Rude Customer.

vyle

missile wrote: »

OP claims she did not get the chance. She is paid to be polite and had she started with "I am sorry, ......... " then the confrontation could well have been avoided.:A

Oddly enough, where I work, we're advised not to say "sorry" or anything like that as it has negative connotations. We should not apologise as it implies something is wrong. What we have to do instead is turn everything to positive, so if a price is wrong, somehow spin it.

It can be annoying, though, because sometimes a customer wants 'sorry' but if a manager was to hear, we'd be in more trouble than if we didn't say sorry.

Taiko

mspig wrote: »

Well i used to be a manager in a bakery, anyway one saturday afternoon a couple walk in take a sandwich out of the chiller and pay for it.
About 5 minutes later whilst i'm serving someone else the man(from this couple) walks back in and throws the sandwich accross the counter at me and tells me i have poisoned his wife and he wants his money back - i tell him politely to wait whist i finish serving the customer and i will deal with his problem, but he continues raving and ranting about it.
So when i get to deal with him, he tells me that the sandwich that his wife chose(out of the chiller herself) has meat in it, so i pick the sandwich up off the floor from where it landed when he threw it and it clearly states, Ham salad sandwich, so i explain to him that it states it has ham in it and due to the fact that his wife chose it herself, that she didn't get served out of a counter with it, that there is nothing i can do.
At this point i am called a sl*t, a cheap wh**e etc and he rattles on about how he will see me after work.
The shop was absoloutly full with customers and a couple of the men in the queue told him he was out of order and should leave.
Anyway continued on with the afternoon and just before closing he comes back in again throwing his weight around shouting abuse etc, then starts throwing things over the counter at me, so i tell him to leave or i will call the police.
Then just as i'm about to close up for the night, 2 police officers arrive with this man, and explain that this man has accused me of threatening him, and threatening to put his shop windows in, i explain to the officers about what happened and tell them i don't know who he is - the man then comes in and tell me everyone know who he is, hes the owner of the kebab shop accross the road and that i threatened to put in his kebab shop windows.(wouldn't mind but i really didn't know who he was or that he owned the kebab shop).

The police ask if they can see the cctv, after viewing they asked me if i wanted to press charges against the man, i refused but they gave him a good talking to and warned him about making false accusations and wasting police time.

I still now all these years later can't believe someone would get so upset about a sandwich.

Shish, that's bad...

mrcol1000

JustWonderful wrote: »

Hi,

I work in a Superdrug store, and have worked there for 5 years now. Never have I had a ruder customer than I met today!

He was there with his wife, and bought 3 Maybelline products- these were on a 3 for 2 offer last month and you also received a free make-up bag. Anyway this offer finished a fortnight or so ago.


They got to the till with their products and it didnt come up 3 for 2 (obviously), however I went round and checked the stand for them, they followed, and low and behold the stand still had the 3 for 2 promotional stickers out.

I said 'oh they are from the old promotion, but i will....' ( I was going to say rectify this for you and ensure you get it 3 for 2) but before i could he then butts in shouting THAT IS DISGUSTING. THAT REALLY IS DISGUSTING. I reply saying It really isnt disgusting, someone has just made a mistake.

His wife was a little embarresed, and told him to be calmer- although she later joined in saying it wasnt right that we were going to take £11 from her- although we weren't as they spotted the error and it would have been rectified. I then try and say, 'If you go to the till I will sort this out' but again mid sentence he says THIS IS DISGUSTING. What Is Your Name' I said it to him, and he then leaves the store with no products.

What annoys me so much about this is he will probably complain to Superdrug HO, get an apology, a voucher to spend in store and my store will get a little phone call saying this isnt on.

Argh :mad:

I think the customer was a bit out of order but if you have promotions showing that are two weeks out of date then you only have yourselves to blame. If you can't remove advertising for promotions that finished two weeks ago you have to wonder what else is wrong in the store? If something was marked £1 and you went to the cash desk to pay and they said well actually its £1.50 it went up 50p two weeks ago wouldn't you be just a bit annoyed?

Esqui

I'd be annoyed, yes, but if they then said "But it's our mistake, I'll only charge you £1" I would be happy and not go off on a rant.

If we have anything labelled up incorrectly, I'll apologise, charge them the price on the ticket and then remove the ticket.

lorena

I work in retail and I despise people like that! Fair enough they were annoyed that the promotion publicity wasn't taken off but you offered to rectify it and apologised. People don't realise the crap we have to put up with behind the scenes and we have nasty customers which just make it worse.

Comyface

vyle wrote: »

Oddly enough, where I work, we're advised not to say "sorry" or anything like that as it has negative connotations. We should not apologise as it implies something is wrong. What we have to do instead is turn everything to positive, so if a price is wrong, somehow spin it.

It can be annoying, though, because sometimes a customer wants 'sorry' but if a manager was to hear, we'd be in more trouble than if we didn't say sorry.

I work for Halifax and they used to say something similar, our cashiers weren't supposed to say 'Sorry about the wait' if there was a long queue, they were supposed to say 'Thanks for waiting' as it sounded more positive.

Some customers would come back with 'Well, I had no choice, did i?'(!) And apparently there was some research done which indicated that people do want to hear the word 'sorry', so now it's back on the agenda and we say it again!

Treadway1

This happened to me a few years ago (From the customers point of view that is). I went into Halfords last knockings on Christmas eve to get my Dad his present (Typical bloke, I know, leaving it until the last minute ). Anyway, I found what I was going to buy and noticed that it was half price. Fantastic thought I, but when I got to the till it came up at full price. As with the OP, I followed the staff member around to the shelf where I showed him that it was showing half price. He stated that because they were desperate to get everything marked up ready for the sales starting on the 27th, some sale tags had been put up already. I didnt have to say anything before he toddled of to the manager and got authority to put it through at the lesser price. I was chuffed....

Maybe it was the Christmas spirit that made him ask the manager about the discount, but even had he not have suggested straight away, I would have politely explained that if its marked up at a certain price (regardless of the reason) that they should honour that price. I certainly wouldnt give them a mouthful of abuse!

OP, console yourself with the fact that you are clealy a much better person than him, and rise above it... Difficult at times, I know, but he'll probably ended up carking it in a few years from high blood pressure!

JoolzS

smoker99 wrote: »

Sorry to upset this store assistant's 'love-in' but sometimes customers become rude because of the bad attitude or sheer incompetence of shop staff. It never ceases to amaze me at the number of bored, lazy and unhelpful store staff you meet on any given shopping trip and I just wonder why shops waste their time holding interviews for these jobs if they end up with 'workers' like this. They may just as well put all the candidates names in a hat and pick their staff at random.

Has it ever occurred to you that some shop assistants end up with bad attitudes because they are constantly in contact with customers such as the OP described?

There is only so much abuse that one person can take before they either give it back, or simply stop caring. As simply stopping caring is the attitude more likely to enable them to keep their job I have no problem with them taking that attitude.

I'm fairly sure that I can see the influence of a good or bad manager on employees (or maybe good or bad corporate decisions). A couple of years ago I used to really enjoy shopping at my local branch of The Range. The staff were friendly, helpful, and seemed to genuinely enjoy talking to customers. Now they are automatons. I can only guess that The Range was either more successful than it intended, or it got bought out by some corporation that has "rules" for all employees so they can no longer have personalities.

Julie

vyle

I nearly lost my temper with a customer yesterday. This woman was in with her middle-aged son. He was buying a TV and wanted it to be installed, so I told him the price.

She insisted that TV installation was free.

I explained that it wasn't.

She claimed that she bought a TV from us and installation was free.

I asked when she bought it, because it was free about five years ago, but hasn't been recently.

She said that I obviously haven't been there long enough to know what I'm doing and kept saying, "go and check with somebody who knows."

So I said, "I don't need to, I've got the price leaflet here." and pulled one out of my pocket and handed it to her, pointing to the bit that explains TV installation services and their prices.

That shut her up and I continued serving her son.

After that, my next customer had two REALLY noisy kids and insisted on turning every hi fi system she was interested up to full volume. Not a good day.

I mean, really, don't people have consideration for the hearing of shop staff?

dfh

mspig wrote: »

Well i used to be a manager in a bakery, anyway one saturday afternoon a couple walk in take a sandwich out of the chiller and pay for it.
About 5 minutes later whilst i'm serving someone else the man(from this couple) walks back in and throws the sandwich accross the counter at me and tells me i have poisoned his wife and he wants his money back - i tell him politely to wait whist i finish serving the customer and i will deal with his problem, but he continues raving and ranting about it.
So when i get to deal with him, he tells me that the sandwich that his wife chose(out of the chiller herself) has meat in it, so i pick the sandwich up off the floor from where it landed when he threw it and it clearly states, Ham salad sandwich, so i explain to him that it states it has ham in it and due to the fact that his wife chose it herself, that she didn't get served out of a counter with it, that there is nothing i can do.
At this point i am called a sl*t, a cheap wh**e etc and he rattles on about how he will see me after work.
The shop was absoloutly full with customers and a couple of the men in the queue told him he was out of order and should leave.
Anyway continued on with the afternoon and just before closing he comes back in again throwing his weight around shouting abuse etc, then starts throwing things over the counter at me, so i tell him to leave or i will call the police.
Then just as i'm about to close up for the night, 2 police officers arrive with this man, and explain that this man has accused me of threatening him, and threatening to put his shop windows in, i explain to the officers about what happened and tell them i don't know who he is - the man then comes in and tell me everyone know who he is, hes the owner of the kebab shop accross the road and that i threatened to put in his kebab shop windows.(wouldn't mind but i really didn't know who he was or that he owned the kebab shop).

The police ask if they can see the cctv, after viewing they asked me if i wanted to press charges against the man, i refused but they gave him a good talking to and warned him about making false accusations and wasting police time.

I still now all these years later can't believe someone would get so upset about a sandwich.

You should have pressed charges.That is the only way you can teach these people that such behaviour is not on.