If you work with the public - are you finding things are getting scarier?

[CurdinHenry]

More aggression, more delusions to a fairly extreme degree?

Yeah not sure their staff were emotionally equipped to cope with that! I wouldn't bother leaving a bad review. But he asked so I gave feedback then gave me the distinct impression I was not supposed to have done that. I was v nice about it, honestly!

Huge difference between the generations these days.

He’s not a tradesperson, it’s a completely different type of work and there are quite strict professional standards and qualifications involved. Obviously I understand people being wary if they’ve been ripped off before, but it does seem a bit odd when they automatically assume someone’s trying it on.

NHS admin is not the the faint hearted! I’ve lost count of how many times patient’s have threated to either come up to the hospital to ‘have a word’ or either go to their MP. Do they really think that’s going to scare us 😂 it won’t magic up an appointment!!! We can’t give you what we don’t have and if you don’t like it go and speak to the muppets you voted for!

If people hate how businesses are run, why do they continue to give those businesses custom? And why don't people start their own business in competition, running things better, and thus making the other business have to improve or go out of business themselves?

Because we often have no real choice.
For example I flew ryanair for a week's holiday this summer. I would happily have paid more to fly with a better airline. But they are the only ones who fly to that destination from all the nearer regional airports. I didn't want to spend an extra three hours travelling to London for a two hour flight.

I always look at reviews and if there is a choice go with one with great customer service. In shops customer service is often poor, so do I just never go to a shop?

Now I will say something at the time if there's something badly wrong with my meal. I never leave a bad review because it's up there for so long when the kitchen could be having a bad day.

We have a big ASDA in town which I just won't use. The staff are lovely but some of the customers are just grim. My friend works there. Fights are not unusual, shoplifting, kids swarming on bikes inside the store stealing booze.

Some moron was watching TikTok on the train yesterday. Loud enough that I could hear it clearly from several seats away. The jumping from one short to the next makes it even more jarring than a long-form video would have been.

I didn't dare challenge him though. People were unreasonable enough when I was a Conductor and actually had the authority to challenge them.

NHS admin is not the the faint hearted!

NHS admin is utterly, utterly crap and like all state bureaucracies it is designed to self-perpetuate, feeding itself in the manner of a snowball rolling down a hill but one made of shit rather than snow.

Yesterday I received an SMS message from something called 'NHSdetails'. It reads: "You may have gotten an email from the NHS asking you to confirm your home address. Complete one of the options in the email to keep your NHS record up to date."

That was it. I have naturally not received the email, because the NHS does not have an email address for me. The message does not give any suggestions about what to do in these circumstances, yet there is clearly a call to action by me in respect of whatever they are trying to achieve. So, the NHS expects me to do something to help them but hasn't given me the tools to do so.

This total absence of logic and thinking will now result in me having to contact 'the NHS'. 'NHSdetails', the originator of the SMS message, inevitably does not accept replies to the message they sent me. I googled 'NHSdetails' instead and sure enough the top hits all look vaguely relevant, with the first one being a page about 'NHS record contact details' under a section called 'NHS login Help centre'. The page invites me to log into my NHS account to update my details. That's fine, except that to do so I need to input my email address - which we have established they do not have - and phone number. Sure enough, I do not appear to be able to log into my NHS account, which - assuming I do indeed have one - I did not set up and did not ask for.

So what to I do now? Anyone want to run a sweepstake on what my GP surgery will say when/if they answer the phone (currently in the call queue for 39 minutes, and I'm eleventh in line).

My Dad is like this, at 93 years old! His hearing is poor, and his balance is affected, so he needs ear syringing which he can afford to pay for, he just doesn't want to.

He told me that when the receptionist at his gp practice said there was a charge for his procedure, he ranted that if he fell over due to poor balance it would be her fault, as he wasn't paying. And he didn't pay for it either, he got it for nothing. Not sure how. I blame GB News, which he sits in front of all day.

I agree...to a point . But on the other hand re call centre jobs ...often a customer has gone through several ' menus' , got security clearance , listened to tinkly tonkly 'musak' for half an hour only when they finally do get through to a real human being they are told they have got through to the wrong dept. No excuse for threats of violence but aaaargh !!

Totally agree ...I always walk my money away from any business that doesn't deserve it . I would rather go without than support a business that is crap for whatever reason

I don't know how people put up with working in retail these days. I did 30 years ago and it was bad enough then.

Was in Asda this morning being helped by a very helpful assistant. We needed to go back to customer services to do an exchange. There was a queue (I had already been in it) and the assistant beckoned me over to a vacant till. A woman in the queue barges over, knocked into me and said very aggressively that there was a queue and to wait my turn. The assistant politely told her that I had already queued and she had been dealing with my problem. The other customer demanded to speak to the manager and called us a pair of cunts! The assistant and I just rolled our eyes at each other, we completed the transaction and I left with her words calling me a rude queue jumper.

really couldn't be arsed to be dealing with that all day every day.

As a customer I can say the same about some of the staff. Appalling. No smile, miserable, and rude. Staff talking about their weekends or slagging someone off in front of customers, using bad language because self service tills kow do the work so just lazy.

As for GP receptions I politely explained that I have been having issues with a certain type of migraine and needed to try a different medication and was told I was being rude for insisting GP please listen to my concerns. Thankfully National migraine centre have been fab.
It's not just the public, it's in general. On the other hand some lovely people still about in retail and in general but customer service has declined a lot in this country.

I would starve if I took that attitude

Why are so many people coming into this thread about people who work in customer service and then deciding to make it all about them as customers. Make your own thread.
This is the entitlement we are talking about 😂

Re the original post

yes! The endless complaints, AI generated emails of hundreds of hyperbolic sentences, everything is “distressing” and if I have to hear one more person bring up medical/their kids medical/their pets’ medical needs over something small (like for example, why they didn’t get a response within an hour)I will tear my hair out

i actually feel harassed and abused by some clients and their advocates

and I’ll be honest, I am over hearing how everyone has ND and needs to be given whatever they want, whenever they want or else… (or else what? More complaints, abuse, relentless emailing, hysteria)

I am genuinely concerned about the future because of how some children are witnessing their parents’ behaviour

(and this is from someone with ND)

It's a public forum. You can't insist a thread sticks to the original topic. Read other posts, most go off the topic.

I left hospitality because of this, after having a scone thrown at me because it was supposed to be hot, and they'd definitely told me, played the CCTV back and actually no, they hadn't, but of course then, you're accusing them of lying.

Hardly the end of the world is it? I'm there to solve those little things and make it nice, you forgot to say you wanted it warm? Absolutely no problem, give it here, I'll get it sorted, with a smile, but expect to be able to throw it at me and demand I sort out a mistake you made, and take your aggressive attitude and the blame too? No, I'm not, that's not about the service, that's about trying to feel superior by making someone else feel small.

I'm wasn't just a customer service bot, I also dealt with these systems because I have life admin to do, I deal with the same inept systems too, but somehow manage to not threaten and yell at people because I'm frustrated.

And yes, they are shit, absolutely! But where's the incentive for them to improve when people are taking it out on people who have absolutely no say in how things are run, improving them or making it work better for the customers?

The people implementing these systems aren't the ones dealing with the fall out, they're just seeing the profit of corner cutting while other people have their mental health destroyed by angry customers. Stop giving them your money! That's the only language they know, go to places that ensure their staff actually can look after you properly, instead of expecting low waged, badly treated workers to absorb your frustration at the systems that don't work!

^ example of the entitlement

Enshitification has a lot to answer for. I signed to a service about 2 years ago and I have to call up to pay the bill every month (no DD option). I've been getting through within 30 seconds to a UK based call centre. The entire process takes 3 minutes max.

They've recently been taken over and I now call the same number to have to speak to an AI system to pass security questions. I then speak to a non native English speaker and have to repeat to the human exactly the same information I said to the AI system. And then I have to spell my very common name with limited variations. Think Lucy. And then I'm told I'm not authorised on the account. I am. I literally set up the account and noone has ever done anything with it except me. I persist and at the end of the security interrogation I'm told this is no longer the number to pay the bill and I have to call 01234 5678910 (or whatever). So I've wasted 8 minutes NOT paying my bill. I wasn't rude to the customer service representative but I was hugely frustrated by the enshitification of the bill paying process.

I then call the new number, it's automated so I just press numbers on my phone. It's paid in 3 minutes. But a) no one told me when they were taken over the number would be different b) on the AI system they had a 'pay your bill' option which should have routed to telling me the new number without double security c) it took me 3 x as long to do the same thing and I'd left 7 minutes before my meeting because that was normally plenty of time (I appreciate that's my fault but would explain my frustration).

So I think some of the poor behaviour results from high expectations vs low reality. And unfortunately the human being bears the brunt. Cutting costs gives everyone more shit experiences and cheeses them off until they take it out on someone who almost certainly doesn't deserve it.

Most of my job is taken up with getting results for people who have been let down by other services. So by the time they come to us they're already cheesed off. And sometimes that transfers onto us. It's not ok. It's not fair. But it is understandable.

I think people also can’t do anything themselves. I work customer service on calls mainly! People ask questions like do you know the number of the local council? No, okay do you know who my local council are!
It’s like people have a super computer in their pocket and they just have no clue!

@Rubyslipboots a lot of people struggle with basic intelligence and cognitive ability.