These two threads over at the MSN Money Message Boards give but a taste of how much customers and retailers seem to hate each other:
Annoying customer tricks and Top annoying retail tricks
The first one has over 400 messages in a week. The second has about 900 messages in two and a half weeks.
Each side has plenty of things to say about the other, and none of these are pretty. Why so much animosity?
Because businesses are motivated by profit, the business extracts as much as it can get away with from both its employees and its customers. It extracts from its employees by paying out as little as it can get away with for as much labor as it can get away with. It extracts from its customers by collecting as much money from them as it can get away with, while allowing as little back as it can get away with (in the form of refunds).
The businesses is squeezing what it can out of both customers and its employees. The employees, as agents of the business, have as their job to extract as much money, collectively and individually, as they can from the customers. The customers, as agents for themselves, have as their job to extract as much value, collectively and individually, from the business as they can for as little money as possible. This is where the arguments come about, because the customers and the retail employees oppose each other.
The retail employees need the money, and for whatever reason, they're working retail to get it. The work is physically and mentally draining, day after day, but rent is due, car payments are due, and they get hungry, so they need to go to work and deal with the customers while at the same time fulfilling their duties, which mostly does not involve the customers. On the other side, the customers aren't making enough money to have someone else do their shopping for them. They need to spend their time shopping to get what they need, and when they find it, it needs to work, or else they need to return it because they can't really afford to buy it twice. Their dollars are limited, as they also need to pay rent, pay for their car, and buy food. So they play the game with the retail employees.
In essence, both the retail employees and customers are competing with the business, but neither the retail employees nor the customers have enough money to walk away. And this is where the conflict comes about. Neither retail employees nor customers are in much position to make things easier. Even if the employees wanted to issue refunds, they often can't because of rules. Even if the customers wanted to just let something go, they might not have the resources to do so. So both sides fight with each other as to not get taken advantage of by the business.
How to resolve this conflict? Just make enough money so someone else can fight for you on your behalf! A retail employee could quit, which allows someone else to fill their job, or causes the remaining employees to take on extra duties equal to their job. A customer can “quit” by paying someone else to shop for them. Then they're dealing with the retail employees.
I suspect that most of the posters on the MSN boards really don't have the option of quitting, either as customers or as employees.
I worked in retail for five years and am now one of the two employees for a small cable company. I truly appreciate our customers but they drive me crazy. In fact if I was one of my customers I would drive me crazy. It is so hard to understand where people are coming from but not being able to fix every need. We would go broke financially or break down physically in the process.
A good example is that we are about to raise prices on cable TV. We are not one of those companies that takes this lightly. The reason for the increase is the electric company is quadrupling the rates for attaching to the telephone poles that that own. We have some customer that it takes 3 poles to get to their house. Rates have to go up or we go under and a whole section of the county has no high speed internet. But the customer will just complain about the cost of cable and not realize the underlying factor. That's business
I don't think I'd ever thought of it in terms of them both competing with the business. But perhaps if I imagined the store as being WalMart–then I can see it. People want good service but they're not able to pay for a store that pays their employees enough to give good service.
If I went to Saks 5th avenue, on the other hand, I'd expect top-notch service.
Money is always a reason for hate and war and perhaps this hate will last until all of us will have enough money. Going to the shop or serving customers, everyone always thinks and wishes to get best in everything. The reality is not the same as our wishes, unfortunately.
My husband works in retail. He actually loves it. Well, sort of. Mostly he hates the hours, but he loves talking to people and helping them have a successful shopping trip. (Although, he used to work at a store that I will no longer shop at because of their return policy on the wedding gifts I got and a lack of common sense by a few people during my returns). Needless to say, he is getting out, but the key thing by both parties needs to be patience. No whining, yelling, or cussing by the customers and patient, clear explainations by the employee. If you don't like a return policy, don't shop there. Walmarts policy is better than Target and BabysRUs/ToysRUs is better than either of those. I only by items I know I can't return at Target (like food) or something off of the 90% off rack. Then I don't feel the same loss. If I have to pay full-price, I am going some place with legitamate customer service.
Elizabeth
Some people are extraordinarily good at working with the public, and they actually love jobs in retail, teaching, restaurants, hotels, health care, and the like.
But because our economy has shifted toward the service sector, there aren't enough jobs to go around for those of us who aren't good at dealing with strangers every day, hour after hour. And so a lot of retail jobs are occupied by people who aren't very well suited for that kind of work. Add to that basic factor the low wages and the tiring nature of the job, and you get the picture. Is it any wonder that the retail industry is populated with people who hate their jobs and, by extension, hate their customers?
As a customer, my response to this situation is as follows:
1. I try to be polite to the clerks and check-out staff. How hard is it to smile and say hello? Do you really have to yap on the phone while the checker is adding up your purchases? Surely you can manage to make eye contact and tell the person her hair or her jewelry or her manicure looks nice! Maybe you could even thank the person for waiting on you.
2. If a store clerk or manager is rude to me OR TO ANYONE ELSE while I'm there, I never shop there again (for example, after watching a manager abuse a hapless clerk, I do not shop at Bed Bath & Beyond–I drive a couple of extra miles to go to Linens & Things).
3. I shop only at stores that allow me to return unwanted or bad goods, and whose staff accept returns politely.
4. I never patronize businesses known to treat their employees badly. Period. It doesn't matter how much I might "save" on their bargains–we don't need to save a few bucks on someone else's back. I think you know which megacorporation I mean.
5. I try to shop at locally owned stores to the extent possible.
This strategy seems to help. I hardly ever run into rude clerks any more, and when I do, they and their company's stockholders never see another of my dollars again.
Well, I've never worked in retail, but when I was bartending at college I often really disliked the customers at my bars and could have given you a ten-point treatise as to why. Now I'm in consulting, most of my clients are architects, and I've caught myself and colleagues saying a few times "God I hate architects". It's human nature – architects are the ones calling me up with fires to put out or outrageous requests and timelines or are the ones paying their bills late. It's just letting off steam, often a good thing.
i can tell you without hesitation that retail employees hate their customers solely based upon the way the customers treat the employees. It doesn't matter if you live in the same area as the customer or have kids at the same school… There is something about the retail countertop that changes the entire interaction and – for whatever reason – most customers are so incredibly rude to the "help." They bitch at employees, call them names, insult them, and berate them to the point of tears – and never apologize. THAT is why retail employees hate customers. Because employees are people, living human beings, who have feelings. That's the simple truth.
You lot read into this way too much… I'm 21, and worked in retail for 5 years now (In England) for a well known store, ever since I was 16, to pay my way through college and university.
The problems are both the company and the customer from a workers perspective. We do get paid pittence, and as I have been working at the company they expect so much off of me… but still paying me the same rate as a new worker. Basically they are taking the piss.
Customers don't half make it hard though. I am a model customer when I go shopping as I know how hard it is, always please and thank yous. And if there is a problem, I try to be understanding and say no problem.
But I would say 40-60% of customers are rude ******s! slamming there money on the counter, ignoring you. never saying please. Interupting you whilst serving another customer. Kicking (I mean actual kicking and shouting) the door at 8:55am when you don't open until 9am. Yes I have dealt with some of the most bizarre people around. But it makes me realise, that I was brought up with manners, and not dragged up like a fair few.
I've been working retail for close to eight years. Half of that time I have been a cashier. It annoys the crap out of me when I have to deal with a customer that is yakking away on the cell phone. I know of a few companies that have signs stating that you will be served when you are done with your phone converstation. I wish more places would adopt that practice. It is hard for us to properly serve you when you are ignoring us. In fact, I do take that as an insult.
The thing that bothers me about customers is when some of them return items, they wait until they are out of the return policy to be able to return said items. (Oh, I was just cleaning out my garage and I found some things I didn't need…) If you end up not needing the item after purchasing it and taking it home to see if it works with your plan, please promptly bring it back. It will make it easier and less stressful for everyone. If we don't take the items back because they are out of the statutes and limitations of the return policy, don't get bitter and say you're going to go to our next biggest competitor. You had ample time to bring it in. Sorry.
It also bothers me when people try to return items that we don't sell or when people try to rip us off. Bringing back a set of door knobs that are mismatched (one side nickel and the other side brass) when the package says "100% brass" makes me want to bop that customer on the head. I sure as heck did not take the door knobs back since we don't sell sets like that. Retail places hate being ripped off just as much as the customer hates being ripped off.
Retail stores are not banks. Please go to a bank if you want change for your $100.00 bill or better yet, ask for smaller bills while you are at the bank.
When I shop, I am nice to the employees and I try to be as specific as possible when asking for help. I am not on my phone when I am asking for help or when I am at the register. I also try and do research before I go shopping to make everyone's job a little bit easier. If a store doesn't have an item and I was going there on a guess, I don't get bitter and complain about them not having the item. I either go somewhere else or try and find it online. If an employee is slacking off and refuses to be of much help, I will either find someone else to help me or shop somewhere else.
I worked retail for a couple years. When I was assisting a customer and a rude customer would interrupt with a request or question I would tell them I would be right with them. I did not stop assisting the customer who was there first! However, when I am shopping and this happens, the customer service person starts ignoring me and helping the rude customer. I never let a rude customer intimidate me into being rude to the customer I was assisting. What's the deal?
Growing up in retail I learned from my Father that the customer was not always right but they were the customer and that you just had to look past things now and then.
I was a stay home mom for the last ten years, now that the kids are older I have decided to go back to work part-time, at first I was so excited to bring some extra money home maybe make some friends, now after 1 year I have become a sad person I hate customers, I don’t smile anymore, working in retail was one of my biggest mistakes. I hate my job, I can not understand how people are so rude and disrespectful to other people coming from South America makes it even harder to understand that phrase that the customer is always right (how come)in my country if you are not nice to the employees in a store they will not serve you,you are in their hands because you need the service.
You, my friend are an angel. You actually understand us retail people. You’re one of the nice ones =D Some of the rudest things customers do you are completely against.
Clerk: “Hi, how are you?”
Customer: *pays no attention to the clerk, and continued yapping away on his phone, tossing his merchandise at the employee*
Clerk: His how are you?
Customer: *glares and doesn’s answer like some idiot*
I have been working in retail for a couple of years. It is my first job in the US. I absolutely hate it. I did not know what I was getting into. A retail job is very hard job, physically and emotionally, they expect so much from you in return for those coins they are paying. When I see my paycheck, I want to laugh. If I were single, I would not be able to survive with what they are paying me. I work at the discount store, our sales are up (last year was the best year in the history of our company), consumer’s traffic increased, but our hours are down, they schedule as few employees as they can. There are never enough cashiers, the store is always mess, there is never enough people to recover it properly. They do not care about working condition. I agree it is a minimum wage slavery, you work hard for nothing. It is a dead end job!
I quit as both an employee and a customer and I don’t care about the consequences.
My terrible experiences in retail as both employee and customer involve Wal-Mart, unsurprisingly to most of you good folks on here, probably.
As an employee, it’s obvious where the problems were: either I had incompetent pricks for managers and co-workers and rude, rotten customers who actually bitched me out for walking over, realizing they were in a conversation, and politely walking away for a minute to let them finish their conversation. God forbid! Customers don’t particularly care if your management is always pushing you to get 12 tasks done at once, AND cover other shifts AND do other’s jobs in other departments.
There’s been times when I had to actually leave the Electronics department empty for an hour to help some other adjacent department out. I normally have no issue with that, but when I’m the only one on the salesfloor, I need to stay in my department. I’ve told them that, and they’ve just said “it’ll just be for a few minutes”. Bullmalarkey. Those “few minutes” almost always turned into 45 minutes worth of work, if not more depending on how poorly defined and disorganized the task was.
Now, let’s get to a Wal-Mart “Associate”‘s (re: compensated slave) favorite topic: CUSTOMERS!
I had a customer come up to me to buy three things from across the store, so I checked them out, and WOOPS I pressed the wrong button on accident while scanning their payment card, so I politely told them that I’d have to ring it up again (luckily I didn’t have to re-scan the items). The “lady” bitched at me and complained that I charged her card twice, and I politely responded that the card hasn’t even been charged once, since the order was not finalized yet. She was understanding about it and we had a laugh and went on with our respective days… HAHA yeah right. The stupid airhead had the audacity to say “what do you care, it’s not your money” in response. I was two seconds away from yelling an expletive-filled sentence at her, but I just shrugged my shoulders and walked away in disbelief.
It really is easier to work retail if you let yourself get mad quietly (to yourself) at the customers for the stupid and cold-hearted things they say and do. Also, if you REALLY want to win in those situations, just kill ’em (with kindness, sicko!)
Smile and say “Thank you and have a nice day!” Either way, you win. They sulk off in to the shadows and bitch to whoever’s with them and, hopefully, you never see those douchebuckets ever again.
I wish my customers knew that I don’t decide when holiday decorations are stocked in my store. I wish my boss had to pay me a dollar every time a customer said, “Christmas already! Aren’t you guys jumping the gun!” I also wish they’d read the fine print on advertised sales-while quantities last means we don’t keep an infinite supply in stock.Our distribution centers send limited quantities on certain sale items. I wish all parents would have “the talk” with their kids before entering the store; “Stay next to mommy and daddy while we shop. Don’t touch anything and this is not a playground.” We are not paid to keep an eye on your kids. If some weirdo grabs your child in the aisles and takes off with them it’s not my problem. We don’t make store policy, we can’t give you a bigger discount on sales items and we can’t possibly know where every piece of merchandise is in the store especially in one that has over ten thousand different pieces of merchandise. So forgive me if I don’t know off the top of my head exactly where each size of pressure treated lumber is.