Rude, unenthusiastic shop assistants
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Original post by Iron Lady
Quite frankly I am sick to death of shop assistants who do little more than grunt at their customers at the till. They usually come in all ages, however in my experience they are predominantly young workers. Instead of greeting their customers with a warm smile they shove the relevant change back into their hand and yell for the next customer. Very often they find it more appealing to stand around discussing absolute nonsense with other shop assistants than be pleasant towards those they are supposed to serve.
Why are these people so unable to take pride in their jobs? They are extremely fortunate that I am yet to report them.
Why are these people so unable to take pride in their jobs? They are extremely fortunate that I am yet to report them.
I work in a DIY store, and quite frankly there are some customers that could do with a few lessons on etiquette. As much as I'd love to discount the stuff I sell, it's not worth my job. So complaining to me how expensive stuff is isn't really going to achieve anything except my most artificial smile. And dropping the line "I've spent so much in this store lately" won't allow me to discount your goods or serve you faster.
Talking on the phone to your mate whilst I'm offering you a bag or telling you the total due, then having the cheek to throw me a dirty look when I interrupt isn't something I particulary love either.
And believe me, when I say I don't have any five pound notes, I honestly don't. No matter how much you'd like to believe it, I do not partake in a storewide conspiracy to withold fivers and give you as many coins as possible.
I work in a supermarket to get some money for uni, and I started out happy and enthusiastic, but customers have to understand that if they expect stellar service, they need to at least be civil and not treat the cashier like some rubbish they found on the street.
Recently I've found it much more difficult to be enthusiastic around customers because no matter how nice I am to them, they try as hard as they can to be rude and arrogant. I still smile at them and wish them a nice day/evening or whatever, but they are so rude that most of the time I wish I hadn't bothered.
I had a customer recently who was on the phone the whole transaction talking about investments etc. I continued the transaction as if he wasn't on the phone because I had a huge queue and I wasn't going to make all those people wait because he was on the phone. I asked all the usual questions (would you like some bags etc.) with a nice smile and eventually he just turned to me and told me to be quiet because he was busy talking about things I would never understand. That's the kind of thing that really gets me because he just assumes that because I work in a supermarket I must be stupid. I'm going to university to study engineering, so I can't be that dumb.
I agree that there are some cashiers who are just plain rude, but a lot of the time we aren't the nicest people in the world because customers don't bother to even treat us like human beings.
Recently I've found it much more difficult to be enthusiastic around customers because no matter how nice I am to them, they try as hard as they can to be rude and arrogant. I still smile at them and wish them a nice day/evening or whatever, but they are so rude that most of the time I wish I hadn't bothered.
I had a customer recently who was on the phone the whole transaction talking about investments etc. I continued the transaction as if he wasn't on the phone because I had a huge queue and I wasn't going to make all those people wait because he was on the phone. I asked all the usual questions (would you like some bags etc.) with a nice smile and eventually he just turned to me and told me to be quiet because he was busy talking about things I would never understand. That's the kind of thing that really gets me because he just assumes that because I work in a supermarket I must be stupid. I'm going to university to study engineering, so I can't be that dumb.
I agree that there are some cashiers who are just plain rude, but a lot of the time we aren't the nicest people in the world because customers don't bother to even treat us like human beings.
Original post by olivia_w92
But it's part of the job. Customer services - to be forthcoming, polite, responsive to the customer. If they're rude to you and you reply rudely, it's unprofessional.
It makes me not want to return to the shop if i'm polite and cheerful to them and they're rude in return. It really does wonders if i'm served by someone with a positive and friendly attitude.
Rudeness isn't necessary in any walk of life but especially not if you're being paid to be polite!
It makes me not want to return to the shop if i'm polite and cheerful to them and they're rude in return. It really does wonders if i'm served by someone with a positive and friendly attitude.
Rudeness isn't necessary in any walk of life but especially not if you're being paid to be polite!
I'm not saying it's right of shop assistants to treat their customers like that, but I can understand why some do. Of course, some people are just miserable and would be miserable whatever job they did.
I'm proud to say that in my jobs in customer service (a very long stint in Woolworths, waitressing and working in a bingo hall) I was always friendly and polite. Even to the known shoplifter who made me cry because she was having a go at me in front of a shop full of customers and my boss didn't stand up for me. And even to the woman who thought it was personally my fault that we didn't stock tights after a refurb, when she was so nasty she was barred from half the shops in town. Oh yes, and all the people who assumed that because I was young and working in a shop, that I was just another dumb blonde.
And like Annie72 says, having worked in a shop, I am always polite to staff in shops now because I know how horrible it is to have rude customers.
Original post by CloudedWithDoubt
I work in a supermarket to get some money for uni, and I started out happy and enthusiastic, but customers have to understand that if they expect stellar service, they need to at least be civil and not treat the cashier like some rubbish they found on the street.
Recently I've found it much more difficult to be enthusiastic around customers because no matter how nice I am to them, they try as hard as they can to be rude and arrogant. I still smile at them and wish them a nice day/evening or whatever, but they are so rude that most of the time I wish I hadn't bothered.
I had a customer recently who was on the phone the whole transaction talking about investments etc. I continued the transaction as if he wasn't on the phone because I had a huge queue and I wasn't going to make all those people wait because he was on the phone. I asked all the usual questions (would you like some bags etc.) with a nice smile and eventually he just turned to me and told me to be quiet because he was busy talking about things I would never understand. That's the kind of thing that really gets me because he just assumes that because I work in a supermarket I must be stupid. I'm going to university to study engineering, so I can't be that dumb.
I agree that there are some cashiers who are just plain rude, but a lot of the time we aren't the nicest people in the world because customers don't bother to even treat us like human beings.
Recently I've found it much more difficult to be enthusiastic around customers because no matter how nice I am to them, they try as hard as they can to be rude and arrogant. I still smile at them and wish them a nice day/evening or whatever, but they are so rude that most of the time I wish I hadn't bothered.
I had a customer recently who was on the phone the whole transaction talking about investments etc. I continued the transaction as if he wasn't on the phone because I had a huge queue and I wasn't going to make all those people wait because he was on the phone. I asked all the usual questions (would you like some bags etc.) with a nice smile and eventually he just turned to me and told me to be quiet because he was busy talking about things I would never understand. That's the kind of thing that really gets me because he just assumes that because I work in a supermarket I must be stupid. I'm going to university to study engineering, so I can't be that dumb.
I agree that there are some cashiers who are just plain rude, but a lot of the time we aren't the nicest people in the world because customers don't bother to even treat us like human beings.
I'm proud that after three years of shop work I can still be described as polite and enthusiastic 90% of the time. Unfortunately I have seen all too often how a shop assistant is worn down by the constant rudeness of customers. When I get nice customers it brightens my day, but they are few and far between. I work in a shop that only sells shoes and was once reduced to tears in the children's section after a woman yelled at me and frightened away all my customers because I didn't have any shoes in stock in her daughter's size. She then proceeded to yell at me because there were no skirts in the town centre that fit her daughter either. How am I, a minimum wage shoe seller, to blame for either of these things? Another one, when she found out we didn't know where she could buy a special type of shoe cleaner suggested we tell our manager to better educate us. For the 16yr old minimum wage I was working for at the time (£3.60/hr I think) my manager was not going to bother to pay us to go look at what every shop in the town centre sold. Customers don't accept that we are human and don't know everything.
I got a transfer when I came to uni to work in the local shoe shop here. I lasted a week before needing to quit for health reasons. The customers were the rudest I've ever seen and no one was polite. They left boxes and shoes and mess everywhere and it was too much to clean up before another part of my section was destroyed. I was shouted at and insulted and if I had worked there longer I would have been a rude and miserable shop assistant when I went back to my better behaved customers back home. I was in the shop with my boyfriend recently and he finished with a pair of shoes and left the box on the bench. I gave him a look until he picked it up and put it exactly where he got it from. That's just good manners. As is not talking on the phone while we're serving you, accepting it is not our fault if the shop does not have what you require and leaving on time when the shop shuts (I don't get paid for the extra half hour on average we're open because customers have stayed past the doors being closed).
Be nice to us and we're nice to you. Unfortunately there are too many rude people for us to focus on the nice ones.
I got a transfer when I came to uni to work in the local shoe shop here. I lasted a week before needing to quit for health reasons. The customers were the rudest I've ever seen and no one was polite. They left boxes and shoes and mess everywhere and it was too much to clean up before another part of my section was destroyed. I was shouted at and insulted and if I had worked there longer I would have been a rude and miserable shop assistant when I went back to my better behaved customers back home. I was in the shop with my boyfriend recently and he finished with a pair of shoes and left the box on the bench. I gave him a look until he picked it up and put it exactly where he got it from. That's just good manners. As is not talking on the phone while we're serving you, accepting it is not our fault if the shop does not have what you require and leaving on time when the shop shuts (I don't get paid for the extra half hour on average we're open because customers have stayed past the doors being closed).
Be nice to us and we're nice to you. Unfortunately there are too many rude people for us to focus on the nice ones.
And I bet you're oodles of fun to be around aswell.
Original post by bananaterracottapie
i agree,but then having worked as a shop assistant, i can say that some customers are rather rude as well(some are lovely 
). it seems having a stick up your arse, and lack of communicative skills is an all round british trait.
). it seems having a stick up your arse, and lack of communicative skills is an all round british trait.*******s. the shop assistants lead the conversation and the direction, they are selling. Customer service is about business people making the customer comfortable.
As for them not liking their jobs, big deal. Not everybody does, do they?
Original post by ilovedesifems
*******s. the shop assistants lead the conversation and the direction, they are selling. Customer service is about business people making the customer comfortable.
As for them not liking their jobs, big deal. Not everybody does, do they?
As for them not liking their jobs, big deal. Not everybody does, do they?
This is wrong. In your typical supermarket, there is no need for the cashier to 'lead the conversation and the direction' The customer service is limited to being polite, no need to give a **** about what they think of the weather.
Original post by tamimi
I don't appreciate rude judgemental customers.
We treat the customer the same way they treat us.
We treat the customer the same way they treat us.
lol.. you are there to do as your company says, i.e. serve people. You clearly don't understand the basis of customer service, since in many industries people are taught how to manage/cope with rude and disrespectful customers.
I think most people in this thread are dopey, read up on consumer law and customer service theory.
Original post by Tsunami2011
This is wrong. In your typical supermarket, there is no need for the cashier to 'lead the conversation and the direction' The customer service is limited to being polite, no need to give a **** about what they think of the weather.
That's not why I meant. A sales assistant should be attentive and helpful to all customers, per the instructions of his or her company. That is their role in that setting. Saying crap like "oh they're rude, I can be rude back" is inane, as said I said in an earlier post customer service personnel must learn and are taught how to deal with rude/irate customers.
Stores/business are there to serve us, it's called a market economy. Customers don't owe businesses as such.
I prefer unenthusiastic SAs to ones that try to beg conversation with me at the checkout. Just STFU and give me my change already 
Original post by wordjunkie
To be honest, I prefer it when they just 'shove the relevant change' back into my hand because I find it quite hard to carry a conversation about the weather, etc. In saying that, I'm a sales assistant myself and when I'm working I generally enjoy talking to customers at the till and would approach them and ask if they need any help. There are some customers who give off bad vibes though. For instance, you seem quite bitter and bad-tempered so I might have second thoughts about approaching you if you came into my shop. And the whole 'discussing absolute nonsense' thing is nonsense if you ask me. I've been in shops where the sales assistants aren't allowed to talk to each other and it makes for a very bad atmosphere IMO. But I guess me and you are just different people who like different retail experiences. :/
and there are thousands of other different retail experiences that people prefer. There's no possible way for any shop to meet all of those. Nobody likes rude staff but other than that stores need to pick a few to fit with and the people that prefer that experience will shop there and the others will find somewhere else. I dislike being jumped on as soon as I enter a shop so if it happens I tend to leave, should they stop doing that? Absolutely not. Plenty of people like that experience and would leave shops that don't do it.
Original post by ilovedesifems
*******s. the shop assistants lead the conversation and the direction, they are selling. Customer service is about business people making the customer comfortable.
As for them not liking their jobs, big deal. Not everybody does, do they?
As for them not liking their jobs, big deal. Not everybody does, do they?
you're just looking for an argument boy,as a couple of posts later you have stated it's their job to be friendly and give good customer service......anyway it's bit difficult to make the customer comfortable when they are plain rude in manner for no apparent reason...although i always still try to be as polite as possible
here's an interesting article anyway, not sure how much i agree with it.(edited 12 years ago)
Original post by ilovedesifems
lol.. you are there to do as your company says, i.e. serve people. You clearly don't understand the basis of customer service, since in many industries people are taught how to manage/cope with rude and disrespectful customers.
I think most people in this thread are dopey, read up on consumer law and customer service theory.
I think most people in this thread are dopey, read up on consumer law and customer service theory.
I'm a regional manager sweetheart.
Original post by *Joanna*
I'm not saying it's right of shop assistants to treat their customers like that, but I can understand why some do. Of course, some people are just miserable and would be miserable whatever job they did.
I'm proud to say that in my jobs in customer service (a very long stint in Woolworths, waitressing and working in a bingo hall) I was always friendly and polite. Even to the known shoplifter who made me cry because she was having a go at me in front of a shop full of customers and my boss didn't stand up for me. And even to the woman who thought it was personally my fault that we didn't stock tights after a refurb, when she was so nasty she was barred from half the shops in town. Oh yes, and all the people who assumed that because I was young and working in a shop, that I was just another dumb blonde.
And like Annie72 says, having worked in a shop, I am always polite to staff in shops now because I know how horrible it is to have rude customers.
I'm proud to say that in my jobs in customer service (a very long stint in Woolworths, waitressing and working in a bingo hall) I was always friendly and polite. Even to the known shoplifter who made me cry because she was having a go at me in front of a shop full of customers and my boss didn't stand up for me. And even to the woman who thought it was personally my fault that we didn't stock tights after a refurb, when she was so nasty she was barred from half the shops in town. Oh yes, and all the people who assumed that because I was young and working in a shop, that I was just another dumb blonde.
And like Annie72 says, having worked in a shop, I am always polite to staff in shops now because I know how horrible it is to have rude customers.
No I understand that you wouldn't be especially friendly with a rude customer but I mean it's annoying when you are polite, say please, thank you and bye and the most that the assistant can manage is a stiff thanks. What's even worst is when they serve you whilst continuing a conversation with their colleague and you feel like you're intruding on their chat!
Similarily, I have worked in customer services and have had my fair share of rude customers but I wouldn't be rude back because it's my job, reglardless of my mood.
The only time it irritates me (because I know how **** £5 an hour can be) is when you ask a shop assistant where something is and they get really arsey about telling or showing you. Oh sorry, how dare I think that you who work in this shop might know where everything is kept!
The worst one is my local Morrisons, the staff only work within an 'area' of the store, so if you are at the wrong end of the shop and ask where the biscuits are, the shop assistant literally doesn't have a clue
The worst one is my local Morrisons, the staff only work within an 'area' of the store, so if you are at the wrong end of the shop and ask where the biscuits are, the shop assistant literally doesn't have a clue
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