I escaped a few weeks ago :D But after almost 20 years I've been scarred for life by it lol . When I'm out and about I do notice stuff going on in various places that makes me think of this thread, like this morning while waiting to pay at my local leisure centre hearing the woman on the desk asking an old chap did he have his membership card , he didn't but replied oh but I am a member and I could just share her pain as she was thinking ' thats fine - but why didn't you bring the F.ing card like every one else does .
Now you're all going to think I'm that one weird customer who's always nice to the staff!!
I'll still kind of have customers but in a very different way and I'm allowed to tell them no if something is unreasonable. And I'm sure there'll still be idiot managers and other staff to contend with - that's a given in ANY industry!
Another thing that drives me up the walls is when a customer lies. We had a customer in a few weeks ago who had an issue with the zip of her jeans. Our manager was dealing with her but myself and another colleague were nearby, our manager asked her to try the jeans on so she could establish what the problem was (apparently the zip kept falling down), she tried them on and the manager then suggested fastening the zip downwards as it actually clicks in when you do this and asked the customer if the zip was still falling down to which the customer quite rudely (and loudly) said ''Well it's hardly going to fall down if I'm standing still is it?''. The manager then said that there was nobody else in ladies at the time (this was true) and if she wanted she could walk around and see if she still had the problem at which point the customer went mental and ranted that she wasn't going to be 'paraded about the store for the zip to fall down' and asked for her money back. The manager took her up to the till and asked for the receipt, surprise surprise she had no receipt so the manager said beyond offering her a credit note, she couldn't do anything else. The customer left.
A few days later, we were forwarded an email from the regional manager which had been sent to her by this customer in which she blatently lied saying that our manager had been rude with her and told her she wasn't fastening the zip properly (the manager never actually said this, she explained that the zip clicks in when you fasten it downwards. She also said that the manager expected her to walk around with jeans that were falling down in front of a full store (the womens section was empty, there was one, maybe two people up at the front of the shop who wouldn't have been able to see her if she had been walking about) and refused to exchange the item (a lie, she offered her a credit note which she refused, she couldn't refund it because she had no receipt). The regional manager laughed when we told her the full story because apparently this woman has done this in another branch before and phoned her to offer her a credit note which she this time accepted. She returned about a week later and was as nice as pie to everyone , it still angers me that only there were two members of staff who could back up the manager's account of things and the regional manager had dealt with said customer before, our manager could have gotten into a lot of trouble over a customer blatently lieing.
You've said everything I wanted to say! Agree 100%. The worst is "one large wine", do you want red white or rose?!?! i'm not a mind reader!
Off topic, but I actually had a customer this evening that made such a stupid comment I had to post it here. He asked for two small cokes, one with ice and one without ice. I poured them and handed them to him and he asks, TOTALLY seriously..
"Which ones the one with ice in?"
I stared at him in disbelief and just said
"The one with ice in it...."
I think he realised how silly he seemed and scurried off, haha
i FORGOT ONE! the people who sit at a table and rip up beer mats, YOU ARE A T*W*T, A PRIZE T*W*T
Another thing that drives me up the walls is when a customer lies. We had a customer in a few weeks ago who had an issue with the zip of her jeans. Our manager was dealing with her but myself and another colleague were nearby, our manager asked her to try the jeans on so she could establish what the problem was (apparently the zip kept falling down), she tried them on and the manager then suggested fastening the zip downwards as it actually clicks in when you do this and asked the customer if the zip was still falling down to which the customer quite rudely (and loudly) said ''Well it's hardly going to fall down if I'm standing still is it?''. The manager then said that there was nobody else in ladies at the time (this was true) and if she wanted she could walk around and see if she still had the problem at which point the customer went mental and ranted that she wasn't going to be 'paraded about the store for the zip to fall down' and asked for her money back. The manager took her up to the till and asked for the receipt, surprise surprise she had no receipt so the manager said beyond offering her a credit note, she couldn't do anything else. The customer left.
A few days later, we were forwarded an email from the regional manager which had been sent to her by this customer in which she blatently lied saying that our manager had been rude with her and told her she wasn't fastening the zip properly (the manager never actually said this, she explained that the zip clicks in when you fasten it downwards. She also said that the manager expected her to walk around with jeans that were falling down in front of a full store (the womens section was empty, there was one, maybe two people up at the front of the shop who wouldn't have been able to see her if she had been walking about) and refused to exchange the item (a lie, she offered her a credit note which she refused, she couldn't refund it because she had no receipt). The regional manager laughed when we told her the full story because apparently this woman has done this in another branch before and phoned her to offer her a credit note which she this time accepted. She returned about a week later and was as nice as pie to everyone , it still angers me that only there were two members of staff who could back up the manager's account of things and the regional manager had dealt with said customer before, our manager could have gotten into a lot of trouble over a customer blatently lieing.
This reminds me of one of my housemates years ago at uni who returned a pair of jeans with a faulty zip to Top Shop. All fine and good except she had had the jeans for over a year!!! Still can't believe they gave her a refund.
Taking my life in my hands....I used to do Mystery Shopping! Good mystery shoppers(and some of us are!) do go out of their way to be fair and look at the whole picture. Checkout assts are trained or rather 'over-trained' to go through the particular shop's spiel and you are supposed to judge on that but...if I am in the queue and the cashier has just had a mouthful of abuse from the customer from hell, I would never expect them to welcome me with a beaming smile. Passing a sympathetic comment usually helps, etc.
Also, ensuring that an explanatory note was sent with the report if there were problems e.g. not enough staff (management problem), trainee cashier, customers causing problems or being abusive, very very busy, etc. I found it much easier to judge how well a store was functioning by standing back and observing the whole scene rather than judging on one, often swift, transaction. Most poor reports were usually because of inept management organisation not poor frontline staff.
My proudest moment was getting 0% in my mystery shop last year, my punishment ;-) was to go to another store and pretend to be a mystery shopper myself so I could see how that stores staff customer service was, the ironic thing was their staff were awful, I must have been having a very bad day when the mystery shopper came, now we don't have mystery shoppers, just some stupid feedback slips.
Customers who won't listen to facts and try and convince you that you are wrong
Customer - Do you have any xxxx?
Me - No we don't actually sell that
Customer - When will you have it in?
Me - We won't because we don't sell it
Customer - Well where do i get it? (Like it is our responsibility to find it for them)
Me - I am not sure to be honest
Customer - Well thanks for not helping, Walks away moaning and huffing and puffing
Product was a very specific shoe polish in a hardware shop
I reguarly get asked if there is or who the singer is in the irish club across the road. When I tell them i dont have a clue, they look at me like im the stupid one!
Yesterday I came on shift and, on serving my first customer, the pink stripe was in the middle of the till roll. Next customer put his basket down, I said "one moment please". Picked up a new roll from under the till, moved the printer forward, opened the lid, removed the almost empty roll and was putting the new roll in place when he said "you not serving mate"?! Er, hello, it's bloody obvious what I'm doing, open your f****ng eyes man!!
Later it was fairly quiet, woman with a baby in a pram comes to the till. I'm scanning her stuff and another woman wanders in from the 'exit' end of the checkout lane and starts admiring the baby. As I've finished scanning another customer appears at the entrance. I finish the transaction, woman with the baby goes to leave, second woman puts her basket down and asks for cigarettes. "I think this lady was queuing in front of you ma'am". She looks across and hesitates before going "oh....oh...oh, I didn't see anyone"......
People don't seem to grasp the concept that at the till you can put your items in the basket next to the counter! Instead they take ages trying to stack it all on the counter, or worse, putting it all over my scanner! Um, how am I supposed to scan your stuff? I really don't get this strange reasoning so many customers have!
And another blind customer award goes to the chap who watched me empty the shelf and pick up a bottle of cleaning spray and a wad of cloth before asking why I was taking the stock away....
And another blind customer award goes to the chap who watched me empty the shelf and pick up a bottle of cleaning spray and a wad of cloth before asking why I was taking the stock away....
FAKED blindness more like. What some customers do to waste their own and the staff's time, is suddenl decide to go blind when they can see PERFECTLY WELL where something is and how much it cost At NETTO I had to deal with a right stupid cow who asked me reapetedly if some elderberry and apple water was alcoholic and then she goes up to another member of staff and asked him the same question. She understood English when I told him she was just wasting time (It was obvious she was a time waster).
Then there was the amount of times I wanted to ask a customer why they're following me around the shop after I've told them several times, how much or where something is or I couldn't get to it.
They suddenly get a perfect understanding of English, their hearing working properly and their eyesight working perfectly when they want to 'see the manager' then don't they?
I don't know the full details but last Friday night on the late shift, one of the till staff was reduced to tears by an abusive shoplifter. But the security bloke didn't do anything until the boss arrivied.
If it was me I would have said, Right, I'm not being paid to be spoken to or treated like that so I'm off and just finished early.
No doubt the bosses'd work their way around paying me extra if I;m being spoken like shit on nights by altering my shifts to suit them
Another one I get regularly on early morning shift, not a big thing but I find it irritating, is customers who come to the till and hand you the newspaper folded over with the front cover towards you, so you have to open it up again to scan it because the barcode is on the back page.
Another one I get regularly on early morning shift, not a big thing but I find it irritating, is customers who come to the till and hand you the newspaper folded over with the front cover towards you, so you have to open it up again to scan it because the barcode is on the back page.
Oh that used to grind my gears too! I made sure I unfolded it very slowly to hold them up a bit ;-)
And another blind customer award goes to the chap who watched me empty the shelf and pick up a bottle of cleaning spray and a wad of cloth before asking why I was taking the stock away....
I get that kind of question everyday at work when I bump up (or rumble as our store likes to call it) the stock, i have to take it off the shelf to get to the stock underneath.
Oh that used to grind my gears too! I made sure I unfolded it very slowly to hold them up a bit ;-)
A co-worker used to unfold the paper, hold it up, start reading the headlines out loud and respond accordingly to the tone of the story. I'm sure it was just her way of trying to see if any birthday cards had miraculously creeped their way inside it though.
Comments
Oh why dont you just shut the **** up?
>:( That's not fair. You have to suffer the idiot customers/other staff/managers like the rest of us.
I'll still kind of have customers but in a very different way and I'm allowed to tell them no if something is unreasonable. And I'm sure there'll still be idiot managers and other staff to contend with - that's a given in ANY industry!
A few days later, we were forwarded an email from the regional manager which had been sent to her by this customer in which she blatently lied saying that our manager had been rude with her and told her she wasn't fastening the zip properly (the manager never actually said this, she explained that the zip clicks in when you fasten it downwards. She also said that the manager expected her to walk around with jeans that were falling down in front of a full store (the womens section was empty, there was one, maybe two people up at the front of the shop who wouldn't have been able to see her if she had been walking about) and refused to exchange the item (a lie, she offered her a credit note which she refused, she couldn't refund it because she had no receipt). The regional manager laughed when we told her the full story because apparently this woman has done this in another branch before and phoned her to offer her a credit note which she this time accepted. She returned about a week later and was as nice as pie to everyone
i FORGOT ONE! the people who sit at a table and rip up beer mats, YOU ARE A T*W*T, A PRIZE T*W*T
This reminds me of one of my housemates years ago at uni who returned a pair of jeans with a faulty zip to Top Shop. All fine and good except she had had the jeans for over a year!!! Still can't believe they gave her a refund.
Their response? Yes i know, but are you open?
Good god. So many stupid people.
My proudest moment was getting 0% in my mystery shop last year, my punishment ;-) was to go to another store and pretend to be a mystery shopper myself so I could see how that stores staff customer service was, the ironic thing was their staff were awful, I must have been having a very bad day when the mystery shopper came, now we don't have mystery shoppers, just some stupid feedback slips.
I speak as a customer myself when I say this, but customers are morons.
I'm not a fan of shopping myself.
Some people should be strangled at birth or be given compulsory euthanasia orders
Customer - Do you have any xxxx?
Me - No we don't actually sell that
Customer - When will you have it in?
Me - We won't because we don't sell it
Customer - Well where do i get it? (Like it is our responsibility to find it for them)
Me - I am not sure to be honest
Customer - Well thanks for not helping, Walks away moaning and huffing and puffing
Product was a very specific shoe polish in a hardware shop
I reguarly get asked if there is or who the singer is in the irish club across the road. When I tell them i dont have a clue, they look at me like im the stupid one!
Later it was fairly quiet, woman with a baby in a pram comes to the till. I'm scanning her stuff and another woman wanders in from the 'exit' end of the checkout lane and starts admiring the baby. As I've finished scanning another customer appears at the entrance. I finish the transaction, woman with the baby goes to leave, second woman puts her basket down and asks for cigarettes. "I think this lady was queuing in front of you ma'am". She looks across and hesitates before going "oh....oh...oh, I didn't see anyone"......
FAKED blindness more like. What some customers do to waste their own and the staff's time, is suddenl decide to go blind when they can see PERFECTLY WELL where something is and how much it cost At NETTO I had to deal with a right stupid cow who asked me reapetedly if some elderberry and apple water was alcoholic and then she goes up to another member of staff and asked him the same question. She understood English when I told him she was just wasting time (It was obvious she was a time waster).
Then there was the amount of times I wanted to ask a customer why they're following me around the shop after I've told them several times, how much or where something is or I couldn't get to it.
They suddenly get a perfect understanding of English, their hearing working properly and their eyesight working perfectly when they want to 'see the manager' then don't they?
If it was me I would have said, Right, I'm not being paid to be spoken to or treated like that so I'm off and just finished early.
No doubt the bosses'd work their way around paying me extra if I;m being spoken like shit on nights by altering my shifts to suit them
Oh that used to grind my gears too! I made sure I unfolded it very slowly to hold them up a bit ;-)
I get that kind of question everyday at work when I bump up (or rumble as our store likes to call it) the stock, i have to take it off the shelf to get to the stock underneath.
A co-worker used to unfold the paper, hold it up, start reading the headlines out loud and respond accordingly to the tone of the story. I'm sure it was just her way of trying to see if any birthday cards had miraculously creeped their way inside it though.