My main full time job is working in retail, more specifically a supermarket. When I started out I had already heard stories about how aweful customers could be, but I always took those with a grain of salt. Today I will give you my perspective and experiences, to hopefully give you the right view on the sector.
First of all, I have to say that the place I work at is just one of many owned by a larger company. So even between stores, operated by the same working rules as any other withing the same company, can bring different experiences. Those are mostly tied to how the personel go about with customers and even customers behaviour can differe greatly depending on location. So with that in mind, let’s get to it.
My first few months were a bit awkward and hard at times. Mainly because I didn’t have experience with retail, but also with the universal motto ‘ the customer is always right! ‘. See I’ve always been one to think a step ahead or place myself in someone else’s shoes. So when I get into a situation in which it is obvious the customer is doing something wrong or generally a stupid thing… we can’t really talk back, even in a civilized manner, because at the end of the day the customer will always win.
Of course there are situation that are annoying for both the store and customer, think of a product gone bad within the expiration date. If that happens common sense and decency is to ask the customer for a refund or if they wish to exchange the product for another. Those kind of things are the easiest to deal with and even if you have a angry customer, you’ll be done with it quickly. On the other hand, every store has a handful of people that seem to live to taunt you and it is those that make most either quit the job after a while or make you lose faith in common sense.
A collegue of mine once had a customer at the checkout who was going to buy several frozen pizza’s. She scanned in one, asking if they were all the same ( so she could simply multiply it in the system instead of scanning each ). The customer said ‘Yes, but now that I think about it I wanted different ones.’ She suggested to put some back while getting others. My collegue told the customer she could do that, but know that it meant the pizza’s she had, were going to be thrown away ( you could already see from the cartbox that they’d been out too long to be put back ). The customer said she didn’t mind that and went for the other pizza’s. When she came back, she had some different ones, but also a few of the exact same ones she didn’t want in the first place, meaning we had to throw away pizza’s for nothing.
On another occasion, there was a customer shouting and making a huge scene out of the fact that our fruit was rotten. Now if someone makes this complaint we take it very serious. So we checked it out and only found 2 rotten kiwi’s ( which can slip through especially if it’s one of the last ones and those tend to get crushed under the weight ). We showed what we found, to show we actually checked, but also to mediate in the way the customer reacted in the first place. We got the ‘ I’m never coming back! ‘ answer and that was that.
The biggest pain we had was a customer who complained about everything. The kicker was that she even complained about the cheapest products, how they were still way too expensive for the quality it provided. This went on for a lot of products in the store and for months ( she came by almost every day ). And everytime she had a complaint, we did the necessary steps to trace the product, test it for deviations of quality, etc. … and getting back in touch with said customer to provide feedback. Again, even after a hundred complaints, we still couldn’t do anything. If we even said something back, explaining the products quality and what not, she would get in contact with customer support and file a complaint about however tried to help her out. This ended several times with her getting a compensation for the troubles suffered. This is what’s hard on me, I have a lot of understanding and patience, but enough is enough. It was what made me realize that people aren’t actually entitled to anything and that we didn’t have to move heaven and earth for them. I know, I know, not everyone is like that, but a lot do assume it’s evident. These were just some of the more difficult ones. Most still think they can do and demand everything, no matter how small it might be. And that’s all in a store that does get a lot of praise for having very friendly personel.
In the end, you can’t change anyones nature or character. But I still hope each day that by sharing my experiences and stories, people will think a little before acting. Yes you have the right to complain about something, but do it in a orderly fashion. What if you were in my place? Do you like to be yelled at or have to deal with dumb little things that take away precious time to get something else done by the end of the day? I want to say I think the answer is Yes, but without trying to offend anyone, that’s where I have a lot of doubts. Working in retail has lessened my trust in people’s ability to use common sense. I’m just glad I don’t work at a store in the more rich area’s. Boy, the things I’ve heard from there…
My life’s motto always is and has been, to do nothing I myself wouldn’t want to either. Don’t go ranting without assessing the situation, everyone works for a living and everyone wants that to be as pleasant as possible. I’m not saying we can’t handle an argument or a difficult customer/situation, just be civil is all I’m saying. No matter what job you do or what situation you are in. I still love my job regardless, but it can be a challenge at times for me personally and my way of viewing things in life.