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

This. I'm not paying a higher price at the till because the shop hasn't updated the pricing. I'll ask for the item to be taken back.

LOL. Do you work in Head Office? I said I get (inwardly) enraged, I didn't say I shout at anybody.
How does it help anybody to put up a sign saying "yeah, we know we are rubbish but suck it up"?

Completely agree with this. A bit of empathy and basic courtesy goes a long way, especially for people working on the front line under constant pressure. Raising awareness about respectful behaviour toward retail and service staff is really important, and conversations like this help. Platforms like WorldsAwareness play a valuable role in highlighting these everyday issues and reminding people that kindness costs nothing.

Which I guess is exactly the problem.

And if you keep passing on customers complaints, you become the problem.

This we can do something about a cucumber rising by 5p we can not.

Part of my role involves taking calls to log reports of abusive / aggressive behaviour against a large organisations public facing staff and what we hear and the volume of calls is absolutely grim! There's a lot of truly disgusting people about and usually the cause of their problems is their inability to have correct ID or blame themselves when they have spent all their money and have an empty bank account. Far too many of these people don't work for a living either!

Lolz, good luck with that! Management will take zero interest in said feedback. They never have to deal with angry customers & never intend to. My colleague & I had to deal with a man who was truly frightening a couple of years ago who had just had a bad day & took it all out on us. I thought he was going to lamp one of us & I'm not a scaredy cat.

I agree, but the sort of behaviour that I wouldn't have been allowed to get away with when I had a customer facing job (ignoring the queue at the till while I stock shelves or fill in paperwork or whatever) is justified all the time on here.

In fact I used to get into the shop an hour early to stock the shelves but of course they won't pay for that now.

Well you have a management problem then. It's his job to er - manage things, which includes customer feedback.

How one earth do we have so many unemployed young people who'd no doubt bring a lot to a job, and so many useless employed people?

If you worked for Asda I think you had to work in the actual shop from time to time. I don't know if it's still the case.

I had a job where I had to visit call centres and listen to the calls.

It's not really that difficult for HQ staff to get out and see what it's like in the shops/in a customer facing environment. They just need to make the time.

And no, I wouldn't expect them to pass on feedback about the price of bread. But I would eg expect them to take on board feedback about putting 17 year olds on cigarette/lottery ticket counters (it makes zero sense to put someone young on the counter that sells age-restricted items) and stop doing it!

Its unacceptable for anyone to shout at anybody.

But you're the face of the company, and customer service is part of the role, no? It makes sense that customers will complain to members of staff.

Reminder: complaints can be polite and non-confrontational.

Absolutely spot on! I can’t stand people
who ‘stick it to the minimum wage
worker’. It s a good many years since I worked retail but I used to ask complainers to go to customer services and make their complaints there. Oddly none did. My personal favourite back then was the eco lady who used to unpack her shopping and chuck all the packaging on the floor. Cheers lady! That socks it to the manufacturer/supermarket ceo! I suggested she wrote to head office/purchased other items but again -
no dice.

Five years at Waitrose and I would never work in retail again. Customers are wankers and think that Christmas is only happening to them.

Try Tesco Clapham South every Sunday afternoon from 3pm

I loved working in a shop despite the lack of social niceties of a few people, but after a couple of nasty incidents, with customers who should know better, I decided enough was enough. Boy, you should have seen my supervisor with one of them, she was putting up with none of his nonsense. His wife was mortified as they were escorted from the shop and told they wouldn't be welcome anymore. CCTV is a great witness, but no help when you are at the receiving end of some vile person.

I just hand my money over and hope for the next and say nothing about anything ever?

I think customer service in the UK is shocking - especially in hospitality

Its the stuff people complain about
●The price going up
●Having to pay for a bag
●That they can't have more then 2 packs of paracetamol
●That they need i.d.
● That there bank card was declined
● That we need to rescan there shopping when they haven't scanned something when they have used scan as you go
● That they are being hurried along when the shop has closed
● That something is out of stock
● parking
● That they can't use out of date vouchers
●That they aren't allowed to step over an unconscious person to get something of a shelf
● That we won't help them during a 2 minute silence
● That they got caught shoplifting
● That they can't have cashback when paying with cash
●The music playing
● The temperature
●That we can't instantly stop serving another customer to help them
● When we tell them not to push in and that they have to queue
●That they can't buy anything before 10am on a Sunday
● That the bag broke after they've filled it with 6 pints of milk, a 10lb bag of potatoes and a 5l bottle of water

Umm I know the person I was replying to said they worked in retail so yes, I’d expect them to understand the basic structure of the departments. As you clearly have no idea how it works then no I wouldn’t expect you to understand. I hope that answers your question and you read the whole post before assuming in future.

I like living in a former Soviet county. Retail staff aren’t expected to perform emotional labour. Service is brusque. Customers are brusque. But I’ve not seen anyone shouting at staff or being aggressive. There is security everywhere. No shoplifting. Retail workers aren’t being stabbed and threatened.

The only time you get good service is at places like five star hotels. Generally you know and accept that customer service is generally average to poor. There is no point in complaining politely - because nothing will happen!

How on earth have you decided he sounds unpleasant because he expressed displeasure at a price?

I was in a shop and the assistant accidentally scanned my item twice and neither of us noticed until she asked me for £120 pounds (it was a synthetic cardigan) and I impulsively blurted out "How much, that can't be the price" in shock. Wasn't being unpleasant or rude. The assistant checked the lable discovered the price was in fact half that and she spotted the mistake and we both had a laugh. She wasn't offended and didn't flounce off.

The days I worked in retail customers could be rude but by now it's been encouraged to be pro active. It's unacceptable and beyond rude to shout at staff who have no control over the policies. Most of us, as hopefully fairly intelligent human beings, understand and will leave to address the issue online.

Unfortunately there are others who just shout, demand and becone violent because that's the way they are. Never take it personally, big breath, pass on to management. Xxx

Yes!!! We had someone recently pour out a bottle of cola and said Boycott Coke.

They also ruined our NPS by putting free Palestine and boycott coke. Head office wouldn’t remove it and we all lost any privileges 😊😂

I used to say would you like to speak to the manager? And they'd say no & shut up..