Rude Customers >:(

duchy

Indeed -for some customer means one who gives custom not-excuse to be as rude and inconsiderate to others as possible.

I have no issue with shop staff tidying before closing time so long as I still get served in a correct and timely manner. Retail employees don't get paid beyond closing time so why shouldn't they? It's not different to an office worker tidying their desk at 5.20 prior to leaving bang on 5.30 or a secretery not appreciating their boss calling them in to take dicatation at 5.15 and wanting those letters to go out that night.

spadoosh

Tina20 wrote: »

Being paid ANY wage to do a job means you should be polite to customers, yes.

A colleague of mine was almost assaulted (you could say he was asaulted he got pushed by his throat and pushed with a lot of force on his chest) Simply because on our car park (slopes towards store) he had let go of a trolley and it hit another trolley moving it about 2ft. The customer in question comes over screaming 'that almost hit that kid' (no where near kid and were talking a good 20-30metres away and it wasnt even his kid! and cctv footage to confirm) my colleague replied that it didnt go near the child to then face a torrent of abuse and physical abuse. At what point are you allowed to stop being polite when your getting paid?!

I understand the op was a bit on the extreme side but it is simply a vent, theyre not venting at the customer there venting on an annonymous (sp?!) forum commenting on a few typical examples of customers who expect special treatment because of their poor time management. If your in a rush its simple, don't go shopping!!

I agree, i myself have encountered more poor sales staff (even people who work at different branches of the comapny i work for) than poor customers. I put this down to me being an awesome customer and even better customer advisor:). Yet this thread is about 'annoying customers' not about poor sales staff, if you want to vent about poor customer service i would look at a different thread, there are plenty around!

thriftymanc

duchy wrote: »

I have no issue with shop staff tidying before closing time so long as I still get served in a correct and timely manner. Retail employees don't get paid beyond closing time so why shouldn't they?

That's a bit of a generalisation. When I worked in a supermarket, the late shift finished half an hour or an hour after the shop closed, to allow for tidying up and cashing up etc. We got paid for it!

Gettingtherequickly

My mum lives in a small village and maintains cars are not parked, they are abandoned.

One day she went back to work to be greeted by one of these cars. After about 10 mins the driver got out and walked over to mum to apologise, "I'm sorry, only want to get a stamp and she is not usually late" "She wouldn't be late now if she could park the car" Other driver had the grace to get very embarassed, get in car and drive off.

I went into a shop one day to be greeted by the manager tearing strips off an employee. Took one look at her and said that I didn't think much of her managerial skills and walked out, to a grateful look from the employee and look to kill from manager.

JamesK10

In my part-time retail jobs I had less of a problem, but over the past 20 years I'm grateful that my customer service jobs were all on the phone so I was a step removed from the nutters. We only had the one crazy person turn up at the call centre to have it out in person - so far

So there's two sides to every story, and even two branches of the same bank/building society, I have found, can have service levels varying between the two extremes of very good to downright crap. If it's a retail shop selling food, as Tesco have found, there are plenty of other places to go once you've gone beyond the point of treating customers badly, better to hit them in the wallet and go elsewhere, and if the service was really bad then just go above their heads because nothing will happen in the store.

whitegoods_engineer

spadoosh wrote: »

The most annoying question has to be
customer: 'do you sell plugs?' (can have variants of any product which name has many meanings)
me: 'what type of plugs'
customer: 'you know, plugs!'
me: 'your right, i do, is that a bath plug, sink plug, 13A plug, ear plug, plug socket, plant plug or wall plug?!'
customer: 'o right, ermhh, a wall plug please.'
me: 'sure, this way'

Hands up all who thought this was the two Ronnies being quoted (Four candles):rotfl:

Mista_C

spadoosh wrote: »

A colleague of mine was almost assaulted (you could say he was asaulted he got pushed by his throat and pushed with a lot of force on his chest)...

In my younger years I worked for a well-known chain (founded by W.H. rather than John) and during our training it was discussed how to deal with difficult customers and what to do if said customer became violent.

I asked what should I do if a customer does hit me to which my trainer replied "You're not here to be a punchbag. You're a big guy, sit them on their *ss and let the police deal with the rest from the CCTV footage".

spadoosh

Mista_C wrote: »

In my younger years I worked for a well-known chain (founded by W.H. rather than John) and during our training it was discussed how to deal with difficult customers and what to do if said customer became violent.

I asked what should I do if a customer does hit me to which my trainer replied "You're not here to be a punchbag. You're a big guy, sit them on their *ss and let the police deal with the rest from the CCTV footage".

In most cases I'd agree but this guy was bigger than both of us and no way my 10 stone could put his a55 down! Did manage to get between them tho and told the guy to not bother going in the store! It came out sounding like a 5 year old tho, still he didn't go in and left straight away!

faded_flowers

A customer told my young colleague this week he was 'going to f**king kill him' and that he'd be waiting for him when the shop closed - because we refused a sale. I've been called every name under the sun. Another colleague has been spat on. It is a small minority of customers, but they tend to stick in your mind...

arcon5

faded_flowers wrote: »

A customer told my young colleague this week he was 'going to f**king kill him' and that he'd be waiting for him when the shop closed - because we refused a sale. I've been called every name under the sun. Another colleague has been spat on. It is a small minority of customers, but they tend to stick in your mind...

I think that's the worst kind of abuse you can get from a customer. I would rather be punched than spat on.
In a previous job this happened to a young lass working. The worst part is it was clearly planned. They both ran straight out, followed by one of the male workers who saw it - fortunately for them he didn't catch them, he's a tough chap!