I was walking past the self checkouts yesterday when there was a customer at one of them (we have 20 of them, and they were right up the other end). There were 4 staff working on the self checkouts but rather than waiting for someone to come over this woman clicked her fingers and shouted "oi, you, here, now". I walked past ignoring her and told the self checkout attendants not to assist her.
The other customer that really ground my gears this week as a woman who walked up behind me, poked me in the side and said "I need a lightbulb", I replied "I don't serve customers that poke me" and walked off. She walked out
That was the best thing to do. I don't care if you need to treat the customer with respect, if they do that to me or any of the staff, we would just ignore the person.
I mean, if we weren't there, they wouldn't be getting the products,. so being rude to us staff really is not on... my friend ignored a woman shouting "OI" to him, and he just went over to a man who was waiting patiently for 15 mins.
I had one yesterday - a customer was trying to return a pair of boots as "Not fit for purpose" because his daughter had ripped the leather on a nail sticking out of some wood while at an adventure playground.
Apparantly the manufacturer should make sure the leather doesn't rip when it gets snagged on a nail. This in the customer's eyes made them not fit for purpose and worthy of a full refund :eek:
The rant went on for a good 20 minutes and he kept repeating "The customer is always right madam".- well in this case the customer was not right and his lovely daughter was happy to explain in detail exactly how she "broke her boots"
What really does annoy me is that very few people seem to be able to accept that their children are capable of damaging items and that if they do it is not the fault of the retailer or the manufacturer.
I was walking past the self checkouts yesterday when there was a customer at one of them (we have 20 of them, and they were right up the other end). There were 4 staff working on the self checkouts but rather than waiting for someone to come over this woman clicked her fingers and shouted "oi, you, here, now". I walked past ignoring her and told the self checkout attendants not to assist her.
The other customer that really ground my gears this week as a woman who walked up behind me, poked me in the side and said "I need a lightbulb", I replied "I don't serve customers that poke me" and walked off. She walked out
Don't be surprised if you get called into the manager's office or get a letter from head office about it and I don't blame you for your 'Bad' attitude (it was the customers that had the bad attitiude) and this is exactly my point. I'd just ignore the first customer as well.
Off today but how's THIS for bad manners?
Some arrogant bitch asked me where the Ginger beer was. So when I told her it was on a pallet round the back her response was 'Don't you think you'd best go and get me some?'.
I was tempted to tell her.
"Would you like me to get you some manners as well?'.
It must be the day for rude customers today, I had a man who just shouted Oi at me, no excuse me, or I wonder if you could tell me where the chicken stock is - just a really loud Oi lady wheres the chicken stock.
I totally blanked him and walked off I do not respond to Ois
rude twatt.
Also had a woman who started complaining really loudly because price controll had left some old advertising on the shelf reagrding some toothpaste and it wasnt on offer anymore. I told her she could have it at that price because it was our mistake but she was still creating.
Told her if she wanted to make a complaint go to customer services - just go away and leave my eardrums alone.
I am a long term lurker in this thread - used to work in retail and this thread does bring back some of the horrors (particularly this time of year).
Just thought I'd post something nice I did today as a customer. I purchased something for £16, paid with a £20 and was given the change as if I'd paid with a £50 note. Didn't really register at the time (queue was huge and just wanted to get out). Walked out the store and realised - it did seriously cross my mind about keeping the extra £30 (and still does!), but I went back in and gave the money back to the lady that served me. She was mortified but very,very grateful - it made me feel nice too!
Some of us are decent, honestly! Although I know there are a lot that are total *bleep*
I am a long term lurker in this thread - used to work in retail and this thread does bring back some of the horrors (particularly this time of year).
Just thought I'd post something nice I did today as a customer. I purchased something for £16, paid with a £20 and was given the change as if I'd paid with a £50 note. Didn't really register at the time (queue was huge and just wanted to get out). Walked out the store and realised - it did seriously cross my mind about keeping the extra £30 (and still does!), but I went back in and gave the money back to the lady that served me. She was mortified but very,very grateful - it made me feel nice too!
Some of us are decent, honestly! Although I know there are a lot that are total *bleep*
Lots of customers are perfectly nice decent human beings And by the same token, I can be a right pain in the bum as a customer on occasion too! Nobody's perfect.
This thread is merely a way for many people to vent is all, and for some of us to think oops, I might have done that, won't do it again
Never posted on this thread before but have always enjoyed reading it!
I worked in a car service garage/workshop a couple of years ago and the thing that customers did to annoy ME the most was lie through their back teeth.
We only had 2 courtesy cars if your car was in for a service so once they were booked out for the day there was no way of providing one. When customers phoned up and booked a service we would offer them a car if one was available and those who asked for one once they were booked out were told that on this occasion we couldn't offer them a car.
However, almost to a man (or woman) every customer would swear blind that they had been promised a courtesy car and kick up a huge fuss. They would snarl and point at me on Reception claiming that I had assured them a car would be available blah blah blah when it was evident they were lying. It drove me insane.
Never posted on this thread before but have always enjoyed reading it!
I worked in a car service garage/workshop a couple of years ago and the thing that customers did to annoy ME the most was lie through their back teeth.
We only had 2 courtesy cars if your car was in for a service so once they were booked out for the day there was no way of providing one. When customers phoned up and booked a service we would offer them a car if one was available and those who asked for one once they were booked out were told that on this occasion we couldn't offer them a car.
However, almost to a man (or woman) every customer would swear blind that they had been promised a courtesy car and kick up a huge fuss. They would snarl and point at me on Reception claiming that I had assured them a car would be available blah blah blah when it was evident they were lying. It drove me insane.
They done the exact same when I was on switchboard at a car garage, but the service advisors knew I never took bookings, only answered the phone! Had one man hang up on me without telling me his name etc, so i emailed an advisor to say who I thought it was, fine, then the customer came in and said I wasn't passing messages on etc!
Ah, New Years Eve, probably the worst day of the year to work in retail!
Serving an alcoholic with a bottle of Cider, who then asks if I can open it for him. Jeez, this aint a bar!
And people buying large quantities of products in general, despite the fact that the shop is open throughout the bank holidays. Absolutely no need for the mass hysteria!
I have a customer who fancies himself as an independant politician. He is a complete nutcase who is really jaus attention seeking and paying for the privalage.
Every so often he comes in and talks at me about his various ideas and slags off other local politicians and just blathers on and on about sthuff for ages. He doesn't pick up on any of the normal polite cues that mean I'm busy and cannot talk about utter rubbish right now. He just goes on and on with no real thread to his conversation, it being more like a stream of conciousness in which he filters out nothing as irrelevant or uninteresting and repeats every single thing he thinks of. He must assume that just because he has had a thought that because it's his that it must be a world beater and other people must want to hear about it.
Today I tried to be politely dismissive. I was obviously busy. I am quite obviously full of cold and not well but still the interminable bastard wittered on and on about endlessly unrelated topics in frustratingly elaborate and innesessary detai..
How on earth do you get rid of these people or at least just get them to stop talking at you without just being downright rude? Has anybody got any useful tips?
I have a customer who fancies himself as an independant politician. He is a complete nutcase who is really jaus attention seeking and paying for the privalage.
Every so often he comes in and talks at me about his various ideas and slags off other local politicians and just blathers on and on about sthuff for ages. He doesn't pick up on any of the normal polite cues that mean I'm busy and cannot talk about utter rubbish right now. He just goes on and on with no real thread to his conversation, it being more like a stream of conciousness in which he filters out nothing as irrelevant or uninteresting and repeats every single thing he thinks of. He must assume that just because he has had a thought that because it's his that it must be a world beater and other people must want to hear about it.
Today I tried to be politely dismissive. I was obviously busy. I am quite obviously full of cold and not well but still the interminable bastard wittered on and on about endlessly unrelated topics in frustratingly elaborate and innesessary detai..
How on earth do you get rid of these people or at least just get them to stop talking at you without just being downright rude? Has anybody got any useful tips?
Get yourself a bluetooth headset and pretend you are on a call
Ah, New Years Eve, probably the worst day of the year to work in retail!
Serving an alcoholic with a bottle of Cider, who then asks if I can open it for him. Jeez, this aint a bar!
And people buying large quantities of products in general, despite the fact that the shop is open throughout the bank holidays. Absolutely no need for the mass hysteria!
Strangely enough, I've mostly had some nce people to talk to today who treated and spoke to me they, as customers, expect to be spoken by staff. But today's prat was a woman who had a bag of sugar in her hand (same brand and from the same shop) and asks me where the sugar is!!!
Ah, New Years Eve, probably the worst day of the year to work in retail!
Serving an alcoholic with a bottle of Cider, who then asks if I can open it for him. Jeez, this aint a bar!
And people buying large quantities of products in general, despite the fact that the shop is open throughout the bank holidays. Absolutely no need for the mass hysteria!
reminds me of the prick who came up to me one christma eve morning (he'd been drinking) and expected ME TO PHONE A TAXI FOR HIM!! I nearly told him tho phone it himslef but you know waht the answer woud have been.. 'Where? Show me/ show me how to use it/ dial the number for me because I'm a time wasting bastard who assumes that the floor staff're there to mindlessly obey my every whim!')
There are 2 other threads now about the awfulness of shop workers. I have posted in them but I'm not reading them any more because they just annoy me.
Some of the posts are by the sort of people you hope don't come into your shop as customers. They still think you should run about after them because "they pay your wages". Give me strength.
There are 2 other threads now about the awfulness of shop workers. I have posted in them but I'm not reading them any more because they just annoy me.
Some of the posts are by the sort of people you hope don't come into your shop as customers. They still think you should run about after them because "they pay your wages". Give me strength.
Int that case I'm going to charge a bare minimum five quid tip, twenty for being verbally abusive, disrespectful, patronising towards me and that's after the absoulte bare minimum thirty quid an hour otherwise they can do ALL their own:-
fetching
carrying
scanning
shopping
put backs
taxi requests
and sort any jars/glass bottles/egg breakages
themselves if they're perfectly physically capable.
Was at work earlier and as it is new years eve were were told to be extra vigilant of under age alcohol sales.
Anyway, two guys come up to my till one in a wheelchair and another guy pushing him both looked around 23ish, as they look under 25 I have to ID them both. However the guy pushing the chair conveniently got a phone call at the time he got to the checkout so he wandered off.
When asked for ID the guy in the wheelchair said "I don't have any ID" so I said "well sorry, but I cant serve you then I'm afraid" so he thought he'd try and convince me by telling me that he is actually taller than he should be and it's because he's in his wheel chair, which I thought was bizarre as I'm not judging him by his size. So I was like "I'm sorry but I still cant serve you I'm afraid". This got him a little irate and he started raising his voice shouting "this is ridiculous this is, I get this all the time, I'm 25, and he's 23, It's because I'm in a wheelchair isn't it?" So I carried on refusing him without any ID. So he asked for a manager, who came over and he tried the same excuses on her. Which she was still refusing to back down on also to which he stated "so you think i look under 25 then?" and we both were like "yeah you do". So he left.
If he gets hassle all the time why doesn't her carry ID with him then? Seems a bit idiotic to me.
I don't normally post on here that much. But I do work in retail, and I had a lovely customer;) today who decided to rant at me about the price of a tin of roses.
Retail price £10, we're selling them for £5. We're been doing this for last couple months. The customer came over to be and said to me that we have never sold them for £10 and that we should be ashamed of our selfs:eek:. I nicely explained to him that we have sold them for £10 during October. He shouted out allow ''Rubbish'':eek:. I said again to him that we can only reduce product that are on sale when we have sold the product at the higher price for 28days.
Not an annoyance as such but I work in a card shop, and we were selling roll wrap at 3 for £1 before Xmas but at 3pm on Xmas Eve they went to 10 for £1 to get shot of them, and we still have quite a lot left, but I had 2 customers asking me today if that was correct!! Its all over the boxes, signs everywhere, but they still didn't believe me! And our Xmas cards are quite cheap to begin with, 29p, 59p, 79p, 89p, 99p, the dearest being £1.49 and right now they are all half price, but some people still want them reduced further!!
"I've been trying to call your company over the last few days why haven't you answered?"
BECAUSE ITS BLOODY CHRISTMAS YOU IDIOT.
I mean ffs we even had an automated message stating when we would be open again.
We get something like that every day. I work in a charity furniture and electrical shop so all collection are arranged over the phone. The phones come directly to the shop which is only open between 9:30 - 5:30. If you phone before or after those times you get a recorded message saying the shop is closed please leave a message. I know this having had to phone the shop before it opens to tell my manager I'll be late. The amount of times you'll answer the phone at 9:30 just to get someone telling me they've been trying to phone me since 7am and its not right that no one had got back to them before then. They act like you've personally stood by the phone and ignored them from 7am, when in actual fact I was still at home having breakfast!
The one thing that annoys me with customers where I work is that because we're a charity shop people seem to think they are the charity. I don't mind people asking for money off, most of the time the answer will be no but on the odd one or two occassions you might be lucky, the item might have been there for a long time or there be damage we might not have noticed whilst pricing it up. So its not so much people asking for drops in price. It just annoys me to heck and back when you say no and they turn to you and go "but your a charity". Yes we're a charity, we raise money for vital research and development etc. I don't know why that means just because your reminding me of that I'll give you money off of something.
Its either that or telling us they can get it cheaper in Argos. Even funnier when we had a whole load of Argos books in the front of the shop and people then went to look for armchairs that were as cheap as ours just to prove a point and walked out 10 minutes later disappointed they couldn't.
Most of our customers are lovely though, and we'll always go the extra mile for them. But I have stories we work at the wrong end of town so get all the drunks and drugged up people coming in to us.
I must have got lumbered with Britans most stupid customer today.
It was really busy today, and I had a sucession of customer queries when I was approached by a posh looking woman with a big hat.
She asked me for a certain brand of shampoo which I have never heard of and I knew we didnt stock.
'But I always buy it it here in Waitrose you had it last week I saw it here' she said.
I explained to her we didnt stock it and we were infact Sainsburys.
She wouldnt have it and insisted she brought it from us a couple of weeks ago.
She kept saying that we always have it in Waitrose why havnt we got any this time.
When i told her for the 3rd time that we were infact Sainsburys not Waitrose she started to get all het up and cross and started having a go at me, so I turned round and shoewed her my fleece with Sainburys on the back and said 'no madam you are in Sainsburys'
She didnt say anything, didnt apologise or anything for wasteing my time, and just walked straight past me with her shopping basket.
This must have gone on for nearly 10 mins, a colleague who saw all this going on nearlly wet himself with laughter.
How she didnt see the great big alloumonus Sainsburys sign outside when she came in through the carpark, I will never know.
Customer: Is this cash machine out of order or summat?
Me: Yes that's why it has an Out of Order sign stuck to the screen.
Customer: Can I still check my balance if the Cash Machine is out of order?
Me: No Sorry. Arrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!
Customer: Why hasn't the buy one get one free offer gone on my yoghurts.
Me: Because the offer is buy two get one free.
Christmas Eve:
Customer: What time do you open tomorrow I'll need some cigs
Staff member: We don't open Christmas day sorry.
Customer: But i'll need som cigarettes
Staff member: You could buy them now.
Customer: But I don't need them until tomorrow.
Comments
That was the best thing to do. I don't care if you need to treat the customer with respect, if they do that to me or any of the staff, we would just ignore the person.
I mean, if we weren't there, they wouldn't be getting the products,. so being rude to us staff really is not on... my friend ignored a woman shouting "OI" to him, and he just went over to a man who was waiting patiently for 15 mins.
Apparantly the manufacturer should make sure the leather doesn't rip when it gets snagged on a nail. This in the customer's eyes made them not fit for purpose and worthy of a full refund :eek:
The rant went on for a good 20 minutes and he kept repeating "The customer is always right madam".- well in this case the customer was not right and his lovely daughter was happy to explain in detail exactly how she "broke her boots"
What really does annoy me is that very few people seem to be able to accept that their children are capable of damaging items and that if they do it is not the fault of the retailer or the manufacturer.
Don't be surprised if you get called into the manager's office or get a letter from head office about it and I don't blame you for your 'Bad' attitude (it was the customers that had the bad attitiude) and this is exactly my point. I'd just ignore the first customer as well.
Some arrogant bitch asked me where the Ginger beer was. So when I told her it was on a pallet round the back her response was 'Don't you think you'd best go and get me some?'.
I was tempted to tell her.
"Would you like me to get you some manners as well?'.
I totally blanked him and walked off I do not respond to Ois
rude twatt.
Also had a woman who started complaining really loudly because price controll had left some old advertising on the shelf reagrding some toothpaste and it wasnt on offer anymore. I told her she could have it at that price because it was our mistake but she was still creating.
Told her if she wanted to make a complaint go to customer services - just go away and leave my eardrums alone.
Just thought I'd post something nice I did today as a customer. I purchased something for £16, paid with a £20 and was given the change as if I'd paid with a £50 note. Didn't really register at the time (queue was huge and just wanted to get out). Walked out the store and realised - it did seriously cross my mind about keeping the extra £30 (and still does!), but I went back in and gave the money back to the lady that served me. She was mortified but very,very grateful - it made me feel nice too!
Some of us are decent, honestly! Although I know there are a lot that are total *bleep*
Lots of customers are perfectly nice decent human beings
This thread is merely a way for many people to vent is all, and for some of us to think oops, I might have done that, won't do it again
I worked in a car service garage/workshop a couple of years ago and the thing that customers did to annoy ME the most was lie through their back teeth.
We only had 2 courtesy cars if your car was in for a service so once they were booked out for the day there was no way of providing one. When customers phoned up and booked a service we would offer them a car if one was available and those who asked for one once they were booked out were told that on this occasion we couldn't offer them a car.
However, almost to a man (or woman) every customer would swear blind that they had been promised a courtesy car and kick up a huge fuss. They would snarl and point at me on Reception claiming that I had assured them a car would be available blah blah blah when it was evident they were lying. It drove me insane.
They done the exact same when I was on switchboard at a car garage, but the service advisors knew I never took bookings, only answered the phone! Had one man hang up on me without telling me his name etc, so i emailed an advisor to say who I thought it was, fine, then the customer came in and said I wasn't passing messages on etc!
Serving an alcoholic with a bottle of Cider, who then asks if I can open it for him. Jeez, this aint a bar!
And people buying large quantities of products in general, despite the fact that the shop is open throughout the bank holidays. Absolutely no need for the mass hysteria!
Every so often he comes in and talks at me about his various ideas and slags off other local politicians and just blathers on and on about sthuff for ages. He doesn't pick up on any of the normal polite cues that mean I'm busy and cannot talk about utter rubbish right now. He just goes on and on with no real thread to his conversation, it being more like a stream of conciousness in which he filters out nothing as irrelevant or uninteresting and repeats every single thing he thinks of. He must assume that just because he has had a thought that because it's his that it must be a world beater and other people must want to hear about it.
Today I tried to be politely dismissive. I was obviously busy. I am quite obviously full of cold and not well but still the interminable bastard wittered on and on about endlessly unrelated topics in frustratingly elaborate and innesessary detai..
How on earth do you get rid of these people or at least just get them to stop talking at you without just being downright rude? Has anybody got any useful tips?
Get yourself a bluetooth headset and pretend you are on a call
Strangely enough, I've mostly had some nce people to talk to today who treated and spoke to me they, as customers, expect to be spoken by staff. But today's prat was a woman who had a bag of sugar in her hand (same brand and from the same shop) and asks me where the sugar is!!!
reminds me of the prick who came up to me one christma eve morning (he'd been drinking) and expected ME TO PHONE A TAXI FOR HIM!! I nearly told him tho phone it himslef but you know waht the answer woud have been.. 'Where? Show me/ show me how to use it/ dial the number for me because I'm a time wasting bastard who assumes that the floor staff're there to mindlessly obey my every whim!')
Some of the posts are by the sort of people you hope don't come into your shop as customers. They still think you should run about after them because "they pay your wages". Give me strength.
Int that case I'm going to charge a bare minimum five quid tip, twenty for being verbally abusive, disrespectful, patronising towards me and that's after the absoulte bare minimum thirty quid an hour otherwise they can do ALL their own:-
fetching
carrying
scanning
shopping
put backs
taxi requests
and sort any jars/glass bottles/egg breakages
themselves if they're perfectly physically capable.
Anyway, two guys come up to my till one in a wheelchair and another guy pushing him both looked around 23ish, as they look under 25 I have to ID them both. However the guy pushing the chair conveniently got a phone call at the time he got to the checkout so he wandered off.
When asked for ID the guy in the wheelchair said "I don't have any ID" so I said "well sorry, but I cant serve you then I'm afraid" so he thought he'd try and convince me by telling me that he is actually taller than he should be and it's because he's in his wheel chair, which I thought was bizarre as I'm not judging him by his size. So I was like "I'm sorry but I still cant serve you I'm afraid". This got him a little irate and he started raising his voice shouting "this is ridiculous this is, I get this all the time, I'm 25, and he's 23, It's because I'm in a wheelchair isn't it?" So I carried on refusing him without any ID. So he asked for a manager, who came over and he tried the same excuses on her. Which she was still refusing to back down on also to which he stated "so you think i look under 25 then?" and we both were like "yeah you do". So he left.
If he gets hassle all the time why doesn't her carry ID with him then? Seems a bit idiotic to me.
Retail price £10, we're selling them for £5. We're been doing this for last couple months. The customer came over to be and said to me that we have never sold them for £10 and that we should be ashamed of our selfs:eek:. I nicely explained to him that we have sold them for £10 during October. He shouted out allow ''Rubbish'':eek:. I said again to him that we can only reduce product that are on sale when we have sold the product at the higher price for 28days.
He just walked off and said that we're "cheating"
We get something like that every day. I work in a charity furniture and electrical shop so all collection are arranged over the phone. The phones come directly to the shop which is only open between 9:30 - 5:30. If you phone before or after those times you get a recorded message saying the shop is closed please leave a message. I know this having had to phone the shop before it opens to tell my manager I'll be late. The amount of times you'll answer the phone at 9:30 just to get someone telling me they've been trying to phone me since 7am and its not right that no one had got back to them before then. They act like you've personally stood by the phone and ignored them from 7am, when in actual fact I was still at home having breakfast!
The one thing that annoys me with customers where I work is that because we're a charity shop people seem to think they are the charity. I don't mind people asking for money off, most of the time the answer will be no but on the odd one or two occassions you might be lucky, the item might have been there for a long time or there be damage we might not have noticed whilst pricing it up. So its not so much people asking for drops in price. It just annoys me to heck and back when you say no and they turn to you and go "but your a charity". Yes we're a charity, we raise money for vital research and development etc. I don't know why that means just because your reminding me of that I'll give you money off of something.
Its either that or telling us they can get it cheaper in Argos. Even funnier when we had a whole load of Argos books in the front of the shop and people then went to look for armchairs that were as cheap as ours just to prove a point and walked out 10 minutes later disappointed they couldn't.
Most of our customers are lovely though, and we'll always go the extra mile for them. But I have stories
It was really busy today, and I had a sucession of customer queries when I was approached by a posh looking woman with a big hat.
She asked me for a certain brand of shampoo which I have never heard of and I knew we didnt stock.
'But I always buy it it here in Waitrose you had it last week I saw it here' she said.
I explained to her we didnt stock it and we were infact Sainsburys.
She wouldnt have it and insisted she brought it from us a couple of weeks ago.
She kept saying that we always have it in Waitrose why havnt we got any this time.
When i told her for the 3rd time that we were infact Sainsburys not Waitrose she started to get all het up and cross and started having a go at me, so I turned round and shoewed her my fleece with Sainburys on the back and said 'no madam you are in Sainsburys'
She didnt say anything, didnt apologise or anything for wasteing my time, and just walked straight past me with her shopping basket.
This must have gone on for nearly 10 mins, a colleague who saw all this going on nearlly wet himself with laughter.
How she didnt see the great big alloumonus Sainsburys sign outside when she came in through the carpark, I will never know.
Hope she didnt think Waitrose was Tesco.
What a stupid woman.
Really get sick of hearing that line, customers seem to think they pay us out of their taxes or something -they do not.
No customer has so far tried that line on me in person, but they will get short shrift if they do.
Me: Yes that's why it has an Out of Order sign stuck to the screen.
Customer: Can I still check my balance if the Cash Machine is out of order?
Me: No Sorry. Arrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!
Customer: Why hasn't the buy one get one free offer gone on my yoghurts.
Me: Because the offer is buy two get one free.
Christmas Eve:
Customer: What time do you open tomorrow I'll need some cigs
Staff member: We don't open Christmas day sorry.
Customer: But i'll need som cigarettes
Staff member: You could buy them now.
Customer: But I don't need them until tomorrow.
Last person that said "I pay your wages" got the following line...
"So you go into my bank every Friday and deposit my wages in there from your own pocket do you?"