Board 8 > Those of you here who work in customer service what percent of your customers

(+) Yeah! (+)

would you say are bad customers? like are that completely unreasonable?

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25%

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Don't anymore but when i did it was only like 2-5% depending on the day. It's just that a lot of those were day ruining experiences that made me really hate the job.

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skullbone posted...

25%

really? that high?

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hockeydude15 posted...

Don't anymore but when i did it was only like 2-5% depending on the day. It's just that a lot of those were day ruining experiences that made me really hate the job.

day ruining experiences? just let it go and forget about it

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bumpesss

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last bump

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Another bump

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I haven't worked in customer service for over a decade but for me this meme of terrible customers really never rang true. most (99%) of the people I dealt with were really nice, and even the ones who were a bit more difficult were not really that bad.

so I guess to answer your question, 1% or less were 'bad'

I can't think of a specific example that I would have called completely unreasonable.

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bumpis

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Honestly I think 2-5% is accurate. At least for me. I've heard plenty of horror stories from the deli area though, and I imagine cashiers get more shit because they can't walk away if someone's being a dick.

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MariaTaylor posted...

I can't think of a specific example that I would have called completely unreasonable.

Well since you asked...

I used to work at a restaurant that offered wine tastings. You get a small pour of either 3 or 6 wines so you can taste several as opposed to just drinking one.

I worked at this restaurant about a year and a half, and the prices of these wine tastings never changed. There was never a special. There was never any sort of discount or event or anything. The prices were constant.

One day I had a table of three or four. They ordered tastings. I prepared them and brought it to them, etc. When their bill arrived, and the customer saw the line items for the tastings on there, they insisted that the tastings were supposed to be free. I assured them the price was correct. They said I was wrong because they called ahead to ask what the wine tastings cost (red flags going up here), and that they were told the tastings were free. I knew (like 99.9%) that this was a lie because there weren't any new or incompetent people working that day. When I didn't back down and assured them that we do not give away alcohol, they also doubled down and told me they called TWICE just to double check and were told both times that the tastings were free. (Oh, because you anticipated the server was gonna try to rip you off and pocket the money??)

At that point I went and got the owner to come talk to them. And the jerks got their wine for free.

The customer's (assumed) family was clearly embarrassed by them and I could tell this was a typical outing with this individual.

really? but how much did these wine tastings cost?

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turbopuns3 posted...

At that point I went and got the owner to come talk to them. And the jerks got their wine for free.

And that ladies and gentlemen is why assholes like that will never stop. Because cowards would rather take a loss than tell a "customer" to fuck off. "The customer is always right, even when they blatantly are not. Please come again because surely you won't steal product from us again!"

(That's not a criticism of you puns, you did exactly what you were supposed to do in that situation.)

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Worth noting that the restaurant went out of business.

Wendy's
Bad: 2%
Completely unreasonable: <1%

Other quick casual place
Bad/completely unreasonable: <1%

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When I worked food service at NASCAR races, I think it was pretty much 100% decent/reasonable people.

When I worked at the grocery store (not customer service most of the time) it's a different beast. People leave their trash everywhere, steal stuff, DESTROY restrooms, take out their bad day on you, make up lies about your behavior, lie about services/prices, etc. I'd say the worst was working at Sam's Club.


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There's probably also a box to be drawn around customer service where the average customer has little to no understanding of the service they seek. (i.e. technical support) That's a whole different animal and it's more difficult to pin down what "unreasonable" means.

Had a customer refuse to accept that I was not a robot one time.

turbopuns3 posted...

Had a customer refuse to accept that I was not a robot one time.

Pfft, humans am I right?

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I dont anymore but when I did it was like 10-15% that were assholes and maybe 5% that were total nightmares

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I worked at K-Mart back in the day and it was like 40% awful I'd say

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MZero11 posted...

I worked at K-Mart back in the day and it was like 40% awful I'd say

really? that many?

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bumpersss

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