Bad customer service or just bad customers.

barbiedoll

hgotsparkle wrote: »

With regards to customers being demanding, yes they absolutely are!!

I work in a foreign exchange desk in a supermarket, and I'm not employed by that supermarket but as my bureau is at the end of the lottery/cigarette counter, and that gets enormously busy there will be queues of 20 people easily when theres only 1 or 2 people serving on that desk. Now, I can't go an serve because as I don't work for the supermarket, I don't have a log in for thei till systems and obviously I'm not insured to do so, but customer in that queue will still demand that I jump on a till and serve, even if I say I can't as I'm employed by such and such, they still demand it and complain about me.....

I worked in BHS many years ago and we had a till at the back of the store that was only manned during busy periods. It was one lone till, built into an island unit and it was quite clear when there was no-one working on it, a plastic cover would be placed over the actual till and a "Closed" sign would be on the desk.

At least once a day, we would watch as a customer would take their shopping to the (unmanned) till and stand there and wait. We would stand there and time them to see how long they would wait (quite a long time!) When a customer stopped one of my colleagues and asked "Is there anyone working on this till?", my colleague bent over the counter, made a big show of looking into the unit and then stood up and said "Doesn't look like it" and walked off!
The customer complained and she got a bit of a rollicking for that!
:rotfl::rotfl:

I also worked in Woolworths for a time and one day, I was watching a guy with a couple of kids and a newborn baby in his arms. Suddenly, he swung the baby down from his shoulder by one leg, I screamed and he nearly jumped out of his skin. The "baby" was one of those lifelike "newborn" dolls, and he really laughed when I told him that I thought it was a real baby. I was a bloody trembling wreck for an hour afterwards!

Money-Saving-King

barbiedoll wrote: »

At least once a day, we would watch as a customer would take their shopping to the (unmanned) till and stand there and wait. We would stand there and time them to see how long they would wait

I have seen many times people stop and then see people queue behind them thinking that is a queue for a till (with the person leaving a very polite gap behind the person being served). I've then had to explain to the others that this person is just stopping to look at something so there's no need to queue behind them.

crispy_chris

Indie_Kid wrote: »

You're not the only customer they need to deal with.

Then don't offer a fictional call back. It's not rocket science.

System

I have worked in customer service and for those customers that scream and shout at me and my colleagues at my various CS jobs, I have something to say to you. It will take longer to resolve your problem(s) because of your screaming and shouting.

I have worked in call centres and some customers are so damn right rude and insulting that it made me cry. Obviously, I cried after the call. Some customers think because they cannot see the person they are talking to they have the right to swear and be nasty. No all it does is the CSA has the right to terminate the call after warning the customer 'Please could you not swear Mr Jones' 'That is the 2nd time you have swore at me Mr Jones and are on your final warning' 'That is the third time you used inappropriate language Mr Jones. I will be terminating the call. Please call back when you have calmed down'.

Powered_By_Pies

crispy_chris wrote: »

Then don't offer a fictional call back. It's not rocket science.

No point getting wound up over it. For every time you want a call back, about 50 other customers also want the same on the same day. Staff are often so tied up in trying to hit ridiculous SLA targets that it almost becomes impossible to facilitate every request or demand customers make of them.

You seem to fail to acknowledge the one basic principal of customer service; we are only human, just like you. I'm sure if you had those levels of demands made to you in your line of work day-in, day-out, you'd find it hard to get back to every single one of them, AND accommodate new calls/contact needed to be made in an average shift as well.

System

marywooyeah wrote: »

I think this is very rude - I've actually "apologised" to sales assistants for "interupting" their conversation by needing to be served. It usually embarrasses them into stopping talking and getting on with serving customers properly instead.

One of my friends works on the checkouts. Her colleague on the till next to her did not know the PLU of a veg which is not on the till menu. It was a veg which they only had in for a few days. She said the number. The customer my friend was serving thought it was rude for her to interrupt serving. This customer presumed talking to the colleague was idle chit chat. It's team work!

System

I have worked in various CS roles and the training varied from 3 hours to 6 weeks! In some roles, me and the fellow colleagues that started together felt we didn't receive enough training. It showed. I felt ashamed that I had to put the customers on hold for something that should been tackled with at training and spent another 1-2 weeks in training making us less rusty.

In this instance, you cannot blame the poor CSA, for the lack of training.

crispy_chris

Powered_By_Pies wrote: »

No point getting wound up over it. For every time you want a call back, about 50 other customers also want the same on the same day. Staff are often so tied up in trying to hit ridiculous SLA targets that it almost becomes impossible to facilitate every request or demand customers make of them.

You seem to fail to acknowledge the one basic principal of customer service; we are only human, just like you. I'm sure if you had those levels of demands made to you in your line of work day-in, day-out, you'd find it hard to get back to every single one of them, AND accommodate new calls/contact needed to be made in an average shift as well.

Absolutely, I don't get wound up about it, I just calmly refuse one when a callback is offered.

I fully acknowledge the people I speak to are human, and treat them exactly as I'd like to be treated. It's just that when they offer me a callback, I know they won't do it.

geerex

Powered_By_Pies wrote: »

Customers as a whole are generally morons and are a micro-chosm of the bigger picture - that some people get a superiority complex over something and become arrogant and bigoted because they seem to think that their word is the law.

To echo a comment made earlier in the thread, whoever developed the phrase 'the customer is always right' needs to be exhumed then shot, along with the customers who believe that line of tripe gives them any powers in their quest for arrogant dominance.

I appreciate the props for my earlier comment, but you really can't call people morons when you can't spell microcosm.
Sorry, that's just the way it is.

geerex

Guys, guys, guys...

I'd just like to sum up the thread at this point:

Consumers, in general, are arrogant, ignorant a*seholes. They believe that everything is there to benefit them, and get annoyed when the rules and systems that are put in place to ensure business treat everyone fairly (and make money) work against them.

In short: people suck.

Oh, and people who say AsdaS, TescoS, MatalanD etc. should be b*ggered to death by horny wild boar. (except, of course when using the grammatically correct plural form,except for MatalanD which is just plain stupid).