Current Events > Is it true that customers will still be rude to you...

(+) Yeah! (+)

... even if you've provided excellent service?

Assholes gotta be assholes
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Yup.

Yes
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Why? You done what they asked and done it in a reasonable time.

Some people are just rude by nature.
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"The customer is always right."
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70% are neutral forgettable. small talk and they are gone within a minute or so
15% are polite
5% are genuinely super polite and really entertaining to talk to


7.5% are just rude, or in a hurry and might show slightly hostile body languge/tone
2.4% are outright rude and are a nightmare, have the ability to ruin your day
.1% will get extremely upset and will make a gigantic scene. you will have to explain the interaction to your superiors


overall, only really 10% of customers are bad from my experience working retail. and of those 10% only a minority of them are bad enough that you'll remember it for a long time

Having worked in retail for 7 1/2 years, I can assure you the answer is most definitely yes.
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If someone is having a bad day, you saying please and thank you isn't going to change that.


That said, some people are just assholes.

Eevee-Trainer posted...

Assholes gotta be assholes

Sometimes I like to drive a couple counties over, enter the first local Walmart I see, proceed to the checkout, then stand there for five minutes complaining about how shit the service is in that location.
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As a customer I can give money to another customer and they'll find some way to get mad over it
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Benefits of being rude to a service worker despite them doing their job properly:

Anisoptera posted...

Benefits of being rude to a service worker despite them doing their job properly:

- smug sense of superioty due to massive inferiority complex
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When I was 16 I worked in a grocery store. Most customers were decent. A small number is rude, and barely any at all are just outright assholes.

But I'm sure it matters by region.
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working in a retail pharmacy is sometimes pretty hellish though

you've got a combination of normal idiocy plus the confusing bureaucracy of health insurance and you get tons of irate pissed off customers. people don't understand that the pharmacy itself doesn't really set the prices, so if your $400 bottle of pills is only barely covered by your insurance, we can't do shit about it
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Anisoptera posted...

Why? You done what they asked and done it in a reasonable time.

prob because they don't have a job and don't understand what their even doing themselves
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KnightofShikari posted...

working in a retail pharmacy is sometimes pretty hellish though

you've got a combination of normal idiocy plus the confusing bureaucracy of health insurance and you get tons of irate pissed off customers. people don't understand that the pharmacy itself doesn't really set the prices, so if your $400 bottle of pills is only barely covered by your insurance, we can't do shit about it

This.
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What do you do when a rude customer asks a rhetorical question about why service is being slow?

When I was a retail serf, my customer service was always impeccable. Nonetheless, there were always rude swine. Of course, more often than not if they had an ounce of class, my witty, erudite and deliberately obsequious ripostes would send them reeling.
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Anisoptera posted...

What do you do when a rude customer asks a rhetorical question about why service is being slow?

Give them a detailed response.
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KnightofShikari posted...

people don't understand that the pharmacy itself doesn't really set the prices, so if your $400 bottle of pills is only barely covered by your insurance, we can't do shit about it

lol $400 ain't shit
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leverageblargh posted...

You have to understand that for some of them it's the only time in their day where they get to take out their aggression on another human being that won't tell them to go fuck themselves

One of my old employees put their two week notice in and on his last day happened to get one of our least favorite clients on the line. She was just an extremely hateful bitchy person no matter how helpful you were.

She yelled at him for a few moments and then he unleashed two years of rage on her. Told her she was an awful, stupid, worthless waste of her father's sperm and that she should go fuck herself in the ass with the largest dildo she could find so she could at least literally have something stuck up there. Then he told her super politely to have a wonderful day in hell and hung up on her.

I had to write him up which was stupid because it was his last day.
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their life sucks so they take it out on people who actually have work. Seriously it seems the biggest bitches are those who have terrible jobs, or are unemployed
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They could be racist and dread the idea of being rung up by a certain minority, which is revealed by their body language.
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Hambo the Hog posted...

KnightofShikari posted...

people don't understand that the pharmacy itself doesn't really set the prices, so if your $400 bottle of pills is only barely covered by your insurance, we can't do shit about it

lol $400 ain't shit

well sorry Hambo, not everyone is fortunate enough to be made of money like u...for some 400 is all they get for the whole month.....you must be one of Obama's friends, "oh....the insurance is only 300 a month............"
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Solar_Crimson posted...

"The customer is always right."

I'm pretty sure whoever coined this never worked a day in their life.
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The phrase refers to how demand is set by the consumer base, it has nothing to do with customer service.

It means that if customers suddenly want nothing but black sludge to drink, who are you to judge? Start selling black sludge.
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littlebro07 posted...

leverageblargh posted...

You have to understand that for some of them it's the only time in their day where they get to take out their aggression on another human being that won't tell them to go fuck themselves

One of my old employees put their two week notice in and on his last day happened to get one of our least favorite clients on the line. She was just an extremely hateful bitchy person no matter how helpful you were.

She yelled at him for a few moments and then he unleashed two years of rage on her. Told her she was an awful, stupid, worthless waste of her father's sperm and that she should go fuck herself in the ass with the largest dildo she could find so she could at least literally have something stuck up there. Then he told her super politely to have a wonderful day in hell and hung up on her.

I had to write him up which was stupid because it was his last day.

Clarify "had to".

@littlebro07
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The customer is fucking stupid.

ffmasterjose posted...

Solar_Crimson posted...

"The customer is always right."

I'm pretty sure whoever coined this never worked a day in their life.

It's meant more as "treat the customer as if they're always right" then it is an actual assertion.
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@Sada_Pop posted...

Clarify "had to".

My boss at the time was a prude and made me do it because we "needed to follow protocol"

Waste of time and paperwork.
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well sorry Hambo, not everyone is fortunate enough to be made of money like u...for some 400 is all they get for the whole month.....you must be one of Obama's friends, "oh....the insurance is only 300 a month............"

lol i mean that without insurance, my meds are over $600 a month and the alternative is death. I definitely do NOT have the cash to keep that up.
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Being a customer service manager currently I can say not every customer will leave happy. Once you come to terms with that, your job will be easier.
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