Customers Suck

  • folie a dru.

    folie a dru. (1270)

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    Because of a merger, our computer operating system is getting reimaged. We can no longer store customer files. We were never supposed to be, but we did for regulars. We have been letting them know and offering to email or make a disc of the files for them.

    One lady got very very mad. She said fe didn't want to come in to place her order and come back to pick it up. We explained she could just email the file with her order like she calls and orders from us. Se said no and we had just lost a customer.

    No one else in town is going to store this lady's files and get them done as quickly as she wants.

    None of my other customers have been upset. This lady only orders $40 of product maybe once a month...
    March 17th, 2015 at 02:41pm
  • pulling teeth

    pulling teeth (100)

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    When people order food at the deli, it gives them a receipt with the total and a number (so they can pick up their food when the number is called).

    I'm a cashier, and so I scanned this older man's receipt and noticed it didn't have his two drinks on it, so I manually added them in on my register. He paid, and I gave him his change. I asked if he wanted a bag, and he rolled his eyes and obnoxiously told me he didn't need a bag because he was eating in the dining area. He left, and I helped the next customer. A few minutes later, he came back, staring at his deli receipt, yelling at me. "You need to learn how to count. This here says the total was $12. I gave you a 20, and you only gave me $6 back. I should have more change."

    I tried really hard not to roll my eyes. I went through previous transactions and printed him a new receipt when shows the additions of his two drinks. I informed him I also added in his drinks, and I gave him a new receipt.
    April 20th, 2015 at 02:08am
  • pulling teeth

    pulling teeth (100)

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    Also, I really find it annoying when someone gives me $100 and tells me that they just made the bill when I put it in the safe.
    April 20th, 2015 at 02:12am
  • Airi.

    Airi. (2240)

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    Some customers are just...awful. When I get a truly horrible customer, I often wonder if they act like that with everyone or if they're just acting like that to me because they know I can't retaliate without getting fired. It usually seems to be the latter though. *sigh* People are happy to abuse retail employees because they know we can't retaliate. I swear, half of my rude customers would never talk to another human being the way I've heard people talk to me and my co-workers. It's like we're not even human to them. It's fucking awful.

    A few weeks ago when we were doing a big sale with 60% off coupons, I had a lot of customers get really angry with me when I told them that they couldn't use it because everything they were buying was on sale. The thing about the store that I work at is that corporate is often deceptive. We offer a lot of 50% and 60% off coupons... The hard part for customers is to actually find items that aren't on sale. To counteract these coupons, we're often running sales for 40% or under on a lot of items so customers can't use their coupons. And I totally understand the annoyance there because there have been many times where I have been annoyed myself to hear an item I wanted to use the coupon on is on sale for much, much less.

    But while I understand the annoyance, I really don't appreciate being called an idiot or a bitch. Unbelievably, I don't set the goddamn prices in the store. I'm just a cashier. I'm just here to sell the items. You have a problem with how our sales and coupons run? Take it up with corporate. Complaining to us and treating us like dirt is only going to make us resent you and not want to help you. Let's be real. Why would I want to help someone who just called me a bitch for telling them nicely that I was unable to use their coupon? The system has my hands tied. There's nothing I can do even if I wanted to help someone after being insulted like that.

    Beyond that, I've had a woman throw her phone at me before and order me to find her a coupon. Honestly, I'm happy to help customers find coupons to try and lessen their total... When they're being nice. Honestly. Most retail employees are happy to help customers if our customers are nice to us. After a while, you become jaded and passive aggressive towards rude customers.

    I've also had many customers throw their items at me when they get angry with our policies. I guess I'm just lucky I work at a craft store and not a store with heavier products. *sigh* About the worst thing someone has thrown at me was a glass vase, and it was a small one that hit the window so it didn't matter too much I guess.
    April 23rd, 2015 at 08:41am
  • January Rose

    January Rose (100)

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    @ Airi.
    Oh my gosh, that's horrible! Do you tell you manager or tell the corporate? Because you getting paid to ring up their total, not put up with their attitude.
    April 25th, 2015 at 01:39am
  • BadStreetBoys

    BadStreetBoys (100)

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    I was working my first job when I was 14. I was in the parks services department so our job is mainly to clean the park. I was knelt down by a mess of popcorn, in a puddle, trying to clean it. I didn't notice a young child running behind me and I just stood up. My broom hit his arm as he ran by and he dropped his dippin dots ice cream. Now as many people know that stuff ain't cheap. I went over to the guy selling the ice cream and explained it, getting the kid a new one. The parents of the kid started freaking out on me. They told me I was rude and inconsiderate for hitting their child and ruining his ice cream(which I was then cleaning). Like, I got your kid a new one, I didn't see him he was behind me, why are you complaining. Then they yelled at me for the price of the ice cream, which not even my boss had control over. Some people are just... They like to make working harder for those working.
    May 2nd, 2015 at 05:06pm
  • Katie Mosing

    Katie Mosing (33815)

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    I was a server once upon a time, and I cannot even begin to count the number of times people sent back perfectly good food because they wanted a free meal Facepalm Ugh.
    May 6th, 2015 at 07:00am
  • squidward tentacles.

    squidward tentacles. (255)

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    I work in a gas station. I have so many stories I could probably write a book about the number of customers I deal with. I get people yelling at me because of ID, because they can't get their credit card to work outside at the gas pump, and because I don't have enough change for their hundred dollar bill (we're only allowed to keep $70 in the drawer, $50 when it gets dark.)

    But I'd say the worst customer I've had recently was a young guy who came in and gave me a whole ration of crap about a can of chewing tobacco. He purchased a can of Long Cut, then proceeded to open it there at the counter. He said it wasn't long cut but fine cut. (Fuck if I know the difference). I told him that it was a can of long cut and he said "I know what it says on the can but it's fine cut."

    He wanted me to exchange it for a can of long cut straight, and I told him I couldn't do that because he opened the can. Then he said that it was "my bad" in the first place because I gave him the wrong thing. To which I said "no, I gave you what you asked for. You said long cut. This is long cut straight. They're two different things." He just kept arguing with me about it, telling me that yes I was allowed to exchange it, and to top it all off he kept saying "I'm not trying to argue with you, Carissa."

    I hate when customers come in and call me by my first name like we know each other. Yes, I have a name tag. No, you don't get to use my name. Finally I was like "if it's not a problem, why do you continue to make it a problem?"

    I told him literally a dozen times that he could contact my manager the following morning but he said he didn't have time for that. Twenty minutes this jerk was standing there continuing to argue with me, even though I kept telling him I couldn't exchange it, nor could I just outright give him the can of the other tobacco since it was cheaper than the one he'd paid for. Yeah, he asked me that too. I was about ready to just throw my scanner at him.
    May 7th, 2015 at 08:59am
  • Airi.

    Airi. (2240)

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    @ January Rose
    Corporate doesn't care how their employees are being treated by their customers... Hell, corporate doesn't care if our managers are treating us terribly. They only want their money and nothing else; we'd probably be the ones getting in trouble if we complained about anything to corporate because we're affecting their money. *sigh* My managers can unfortunately do so much. When a customer is getting loud, I do offer to call up my manager so they can speak to them. Some take the offer and my manager takes care if it. That's about all anyone can do with rude customers. We can't exactly fight back without losing our jobs, you know? Unfortunately, retail employees don't have a lot of respect or freedom. v.v
    Today, I learned that customers can always get worse. Facepalm For most of the day, I was doing go-backs but had to take over the register to give someone their lunch. Like five minutes into that, our registers began acting up and wouldn't run debit or credit cards. The entire system was also running slow; things like stock searching and returns were near impossible to do because the system was so slow.

    I called up my manager to ask her about it and she restarted one of the machines but it didn't fix anything. So she got a hold of corporate or... She tried to. They had apparently set up a voicemail and stopped answering calls coming from their stores because it was a chain-wide problem and store managers from across the country were all calling corporate to get answers as to why we're unable to run the cards. Once my manager figured it out, she did come over and apologized to the people in line (which was a long one at that point) and explained that the entire POS was down.

    Most customers were completely understanding of the problem. They weren't happy about the wait but most understood that it was a corporate problem and nothing our individual store could fix. One woman though didn't seem to understand that. The problem started with her actually. She was the customer who's card started to fail and who I called up the manager to fix. I do feel sorry for her because she was there for a while as we tried to get things sorted out. But really, there was no reason to tell us we're 'stupid and useless' because we couldn't get the system back up.

    Like... I'm sorry...? I know it's an inconvenient to you but it's also inconvenient to us. Think of how much money we lost today by customers walking out because we couldn't process their cards. We're doing our best but we can only do so much when it's not a problem we can fix.
    May 8th, 2015 at 03:17am
  • January Rose

    January Rose (100)

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    @ covenant
    That sucks. How was the problem resolved?
    May 8th, 2015 at 09:01pm
  • squidward tentacles.

    squidward tentacles. (255)

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    @ January Rose
    He finally bought the second can and agreed to take the business card to contact my manager, trying to act like he was going to come back and complain about me being "unprofessional" but he apparently never called her and he never came back into the store. Honestly I think he knew the manager was going to tell him exactly what I did, that we can't exchange tobacco products if they've been opened, so he didn't bother calling.

    People try to intimidate retail clerks a lot by saying "I'll be contacting your manager" but most of them are just blowing smoke. They want us to cower before them and I think I take the wind out of their sails by just looking at them and going "okay, here's the store number. She'll be in tomorrow morning." Usually it kinda ruins it for them when we're not impressed by their threats. File
    May 8th, 2015 at 11:20pm
  • bona drag.

    bona drag. (935)

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    @ Airi.
    Do you know which software you use because that sounds like the same one we use and it goes down all the time as well. It will often crash during credit or debit transactions after the person has swiped their card. Sometimes I can restart the system if it froze during a data update or if it went offline (but I have to go shut down power to the entire database in the back when that happens), but when it stops authorising cards, there is literally nothing I can do as a manager. If I restart it, it will continue to crash whenever a card is swiped. My instructions are to phone the corporate hotline, report it, and that's it. Then we wait for them to fix it. I'm not authorised to do anything else. I've had customers who want me to take down their credit card information and charge them later and then get very hostile when I tell them that I physically cannot do that because I do not have power in my position to access the system that would allow me to do that and corporate refuses to do that because of liability risks. I don't run this company so I don't make the policies and no amount of screaming at the top of your lungs at me is going to change that. It will just make security come and restrain you.
    May 9th, 2015 at 01:10am
  • Silent Lamb

    Silent Lamb (100)

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    I work in a second hand shop, and I can't count on two hands the amount of people who give me crap about our prices. Yes, I know that we run solely on donations and that sometimes we do run a little high but we only put expensive prices on expensive items. (Like we received a brand new coat with a tag still on it saying whoever had originally purchased it paid $100, so we put $10 on it. IT WAS BRAND NEW!)

    "But, $3.49 is too expensive for a sweater!" No, it really isn't.

    "I can't believe you expect me to pay $0.19 for a piece of used silverware." ?? Do you hear how stupid you sound right now?

    "Your sign back there says towels are $0.99, I don't care if you put a price tag for $3 on them because they're brand new I want them for $0.99!!" Well I want you to leave my goddamn store but it looks like that's never going to happen.

    Customer service really has shown me that there is no hope for humanity.
    May 15th, 2015 at 03:31pm
  • the god of mischief.

    the god of mischief. (250)

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    Carrietta White:
    Well I want you to leave my goddamn store but it looks like that's never going to happen.
    That's my motto, if I was a greeter it's what I'd say: I have this phrase on repeat every day I'm on the clock.
    I work at a little local dollar store as a stock girl/cashier and while we have a few awesome regular customers, we also have ungodly ones who I hope nothing short of a bus smashes into. In particular the couple who thinks we can and will price adjust things for them when people put said items in wrong places. Excuse you. That $1 price tag was for cups, not extra-firm Disney themed pillows. And then when we don't adjust the price? They call corporate and bitch that we screwed them over and were obscenly rude.

    The topper though, the best of the lot. Once we had a woman bring in a 12 pack of Coke from a Walmart who thought that since Walmart and my store both sold Coke that she could return it to us. When I explained to her that we couldn't, she had me ring up my MOD who (of course) explained to her that we couldnt return that item for her. She got even more belugerant and eventually THREW the 12 pack at the MOD and then left in a fit of rage, to call corporate and report us for being not only rude, but threatening and uneducated. Fun times. Fun times. mrgun
    May 31st, 2015 at 11:56pm