup!

I'm disabled and my carers currently on holiday. I HAVE to ask for help. I cannot see the detail myself.

I'm sorry if I piss you off. But voters don't want to provide me with a temporary carer as my benefits should apparently be cut. So I'm afraid you'll have to suck it up. Ill be even more annoying when I get no extra help at all. But there's not much I can do about it. Sorry for the shit electorate.

Why didn't the store manager request trolleys? Seems like it's no one's responsibility to do anything any more. Customers find their stuff, scan their stuff, find out (or guess) the price of stuff, pack their stuff, order their own trolleys. And if they don't like it they get to fill in an online form that no one looks at.

I cannot stop such abuse other than by my own conduct in shops, however something that could be given to make it a very small bit easier would be to close large stores on Boxing Day and New Year's Day in addition to Christmas Day. A bit more of a break for retail staff.