Current Events > Any of you ever work in fast food or retail and find it difficult...

(+) Yeah! (+)

to immediately forget about the terrible customers and move on to the next customer? Frequently workers in those fields say that. Just forget about it. Any of you find if difficult to do that?

no not really

"chatbot gives advice"

Give us your worst stories plz, TC.

Not that often. I'm pretty good at de-escalating people because I'm very genuine with them and want to help. It's only the irrational assholes that get me and I'll need to take a few minutes to chill out.

Last week I had some nasty woman that was demanding me to do something not possible. After several minutes of telling her what I could do to help her and her being obnoxious and refusing to take responsibility for her actions I asked if I could do that why would I not have done it when the call first started?She said because we're told not to and she knew that because she had done my job before at a different company so in her warped view it was all the same. All the while this piece of trash is threatening to call her lawyer daughter and the BBB and her state consumer rights whatever.

terrible customers
so every single customer in dallas

Nunyobidness posted...

Not that often. I'm pretty good at de-escalating people because I'm very genuine with them and want to help. It's only the irrational assholes that get me and I'll need to take a few minutes to chill out.

Last week I had some nasty woman that was demanding me to do something not possible. After several minutes of telling her what I could do to help her and her being obnoxious and refusing to take responsibility for her actions I asked if I could do that why would I not have done it when the call first started?She said because we're told not to and she knew that because she had done my job before at a different company so in her warped view it was all the same. All the while this piece of trash is threatening to call her lawyer daughter and the BBB and her state consumer rights whatever.

oh, sad, are you like at walmart or something similar?

GranTurismo posted...

oh, sad, are you like at walmart or something similar?

No, I'm an escalations agent for online customer care, not Walmart, a different company. Being an escalations agent I deal with the people the first line agents can't. Most of it is easy because I've been around long enough to know all the angles and I can usually have a resolution in mind before I take the call over, but there are some people that are just obnoxious because they think they have everything figured out.

Nunyobidness posted...

No, I'm an escalations agent for online customer care, not Walmart, a different company. Being an escalations agent I deal with the people the first line agents can't. Most of it is easy because I've been around long enough to know all the angles and I can usually have a resolution in mind before I take the call over, but there are some people that are just obnoxious because they think they have everything figured out.

oh really? like what percent of them would you say are pretty bad though? like you are a guy who takes complaints from customer bad experiences at a mcdonald's or something similar?

GranTurismo posted...

oh really? like what percent of them would you say are pretty bad though? like you are a guy who takes complaints from customer bad experiences at a mcdonald's or something similar?

For me, I'd say around 1-2%, are bad ones. I will say it's a higher percentage with my current client due to the nature of the client and what we sell. Tgat makes people get a little more wound up. Overall, most people are alright, maybe a little pushy or greedy, but for the most part easy to deal with. For myself I get far less hostile people because ai generally have a calming and empathetic demeanor, and people can tell I want to help and know how. People pick up on that.

Most of the stuff we deal with in escalations are things the front line agents could have handled but they either didn't know how or the customer wouldn't let them because they think a Supervisor has more abilities, which we do, but not as much as they think. Our main advantage is experience on what levers to pull and ability to think outside the box.

After over 20 years I remember every terrible customer and none of the good ones. Working with the public is traumatizing unless you were built for servitude.

In my first retail job yeah. The place didn't have that many customers so it was hard to forget that experience when there is barely anything to do.

My second job had way more customers so it was easy to move on from the bad experience.

It was never the customers which bothered me, I only remember a small handfull and that's because they went ballistic and it was entertaining. No, it was always management that made those jobs a nightmare. From the power tripping to never having employees back against said shitty customers, by far the worst part of those jobs. And if a good manager did come along they usually didn't stick around long, only to be replaced by the worst shit stains on the planet.