Good, as it's quite obviously customers like you that the thread in question is about.
And that is the problem...right there!
It is the job of ALL staff to keep customers coming back by offering good service.
Instead, we get answers like this. Anyone who demands good service for the hard earned cash they are paying, is seen as a pain in ass who can get lost.
This is why service is lousy. Instead of asking why i leave, they just say good riddance
The people in there moaning about having to do their jobs, badmouthing customers etc.. It puts me off going into a shop. During working hours you are paid to serve the public. Some of the public might not be the brightest at times, but they could have autism, learning difficulties or disrupted childhoods. You deal with it by playing dumb and being professional.
The customer is always right, and customer service standards in this country are on par with dog poop on the pavement. Its no wonder the country is facing economic turmoil. :rolleyes:
Do your jobs, or go serve in Afghanistan for a year!
When you have seen your staff sworn at and generally abused for no good reason just because the customer is of the opinion they are always right no matter what then you might change your mind .
To my mind when behaving like a rational human being the customer is right and deserves to be treated with the respect due to anyone as a person, but the minute they start abusing my staff is the minute they are firmly but politely put in their place and if they dont pack it in they can bloody well get out .
I have as a Manager put up with absolute stupidity from customers for years, and I and my staff smile and try and be helpful, we still smile when we are blamed by the customer for their own mistakes , but I have come to the point where the price of a room in one of our hotels does not purchase the soul of the staff or the right to abuse them.
Most of us have enough brain cells to be able to tell the difference between someone with a difficulty and a rude nasty idiot, and from the people I have met it is not people with learning difficulties who abuse my staff, and what excuse is a disprupted childhood for being rude to staff members ?
I'm sure their bosses would disagree if they knew that was their attitude
They are paid to keep me happy & make me return....some are failing badly, but rather than admit that, they are just happy i'm gone.
Hardly good staff are they, considering i am never rude & never shout at anyone
Trust me, as a retail worker with a lot of experience not only on the shop floor but also with the management team the bosses would much rather see the back of the odd couple of customers who make things as difficult as possible and then run back with 'I'm always right.'
We aren't paid to keep you happy. We're paid to serve customers and try and make their shopping experience in our store as easy and stress-free as possible. If you can't handle waiting in line for a few minutes then why should we go out of our way just to make you happy when there will be a heap of other customers in the store who won't be so difficult?
Trust me, as a retail worker with a lot of experience not only on the shop floor but also with the management team the bosses would much rather see the back of the odd couple of customers who make things as difficult as possible and then run back with 'I'm always right.'
We aren't paid to keep you happy. We're paid to serve customers and try and make their shopping experience in our store as easy and stress-free as possible. If you can't handle waiting in line for a few minutes then why should we go out of our way just to make you happy when there will be a heap of other customers in the store who won't be so difficult?
Totally the wrong attitude i'm afraid.
What you are saying, is you only want easy customers who will wait in line like good sheep for as long as it takes. Thats not customer service by any defination i'm afraid.
By not staffing tills & allowing q's to build, you are not making my shopping easy & stress free at all. It's a fail on all counts.
Any store that is happy to see the back of me is welcome to say so. Just like customers, there are other stores & some do actually offer service. Those that don't, deserve to go bust & when the staff are out of a gig, maybe they'll reflect on their shoddy attitude to customer service
What you are saying, is you only want easy customers who will wait in line like good sheep for as long as it takes. Thats not customer service by any defination i'm afraid.
By not staffing tills & allowing q's to build, you are not making my shopping easy & stress free at all. It's a fail on all counts.
Any store that is happy to see the back of me is welcome to say so. Just like customers, there are other stores & some do actually offer service. Those that don't, deserve to go bust & when the staff are out of a gig, maybe they'll reflect on their shoddy attitude to customer service
We do offer customer service and I infact specialise in customer service in my store and we've been rated very very highly for our excellent customer service. I will go out of my way to help a customer but the minute they are rude to me or anyother members of staff then that is the second you lose any rights to good customer service.
The way our store operates is that we will always have 3 members of staff on till, and if the queue gets to more than 3 people, then we simply call for another member of staff to jump on a spare till, we work as quickly as we can to serve customers whilst still being polite and making sure we don't make assistant errors such as incorrect change ect.
However it works both ways, we will of course be as polite, helpful and serve you as quick as possible however we do excpect customers not to be rude to us and not to abuse us in any way at all. If a person starts to do that then we would much rather see the back of one rude customer.
We deal with difficult customers all the time, some may be unsure of what they want; we will help them find something or some want personal opinions on everything, however not all difficult customers are rude.
Asking a customer for a bit of patience is not asking much at the end of the day, the customer is in no way above the worker. Some customers just need a little reminder of that.
We do offer customer service and I infact specialise in customer service in my store and we've been rated very very highly for our excellent customer service. I will go out of my way to help a customer but the minute they are rude to me or anyother members of staff then that is the second you lose any rights to good customer service.
Totally agree. There is never any need to shout & swear at anyone.
The way our store operates is that we will always have 3 members of staff on till, and if the queue gets to more than 3 people, then we simply call for another member of staff to jump on a spare till, we work as quickly as we can to serve customers whilst still being polite and making sure we don't make assistant errors such as incorrect change ect.
Good...that sounds better than a lot of stores i have been in recently where finding staff to open a till is hard work & when you do find one they either just say "i'll be there soon" or "sorry, i'm not on tills today"
Both are unnacceptable answers. If you are supposed to be serving, come do it now, customers are waiting. That is more important than stacking shelves or filling in forms.
If you are not serving...go find someone who is. You know who it's supposed to be, i don't. Don't just say it's not you & carry on form filling or shelf stacking.
However it works both ways, we will of course be as polite, helpful and serve you as quick as possible however we do excpect customers not to be rude to us and not to abuse us in any way at all. If a person starts to do that then we would much rather see the back of one rude customer.
We deal with difficult customers all the time, some may be unsure of what they want; we will help them find something or some want personal opinions on everything, however not all difficult customers are rude.
Asking a customer for a bit of patience is not asking much at the end of the day, the customer is in no way above the worker. Some customers just need a little reminder of that.
Sure, IF the store is doing all it can...i'll wait. But i'm not hanging around in places where shelf stacking, form filling & chatting is more important than serving customers
I have noticed people will forgive sloppy service as long as the price is right.
Some do i think....although places like Poundland & Poundworld often have far better service than other more expensive stores.
They are often very busy, but all tills are staffed & q's move very very quickly.
Customer service is very important in my book. If their attitude to customer service is sloppy in the first place, imagine how bad it'll be if you have to return anything
What you are saying, is you only want easy customers who will wait in line like good sheep for as long as it takes. Thats not customer service by any defination i'm afraid.
By not staffing tills & allowing q's to build, you are not making my shopping easy & stress free at all. It's a fail on all counts.
Any store that is happy to see the back of me is welcome to say so. Just like customers, there are other stores & some do actually offer service. Those that don't, deserve to go bust & when the staff are out of a gig, maybe they'll reflect on their shoddy attitude to customer service
It's the right attitude. Customers are paying for a service, not the right to treat another individual like crap. If tills aren't staffed right and q's form, the blame lies squarely with management and not the minimum wage worker who is just doing what they are told. Employers have a duty of care to provide a safe, working environment and to protect employee's from abusive members of the public. I'm all for complaining over bad service but complainging just becuase someone is having a bad day and wants to take it out on some else is not on and there are plenty of peple who do that, under the pretence that "the customer is always right".
It's the right attitude. Customers are paying for a service, not the right to treat another individual like crap. If tills aren't staffed right and q's form, the blame lies squarely with management and not the minimum wage worker who is just doing what they are told.
Yes....& i have said repeatedly that it's usually the fault of management that tills are not staffed.
If they are not staffed though, we are not getting the service we are paying for are we.
I have noticed people will forgive sloppy service as long as the price is right.
This is exactly it. Providing increasing levels of customer service is a cost.
At the most basic level there is the staff being polite. This should be a given so long as the customer is being polite.
However, from that point on providing additional customer service costs money. For instance, if a staff member in a supermarket is asked where a certain item is and company policy is that the staff member physically shows them to the item there is a cost to the business.
If the shop opens more tills when queues reach a certain length then, again, there is a cost to the company in doing that.
What the company has to do is to look at the various ways that they can provide customer service and make an informed choice about the level they want to provide. For instance John Lewis provides a very different level of customer service to somewhere like Home Bargains, but the additional cost of providing that customer service is reflected in the price which is (on average) higher for a given item.
A lot of people ARE willing to pay for service as can be seen by the record sales in JL last month, but the reality is that most people these days are driven by price and price alone. Look at any one of the threads on here about Waitrose where people are regularly called 'snobs' or 'fools' because they are willing to pay higher prices because of the more enjoyable (or is that less painful?) shopping experience.
One phrase that is bandied around a lot is "the customer is always right". That is true up to a point. On any management course one of the first things that you learn is that the customer is right, up to the point where they are costing you more money that you will make out of them. At a certain point the cost of satisfying an individual customer is greater than the profit you will make if you don't upset them.
There are a LOT of things that you need to take into account when making this decision such as damage to reputation if they go mouthing off on a forum, or the fact that some of their family will also not shop there, but when that tipping point is reached then it makes financial sense to let them go. This is one of the reasons why I prefer to buy things like electrical goods from a supermarket when I can rather than from somewhere like Comet. If something goes wrong the potential cost to Tesco of me being annoyed with them is FAR higher than it would be to Comet.
Shopping is so unpleasant these days that I now prefer the internet for most shopping.
What annoys me most about retail workers or service providers is that they expect you to be as familiar as they are with the administrative workings of the company and get frustrated and exasperated with you when you ask questions about how or why something needs to be done. Every company has its own set of rules for dealing with things, and we as customers can't be expected to know or remember them like those who work with them day in, day out.
The thing that annoys me most with retail workers? Lack of eye contact. I'm handing over money that keeps the company going that pays your wages. Have the decency at least to engage briefly. I know it's hard sometimes, but it is your job after all.
What you are saying, is you only want easy customers who will wait in line like good sheep for as long as it takes. Thats not customer service by any defination i'm afraid.
By not staffing tills & allowing q's to build, you are not making my shopping easy & stress free at all. It's a fail on all counts.
Any store that is happy to see the back of me is welcome to say so. Just like customers, there are other stores & some do actually offer service. Those that don't, deserve to go bust & when the staff are out of a gig, maybe they'll reflect on their shoddy attitude to customer service
As I said, queues build mainly because customers faff about at tills and hold everyone else up.
There have been times when there has been only me on tills, with a couple of people waiting to be served. No probs, won't take more than a couple of minutes per customer, but then the customer has started "have you got this in size 12?, have you got it in blue?" etc. Why don't they sort that out before they come to tills, so I won't have to leave the till, let a queue build up and get moaned at by other customers?
None of the customers waiting has a go at the pest who's causing the trouble, they have a go at the cashier.
Except I do, now, as a customer. If a customer in front of me in a queue moans, I politely point out that they don't have to be there if they don't like it. The cashier does have to be.
There are a LOT of things that you need to take into account when making this decision such as damage to reputation if they go mouthing off on a forum, or the fact that some of their family will also not shop there, but when that tipping point is reached then it makes financial sense to let them go. This is one of the reasons why I prefer to buy things like electrical goods from a supermarket when I can rather than from somewhere like Comet. If something goes wrong the potential cost to Tesco of me being annoyed with them is FAR higher than it would be to Comet.
Exactly
Many years ago a high street electrical store with a bad reputation anyway lied to me on serveral occasions. I have never spent a penny there since.
I tell others about bad shopping experiences i have had. Some shops must have lost millions from friends & relatives because my experiences were bad.
The thing that annoys me most with retail workers? Lack of eye contact. I'm handing over money that keeps the company going that pays your wages. Have the decency at least to engage briefly. I know it's hard sometimes, but it is your job after all.
Have you ever noticed the number of customers who don't make eye contact with the cashier? Or who carry on taling on the phone? Or don't you notice how abysmally rude some customers are? Or is it OK because they are "paying my wages"?
Many years ago a high street electrical store with a bad reputation anyway lied to me on serveral occasions. I have never spent a penny there since.
I tell others about bad shopping experiences i have had. Some shops must have lost millions from friends & relatives because my experiences were bad.
Staff & managers need to think about that as well
A lot do, but to be honest most of the chain store managers are effectively glorified administrators.
One of the reasons writing directly to the CEO's team at a company gets results is because usually the high level complaints team will be looking at the entire picture of their relationship with you rather than just at the individual transaction as most of the call centre based customer support representatives will.
Of course the company COULD train all their call centre staff to that level, but.... that's a cost that they've decided isn't worth bearing.
As I said, queues build mainly because customers faff about at tills and hold everyone else up.
There have been times when there has been only me on tills, with a couple of people waiting to be served. No probs, won't take more than a couple of minutes per customer, but then the customer has started "have you got this in size 12?, have you got it in blue?" etc. Why don't they sort that out before they come to tills, so I won't have to leave the till, let a queue build up and get moaned at by other customers?
Q's don't always build because of indisive customers. Nice try, but that won't wash.
Q's build because shops fail to have enough tills open. They are very often too re-active instead of being pro-active.
No-one watches q's until it's too late. Managers are locked away in offices & don't keep an eye on it.
If the rule is 3 people & then you call for another operator, that's fine until you press the bell or whatever & no-one comes. I've seen that loads of time. 6 bell rings later you've got 9 people waiting. The rule needs to be, you drop everything & come...not come when you've emptied the box or filled the form out,.
Because stacking shelves or doing paperwork was seen as more important than serving, i've now left the store without spending money.
Have you ever noticed the number of customers who don't make eye contact with the cashier? Or who carry on taling on the phone? Or don't you notice how abysmally rude some customers are? Or is it OK because they are "paying my wages"?
Yes, it's what you're paid to do. You can't have it all your way, you know. That's what the working world is like.
The people in there moaning about having to do their jobs, badmouthing customers etc.. It puts me off going into a shop. During working hours you are paid to serve the public. Some of the public might not be the brightest at times, but they could have autism, learning difficulties or disrupted childhoods. You deal with it by playing dumb and being professional.
The customer is always right, and customer service standards in this country are on par with dog poop on the pavement. Its no wonder the country is facing economic turmoil. :rolleyes:
Do your jobs, or go serve in Afghanistan for a year!
One thing - the customer is MOST DEFINITELY NOT ALWAYS RIGHT!!!!!!!!! :mad::mad:
A lot do, but to be honest most of the chain store managers are effectively glorified administrators.
One of the reasons writing directly to the CEO's team at a company gets results is because usually the high level complaints team will be looking at the entire picture of their relationship with you rather than just at the individual transaction as most of the call centre based customer support representatives will.
Of course the company COULD train all their call centre staff to that level, but.... that's a cost that they've decided isn't worth bearing.
Yes. I don't bother with customer service teams anymore. Most are so unhelpful & their #1 aim seems to be to get rid of you.
I either compain higher up or i write it off as experience & never go near the store again
Comments
And that is the problem...right there!
It is the job of ALL staff to keep customers coming back by offering good service.
Instead, we get answers like this. Anyone who demands good service for the hard earned cash they are paying, is seen as a pain in ass who can get lost.
This is why service is lousy. Instead of asking why i leave, they just say good riddance
When you have seen your staff sworn at and generally abused for no good reason just because the customer is of the opinion they are always right no matter what then you might change your mind .
To my mind when behaving like a rational human being the customer is right and deserves to be treated with the respect due to anyone as a person, but the minute they start abusing my staff is the minute they are firmly but politely put in their place and if they dont pack it in they can bloody well get out .
I have as a Manager put up with absolute stupidity from customers for years, and I and my staff smile and try and be helpful, we still smile when we are blamed by the customer for their own mistakes , but I have come to the point where the price of a room in one of our hotels does not purchase the soul of the staff or the right to abuse them.
Most of us have enough brain cells to be able to tell the difference between someone with a difficulty and a rude nasty idiot, and from the people I have met it is not people with learning difficulties who abuse my staff, and what excuse is a disprupted childhood for being rude to staff members ?
I'm sure their bosses would disagree if they knew that was their attitude
They are paid to keep me happy & make me return....some are failing badly, but rather than admit that, they are just happy i'm gone.
Hardly good staff are they, considering i am never rude & never shout at anyone
Trust me, as a retail worker with a lot of experience not only on the shop floor but also with the management team the bosses would much rather see the back of the odd couple of customers who make things as difficult as possible and then run back with 'I'm always right.'
We aren't paid to keep you happy. We're paid to serve customers and try and make their shopping experience in our store as easy and stress-free as possible. If you can't handle waiting in line for a few minutes then why should we go out of our way just to make you happy when there will be a heap of other customers in the store who won't be so difficult?
Totally the wrong attitude i'm afraid.
What you are saying, is you only want easy customers who will wait in line like good sheep for as long as it takes. Thats not customer service by any defination i'm afraid.
By not staffing tills & allowing q's to build, you are not making my shopping easy & stress free at all. It's a fail on all counts.
Any store that is happy to see the back of me is welcome to say so. Just like customers, there are other stores & some do actually offer service. Those that don't, deserve to go bust & when the staff are out of a gig, maybe they'll reflect on their shoddy attitude to customer service
We do offer customer service and I infact specialise in customer service in my store and we've been rated very very highly for our excellent customer service. I will go out of my way to help a customer but the minute they are rude to me or anyother members of staff then that is the second you lose any rights to good customer service.
The way our store operates is that we will always have 3 members of staff on till, and if the queue gets to more than 3 people, then we simply call for another member of staff to jump on a spare till, we work as quickly as we can to serve customers whilst still being polite and making sure we don't make assistant errors such as incorrect change ect.
However it works both ways, we will of course be as polite, helpful and serve you as quick as possible however we do excpect customers not to be rude to us and not to abuse us in any way at all. If a person starts to do that then we would much rather see the back of one rude customer.
We deal with difficult customers all the time, some may be unsure of what they want; we will help them find something or some want personal opinions on everything, however not all difficult customers are rude.
Asking a customer for a bit of patience is not asking much at the end of the day, the customer is in no way above the worker. Some customers just need a little reminder of that.
Totally agree. There is never any need to shout & swear at anyone.
Good...that sounds better than a lot of stores i have been in recently where finding staff to open a till is hard work & when you do find one they either just say "i'll be there soon" or "sorry, i'm not on tills today"
Both are unnacceptable answers. If you are supposed to be serving, come do it now, customers are waiting. That is more important than stacking shelves or filling in forms.
If you are not serving...go find someone who is. You know who it's supposed to be, i don't. Don't just say it's not you & carry on form filling or shelf stacking.
That store got none of my cash.
Sure, IF the store is doing all it can...i'll wait. But i'm not hanging around in places where shelf stacking, form filling & chatting is more important than serving customers
I think that is a fair policy.
It seems to be price, price, price.
I have noticed people will forgive sloppy service as long as the price is right.
Some do i think....although places like Poundland & Poundworld often have far better service than other more expensive stores.
They are often very busy, but all tills are staffed & q's move very very quickly.
Customer service is very important in my book. If their attitude to customer service is sloppy in the first place, imagine how bad it'll be if you have to return anything
Yes....& i have said repeatedly that it's usually the fault of management that tills are not staffed.
If they are not staffed though, we are not getting the service we are paying for are we.
At the most basic level there is the staff being polite. This should be a given so long as the customer is being polite.
However, from that point on providing additional customer service costs money. For instance, if a staff member in a supermarket is asked where a certain item is and company policy is that the staff member physically shows them to the item there is a cost to the business.
If the shop opens more tills when queues reach a certain length then, again, there is a cost to the company in doing that.
What the company has to do is to look at the various ways that they can provide customer service and make an informed choice about the level they want to provide. For instance John Lewis provides a very different level of customer service to somewhere like Home Bargains, but the additional cost of providing that customer service is reflected in the price which is (on average) higher for a given item.
A lot of people ARE willing to pay for service as can be seen by the record sales in JL last month, but the reality is that most people these days are driven by price and price alone. Look at any one of the threads on here about Waitrose where people are regularly called 'snobs' or 'fools' because they are willing to pay higher prices because of the more enjoyable (or is that less painful?) shopping experience.
One phrase that is bandied around a lot is "the customer is always right". That is true up to a point. On any management course one of the first things that you learn is that the customer is right, up to the point where they are costing you more money that you will make out of them. At a certain point the cost of satisfying an individual customer is greater than the profit you will make if you don't upset them.
There are a LOT of things that you need to take into account when making this decision such as damage to reputation if they go mouthing off on a forum, or the fact that some of their family will also not shop there, but when that tipping point is reached then it makes financial sense to let them go. This is one of the reasons why I prefer to buy things like electrical goods from a supermarket when I can rather than from somewhere like Comet. If something goes wrong the potential cost to Tesco of me being annoyed with them is FAR higher than it would be to Comet.
What annoys me most about retail workers or service providers is that they expect you to be as familiar as they are with the administrative workings of the company and get frustrated and exasperated with you when you ask questions about how or why something needs to be done. Every company has its own set of rules for dealing with things, and we as customers can't be expected to know or remember them like those who work with them day in, day out.
The thing that annoys me most with retail workers? Lack of eye contact. I'm handing over money that keeps the company going that pays your wages. Have the decency at least to engage briefly. I know it's hard sometimes, but it is your job after all.
As I said, queues build mainly because customers faff about at tills and hold everyone else up.
There have been times when there has been only me on tills, with a couple of people waiting to be served. No probs, won't take more than a couple of minutes per customer, but then the customer has started "have you got this in size 12?, have you got it in blue?" etc. Why don't they sort that out before they come to tills, so I won't have to leave the till, let a queue build up and get moaned at by other customers?
None of the customers waiting has a go at the pest who's causing the trouble, they have a go at the cashier.
Except I do, now, as a customer. If a customer in front of me in a queue moans, I politely point out that they don't have to be there if they don't like it. The cashier does have to be.
Its 32 years actually!
Exactly
Many years ago a high street electrical store with a bad reputation anyway lied to me on serveral occasions. I have never spent a penny there since.
I tell others about bad shopping experiences i have had. Some shops must have lost millions from friends & relatives because my experiences were bad.
Staff & managers need to think about that as well
Have you ever noticed the number of customers who don't make eye contact with the cashier? Or who carry on taling on the phone? Or don't you notice how abysmally rude some customers are? Or is it OK because they are "paying my wages"?
Millions? Really? Wow.
One of the reasons writing directly to the CEO's team at a company gets results is because usually the high level complaints team will be looking at the entire picture of their relationship with you rather than just at the individual transaction as most of the call centre based customer support representatives will.
Of course the company COULD train all their call centre staff to that level, but.... that's a cost that they've decided isn't worth bearing.
Q's don't always build because of indisive customers. Nice try, but that won't wash.
Q's build because shops fail to have enough tills open. They are very often too re-active instead of being pro-active.
No-one watches q's until it's too late. Managers are locked away in offices & don't keep an eye on it.
If the rule is 3 people & then you call for another operator, that's fine until you press the bell or whatever & no-one comes. I've seen that loads of time. 6 bell rings later you've got 9 people waiting. The rule needs to be, you drop everything & come...not come when you've emptied the box or filled the form out,.
Because stacking shelves or doing paperwork was seen as more important than serving, i've now left the store without spending money.
Well, okay...but thousands then
I get people i don't really know that well who are friends of riends tell me they don't buy goods from stores because of what happened to me.
That doesn't do the store any good
Yes, it's what you're paid to do. You can't have it all your way, you know. That's what the working world is like.
One thing - the customer is MOST DEFINITELY NOT ALWAYS RIGHT!!!!!!!!! :mad::mad:
Still no excuse for rudeness though.
Yes. I don't bother with customer service teams anymore. Most are so unhelpful & their #1 aim seems to be to get rid of you.
I either compain higher up or i write it off as experience & never go near the store again