Current Events > Those of you who work in retail , fast food etc.... what % of your customers

(+) Yeah! (+)

Nightmare_Luna posted...

i work at a large gas station chain in my state and it entirely depends on the store, as well as the shift

in my experience the worst customers are a combination of

redneck trash
old white people
punks in middle class areas who think they're ghetto but wouldn't actually last a day in the ghetto
any and all truckers, truckers are filthy pigs

anyway nights are the best shift because i don't have to be nice to customers

Those descriptions pretty much cover 80% of the people in my area. All you need to add are douchey preteens who think they are badasses who can push adults around.

bigtiggie23 posted...

Those descriptions pretty much cover 80% of the people in my area. All you need to add are douchey preteens who think they are badasses who can push adults around.

Also lottery addicts

I don't work in the customer service part of retail, but I do occasionally get stopped by people (even though I don't wear a uniform or a nametag or anything identifying me as a staff member) and I see the actual customer service staff deal with people as I walk around the store and I'd say it's at least 30% to 40%. Maybe even 50/50.

geno_16 posted...

I don't work in the customer service part of retail, but I do occasionally get stopped by people (even though I don't wear a uniform or a nametag or anything identifying me as a staff member) and I see the actual customer service staff deal with people as I walk around the store and I'd say it's at least 30% to 40%. Maybe even 50/50.

what is this like a walmart?

SiO4 posted...

Also, to answer the question.
It is 99% of the time the older people who are annoying or entitled, or just treat you as an NPC.
I should have to say, I had to deal with some prime boomer yuppy types.

This too. It's still a minority of the older people in my experience, but most of the problem ones are older.

Roachmeat posted...

It isn't corporate policy, it is the insane amount of goods that those stores get at any particular time which pulls work away from all the other positions (in order to stock).

That's kinda what I mean, though. Any given dollar general or even Walmart is clearly designed to have more employees than it actually does.

So it's hard not to think that instead of fully staffing their stores they just combine jobs and make one person do work that would in a perfect system be done by multiple people. But still just pay them one persons wage.

And it's hard to believe the whole "nobody wants to work" thing when a common thread in each of these situations is corporate won't let them hire more, or give more hours.

Only a few are bad

LeadPipeCinche posted...

All of them

LeadPipeCinche posted...

From 97 to 13.

Yeesh. 16 years and not one good customer. You might be the common factor. Good thing you finally got out of retail.

80

lets just say if there was a button to all of them I wouldve pressed that button

Honestly depending on the day. For some, I have no bad customers, and for others, I would save over half, but I work at home depot and that shit is crazy with customers' demands.

Jx1010 posted...

The customer is always right

I stand behind this. A golden rule of thumb of working retail never use a negative with a customer. They'll turn the other cheek faster than one can say "here have a gift card or discount on us".

mach25687 posted...

Honestly depending on the day. For some, I have no bad customers, and for others, I would save over half, but I work at home depot and that shit is crazy with customers' demands.

Dude a retail food market is like worse.

Back when I worked retail, it was 1% at the absolute most and that was very upsetting. I loved terrible customers. They make the day interesting. One dude cursed me out and I just said "Have a nice day!" as he walked out. That was a fun day haha.

leafsRULE posted...

yeah you brought that upon yourself. of course she went crazy but being so anal about what amounts to 12ish hours past a deadline is just begging for trouble. yall need better judgement next time, assess the situation from a perspective other than "strict policy follower".

You're the lady with the return, aren't you

ThePWBPoster posted...

I stand behind this. A golden rule of thumb of working retail never use a negative with a customer. They'll turn the other cheek faster than one can say "here have a gift card or discount on us".

Ya your manager will love that.

You are there to take the abuse, not make things right in there eyes.

Not that I disagree with you.

I used to do something similar with Masks.
Other coworkers would bark at them from accross the room.
When what I did was just grab the mask box, walk up to them an offer one.
99% of the time if not 100% it defused the issue.

But I come from a Service industry background.
It seems lifer Retail people don't understand that so of thing.

SiO4 posted...

Also lottery addicts

fuck lotto addicts
tuesday evening is going to be miserable

ThePWBPoster posted...

Dude a retail food market is like worse.

Try cutting wood or wire, shit is the worse.

leafsRULE posted...

yeah you brought that upon yourself. of course she went crazy but being so anal about what amounts to 12ish hours past a deadline is just begging for trouble. yall need better judgement next time, assess the situation from a perspective other than "strict policy follower".

1) The returns period is 28 days, she is in the shop multiple times a week. She had plenty of opportunity
2) The cash register literally won't let me do a return if it's outside the return period. That's how we found out her purchase was outside the time allowed actually. The system wouldn't allow it.
3) It was a 1 jigsaw. For more expensive purchases we do manage some leeway, like offering store credit. But for a fucking 1 jigsaw?? Purchased a month ago??

She also returns 50p greeting cards.

It varies heavily, I was a retail manager for a couple places for a long while, in multiple states. By far the worst was customer care desk at Kroger in North ATL. Probably 60%, and we did stuff like Western Union and lotto also, it wasn't just a complaint desk.

7 years was Petco, 2 different stores, and was by far the more chill job with generally nice people that just want you to pet their dog and talk about them. Maybe had an issue with 2% of the customer base during that time.

I worked at McDonald's many years ago and I'd say maybe 15-20% were terrible. It wasn't constant, but boy did those shitty customers stand out.

The worst were some of the impatient assholes that came in for coffee in the morning. Like we literally had people get mad that we wouldn't pull the coffee pot out to pour their cup, while it was still brewing. Like no sir, I'm not going to risk second degree burns so that you can have your coffee sooner.

I learned that saying 100% of them would still be lowballing it.

Ok just a bit now having to do two separate transactions for two different people using the same cart bothers me.

When I was working retail, it might have been 5%. The customers were never the problem. The problem was management. Management where I lived always micromanaged the crap out of all of us. We could just be getting in and they would be screaming their heads off for us to go out and get carts, or get on cash. It's like... I just got here, my shift starts in 3 minutes, let me get my bearings.

Retail was like 50%, honestly. Did that for five years in my teens.

Restaurants isn't so bad, you absolutely can get disaster tables just looking to rip you off and not tip. People who come in for full service dining 30m or less before closing were inhuman monsters literally every time, though. It blows my mind most people don't realize you're going to get the worst service possible from any angle. Bartender if they're pissed, server if they just finished their sidework, kitchen if they just cleaned the grill, etc.