Don't take it out on the check out girl/boy

ThinkingOfLinking

Valli wrote: »

well I have to ask people to help me and I'm not THAT small (5' 3") and I'm not a granny - but I can't reach the cereals on the top shelf if they're not at the front...
we DO appreciate it though...

Ditto. In fact, I had to do it yesterday.

seven-day-weekend

Just asked my son who works in a well-known clothes shop about this and he said he has been accused of being racist and threatened with 'losing him his job' because he would not give her a discount that she was not entitled to.

Littlemiss27

Takoda wrote: »

Nope sorry I don't agree. It matters a great deal the way the till assistant or whoever deals with the situation. Letting people have their say/then being sympathetic/then doing whatever you can to sort out their problem goes a long way to diffusing situations.

People get angrier because the poorly trained till person does not seem to care or shrugs or replies in an angry or upset way back. You have to look at WHY the person is so angry. Yes, a small percentage have mental heath issues (hooray for care in the community) but the vast majority or just poor saps who feel they have had a raw deal. So they complain and then the person doesn't seem to care so the situation escalates.

Physical abuse should be reported to the Police as an assault. Verbal abuse is unfortunately part of the job especially if you work for a company that deals with complaints poorly.

The thread title is "Don't take it out on the till monkey" or something like that. I'm just pointing out that shop assistants are not the only people who face verbal/physical abuse in their jobs.

Staff today do not have good enough interpersonal skills. Add that to society getting more impatient and more angry and the result is explosive.

Like I say - deal with it or get a different job.

Not ALL situations will escalate. But a lot will if the staff do not deal with them EFFECTIVELY.

Sorry you failed to convince me I'm wrong. It is probably your age and lack of experience.

Firstly I did not say that poor training does not cause issues to escalate.

What I did say was that with some customers it does not make a blind bit of difference.

I completely agree with your opinion on the way customer issues should be dealt with. On some occassions though this does not diffuse the situation, especially if it is not possible for the customer to get their own way.

And as for your comment on my age or lack of experience.......think you should keep these kind of comments to yourself considering you don't know me.

emmas42

Takoda wrote: »

The thread title is "Don't take it out on the till monkey" or something like that.

I think that says a lot about general attitudes to shop staff.

olly300

Littlemiss27 wrote: »

Firstly I did not say that poor training does not cause issues to escalate.

Actually it does.

Littlemiss27 wrote: »

What I did say was that with some customers it does not make a blind bit of difference.

Unfortunately some customers just want a good shout.

There may be many reasons for this.

Littlemiss27 wrote: »

I completely agree with your opinion on the way customer issues should be dealt with. On some occassions though this does not diffuse the situation, especially if it is not possible for the customer to get their own way.

And as for your comment on my age or lack of experience.......think you should keep these kind of comments to yourself considering you don't know me.

Learn not to take everything personally. It makes dealing with angry customers easier.

Cheesemonkey_2

I have been physically attacked at work several times in the last 5 years. Once being thrown against a plate glass window.
I work in a charity shop.
Must be my lack of training, eh. Drug addicts, drunks, the mentally ill - I see them all.

Takoda

Littlemiss27 wrote: »

Firstly I did not say that poor training does not cause issues to escalate.

What I did say was that with some customers it does not make a blind bit of difference.

I completely agree with your opinion on the way customer issues should be dealt with. On some occassions though this does not diffuse the situation, especially if it is not possible for the customer to get their own way.

And as for your comment on my age or lack of experience.......think you should keep these kind of comments to yourself considering you don't know me.

If you choose to post your comments on a PUBLIC forum you can expect people to comment on your qualifications for backing up your arguments. Especially MSE and especially in the Vent section - we take no prisoners. Post c**p and you can be sure someone will tell you about it. I've posted c**p on occasions but not this time.

You appear in your posts to be somewhat naive and have a user name that most likely has your age in it. Plus someone using a Little Miss username is probably not going to be a pensioner are they?

Keep my comments to myself? Have you learnt anything from reading my posts on this thread? Obviously not! More naivety. It is a message board - if everyone kept their comments to themselves then Martin would be here on his own LOL. I dunno - the youth of today... what ARE they like?

Like I said before if your job involves dealing with difficult people on a daily basis and you can't handle that then it is most likely NOT the correct job for you and you should find a role that is more suitable.

My bookshop experience was OK because I felt that customers were treated well by Pentos who owned it. The staff were underpaid and undervalued but that's another story.

I would've had an ethical problem with working for a company who I felt was ripping customers off. If a till person gets an unreasonable amount of complaints (from a wide section of society and not just the nutters and those with anger management issues) then the company is at fault and should review their practices.

Good training + the right attitude can work wonders in customer relations.

You probably won't agree with me now but you might in a few years time LOL.

Last comment on this issue - bored with it now.

Jo_F

Good training and the right attittude can work wonders, but it doesn't work all the time, there are times that no matter how well trained you are, how diplomatic, helpful or nice and friendly, yoou are just going to have the customer from hell who is hell bent on being a right royal pain in the !!!. There are some that there is just no pleasing, they actually go out with the intention of 'making that idiot pay for that' and as such, will not be happy until they have reduced some shop worker (or anyone else for that matter) to a gibbering wreak.

I have worked in retail, most of the big names, I have also worked behind bars in clubs and function halls, there are nice customers and there are horrible ones, and when it comes to the horrible ones, even a saint would struggle with them.

DCFC79

Ive no idea why customers have a go at staff, ive had customers moan at me before for silly things.In my last job in a supermarket I had a woman complain to me about the price of the multipack peppers, they were apparently more expensive than buying 3 loose peppers, dont know what I could have done about it though as the store dont have a say in the matter of prices. Id help the customers but i wouldnt always get a thankyou,

emlou2009

i worked in mobile phone sales for 5 years, in that time i've had 4 customers removed by security for being rude, had threats to myself and my family and been started on in the pub more times than i care to mention, usually by people who cant afford to pay the bills they decided they could at the time or by people who "left their phone on the side, came back to it and found a crack across the screen" because apparantly its possible for mobiles to self destruct!
i then changed jobs to dispensing glasses and got people who had broken their glasses that were of a out of date prescription anyway abusing me because the frame had been discontinued and we couldnt get parts to match.
it doesnt matter where you work, if you serve the public you will never be able to do anything right! you should be psychic, you shouldnt talk, you dont talk too much, you dont have the right qualifications, and everything you do is against trading standards!