Your customer service experience. The good, the bad, the funny, the outrage & bizarre.

[Parasondox]

I want to bring fun back into the Escapist forum. Let's start now. There's going to be chaos, isn't there?

I have worked with the elderly, worked it telemarketing (yes I am that person that calls your home phone asking you to fill out a stupid survey with so many fucking unneeded questions and annoyed the fuck out of people including myself), I have work as a charity phone operator (yes, that was me calling you on behalf of a charity, reading from a script and making you feel guilty about not giving my your debit card number so we can take money out of your account for those poor kids, or elderly, or CEO's who didn't get their bonuses this year and doing it because, well, we care you heartless monster), and I have worked in retail.

Retail. I believe that everyone must do at least a year of it and it will change how you see and approach life. Some customers are really nice, patient and very respectful. When it's the regular customers, you get to know them more and you gain a good bond with them. HOWEVER, when there is good, there will always be the shitty. The impatient. The rude. The shouters and those who just don't listen and make a mistake themselves but is looking for a scapegoat and blood. Pure workers blood. They are like lions going after their prey. They can smell the fear from Christmas temps and new workers.

HOWEVER, I see both sides. Well, no, I don't like rude customers or rude workers. Fuck the both of them!!

What has your customer service been like in the past or present. Give us some stories Escapist and what life listen have you learnt? You could look at it from the sales assistant point of view or customers, just give us your thoughts.

Here is one thing I have learnt. If you are going to a place that serves food, do not be a prick towards the waitresses/waiters and the catering team. Why? Well, they handle what goes in your mouth and you don't want to cross. If you think the staff is rude, don't give them your money. Go to another restaurant.

You don't have to mention the place you are working at now. Unless you work at Curry's PC World then please, by all means expose. As a customer, I dislike that store. Openingly misselling a service, giving misinformation and charging for something that could have been done for free.

As a sales assistant. Customers, I work at a store that ask for your email so they can send you a copy of your receipt because we all lose the paper ones, unless you are OCD. We even explain that to you. No, you don't get junk mail. Just your receipt. So, if you bring back an item and then demand a refund, when I ask, do you have the receipt or e-receipt as a proof of purchase and then say, "well I deleted it, I didn't need it", THEN DO NOT HAVE A GO AT ME FOR REFUSING TO GIVE YOU A REFUND. I did advise them to go back to the original store they got it from, which was down the road, but they pretty wanted to cause a massive row over an error she made. I was just calm and collective. She said she will make a complaint and I just gave !y name and ID because she her case is small.

"Customers are always right", my black ass. I'm a customer too and I know I am not always in the right. I at least own up to my mistake.

 

[Saelune]

As someone also have been on both sides of things its another case of people need to realize that there are other people with feelings involved. I also feel bad when my grandparents get snippy to service for dumb things, or when our waiter gets blamed for what might be the cooks fault.

Hate rude customers who don't realize there are other customers around and that the employees job is likely more than just serving you. I also feel bad when employees get the blame for the company's policies. I remember those Gamefly commercials where they clearly are suggesting Gamestop employees are huge jerks stealing your money and giving you change for selling your mint game to them when its just whatever the company sets as the price.

Its another big example of why I contradictingly hate people...cause of how poorly they treat other people.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

A man once barged into my bookstore and asked if we sold any shoes in it.

 

[Frezzato]

Many years ago I worked in a coffee bar and a customer came in asking about what was printed on the exterior windows. The owner advertised some stuff he simply didn't have, such as savory tarts. One time a guy came in and asked me straight up, "Where are your savory tarts?" My response was, "They're working in back." My red-headed coworker exited the kitchen to the front counter and I continued, "Oh, here's one now."

Another time a guy was asking me about the cookies we sold (sadly, we didn't make them from scratch, they all came frozen and unbaked). He was being a loudmouth and 'jokingly' asked, "What if they kill me?"

"Half price."

.

These days I dress in a manner that puts people off, specifically because I wear nothing but button-down shirts and dress pants. Having really long limbs, it's hard to find clothing that fits, so the easiest thing to do is just buy dress shirts. Anyway, a side effect of this is every time I go out shopping, customers approach me thinking I'm a manager. A woman once approached me at Sports Authority and started asking me for help, only to back off at the last second. "What's wrong?" I asked, and she responds, "I thought you worked here." "But now you don't?" I asked, now curious. "Yeah, I realized you don't work here." "How did you know?" I countered. "You're too clean cut," she laughed.

.

I always return shopping carts to collection areas before I leave a place, and one time I was walking a cart back to a building and an employee reached out and thanked me. I was surprised and asked him how he knew I was returning the cart and not going in to shop. "I can tell from your body language," he replied, which still fascinates me to this day.

 

[Zhukov]

I once worked in a fruit & veg store.

Lady comes in asking for strawberries.

I tell her, "I'm sorry, we've sold out."
She says, "But I really need them."
"I'm afraid we don't have any to sell to you."
"It's not for me, it's for my friend. She's in hospital with cancer and she wants strawberries."
"I'm sorry to hear that, but we don't have any strawberries in the store. They're all gone."
"But she has cancer. She wants some strawberries."
"There are no strawberries in this building. If there were I would be happy to sell you some."
"She has cancer!"

At this point I just walked away. I was tempted to call her out on her bullshit, but you never know, maybe there really was a friend in hospital with cancer.

 

[Zontar]

Was working a pharmacy.

A woman came up to me and asked where the milk war. I assumed she meant the dietary drinks that contain all the nutrients you need for a meal (I've sense forgotten what those things are called) since that's all we had, and pointed them out to her. She then told me she was looking for the bags of regular milk (this is Canada, milk comes in bags here). I had to spend a good 5 minutes explaining to her that while we had some of the things that one would find in a grocery store, milk was not one of them. Was upset and ended up asking one of my co-workers where the milk was. Took the third employee being asked to convince her we weren't lying (and I was actually the second she'd asked).

Another incident was this one lady who I was thankful to have not interacted with.

To get a physical description: she was quite obese (went around on one of those indoor/outdoor little scooter things), had that smoker's grey skin, and a face that looked like she was in her 60s but you could tell she was 20 years younger then she looked. She spent a good half our near the end of the work day just driving up and down aisles slowly. Never seemed to take anything off the shelves though, didn't seem to notice our counting down the time until closing in the last half hour either. I was busy emptying some boxes of stock onto the shelves (we literally did not have space for them out back, so we where cycling them in since there was more then enough space in the back of the store shelves for them) and my boss called me up to lock the front door, entrance only since we still had a customer.

Boss went to confront her about the fact it was closing time and she hadn't even picked something to buy. I didn't hear the details but it got loud enough that I could hear it from half way across the store. Thought the woman was just being cranky, lot of people like that where customers since our pharmacy was strategically placed right between an old folks home and a Medicare centre. Didn't think much of it and went back to the back to punch out (boss really wanted us to punch out within 3 minutes of our shift ending). By the time I did so and went to return the key boss was physically preventing the shooter thing from moving while a security guard almost slammed into me while he ran to intervene (for context: the aforementioned old folks home, Medicare centre and pharmacy have a whole 2 guards collectively working security for all 3. Guy must have run like hell to get there before I left).

Turns out the woman was trying to steal a bunch of stuff. Had to spend an extra hour at work because of that to file a police report that said I didn't know much about anything. Thankfully got paid overtime for it. Boss wasn't too happy, had to have that happen for me and 4 other staff, and the inventory the woman was trying to steal had to be written off due to hygiene reasons and/or due to damage. Was an all around shitty day for us all (I was tiered as hell due to having virtually no free time between classes and work on that day of the week during that semester).

To end on a comparatively lighter note: one day while working there a kind old Haitian woman asked me where the toilet paper was. I told her the way from where we where, and she noticed I had an accent (and unlike most of the people around where I live she actually figured out my accent was that of a local Anglophone, not someone from France. I know that doesn't sound that big of a deal but I cry for joy a little on the inside when someone understand that). Sad thing was she said she was jealous due to the world of possibilities that offered me that she'd never have. Speaking French without understanding either English or Spanish meant she didn't have many options for immigration, it was either Quebec, France, or places not worth the effort of moving to. Honestly it broke my heart to see her. I didn't ask but I just knew that while she moved to Quebec for a better life, she wouldn't have come here had she known English at a functional level.

I suppose that's why Quebec's black minority is almost entirely Haitian in origin, while that of the rest of Canada is mostly African-Caribbean or African-American.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Never really done a heavy customer service job barring way back when in an Indian restaurant I worked at when I was 14-15. We had a customer who was a regular so I didn't want to insult... but mid way through his main course, he reached over to a recently vacated table I was cleaning. There was a half eaten tandoori chicken dish.

He picked it up, put it on his table and muttered: "So wasteful." I had to step in. I was kind of half shocked so I couldn't pull off my usual, cool, professional tone. "You're not seriously going to eat that, are you!? They left it on the table for upwards of 30 minutes and they attacked it with knives they put in their mouth. Besides, you're supposed to be paying us for food."


He looked at me like I was from Pluto. Just... I don't get some people. I could understand if it were some pauper... but this guy was always dressed like a successful accountant.

 

[FalloutJack]

Snip

I already know how shitty people can be. I don't need a year of experience on it, and in fact avoided it because of it. Sorry to hear that you're one of my potential victims on the phone as I use funny voices before hanging up and laughing, though. (Telemarketers don't call here anymore because of me. That and no-call lists.)

OT: So, like I said, I don't work in retail. People like me don't like dealing with people like that, so we take jobs where we don't have to. Because of that, I don't have to deal with them. Consequently, I don't have any bad stories to tell, nor have I been any sort of a bad customer, largely because I read all these bad stories here and there.

So instead, I only really have a couple of anecdotes.

The first one is very simple: I NEVER had an issue with Gamestop. NEVER! Not one single bad representative of the stores have ever graced my presence! It's all "How ya doing?" and "Can I help you find something, sir?" and "Let me check our database and see if we can order that for you.". I hear about other employees in other Gamestops...and they're shit! How did this happen? Do I coincide with Winter Solstice, the Bermuda Triangle, and the Wild Card of the Velvet Room? Or is it that there are just some really unlucky people out there? I say the latter, because while people CAN be bad, they can't ALL be bad!

The second little anecdote is that sometimes, you can be too helpful. Not literally, but funnily. SO! I have been attending an anime convention in my town for a number of years. Why? Because it's in my town and I like it. When I initially started going, a number of people working as staff were friends of mine from college, some of which are still associated. Further, while I have never actually worked in the convention myself, not even as an official volunteer, I have facilitated things and helped things along for the sake of smoothing the operation in little useful ways. As a result, I have known the staff and been acquainted with the staff who know those staff for a number of years. I'm highly recognizable. It lately came to a head on this most recent edition of said con. Someone actually thought I worked for them and came to remind me about a meeting which I was not suppose to have. This...was hilarious. Naturally, I explained my position in things and no harm done, but I had to wonder just what would happen if I showed up...

 

[Parasondox]

A man once barged into my bookstore and asked if we sold any shoes in it.

Maybe it's a book called "Shoes". These authors today coming up with creative book titles. *shakes fist*

The best customers I have dealt with were the elderly couples. Or just any in pairs. Friendly, honest, just want to know they are buying the right thing and no one is trying to mug them off. Maybe it's because I have worked with the elderly before and I know how to to interact with them, but I see some colleagues and staff in other stores just treat them like crap and I hate them. Going to a store may be their only time to interact with someone, so why not just give them a decent few moments of your time. I know most of us are glued to our phones and don't wish to interact with humans face to face, damn millennials (you're 25, Para), but speaking to someone else who isn't shackled by tech for a few minutes, can brighten up their day a little.

To sum up. Heads up and interact with the worl... wait, my trains going pass Tottenham? Fuck that place.

 

[Callate]

My two particular favorites from working at a certain electronics chain were the old jerk who insisted on paying by check and then acted outraged that I expected him to produce ID and the much younger jerk who kept me at the register to berate me for not knowing how to access the layaway subsystem of the cash register (which had not been part of my training, and prior to that moment, had never come up) rather than permitting me to fetch a co-worker who did know how to access that sub-sub-sub-submenu.

("Yes, I understand your life is so shit that you can't afford $35 at one time to buy your electronic chess game, but how about you not take that out on me, prick?)... I came within a hairsbreadth of quitting on the spot just to tell that particular customer to go fuck himself.

Conversely, I got to pull a nickel out of my pocket to allow a young woman to cover her purchase and she said I had made her day. I told her that was definitely worth five cents.

My retail days are behind me, now, hopefully for good. And there are certainly clerks who just can't be bothered to do their jobs at a basic level. But I will never treat a sales clerk or a waiter who is genuinely trying to help me rudely. Kitchen shortages, stockroom mix-ups, not being experts in the whole store to be able to immediately tell me if what I need is available, being forced to ask everyone if they want to join a loyalty club or apply for a credit card... That is not their fault. And I don't need to take whatever is going wrong in my day out on some poor schlub in a uniform who is probably barely making better than minimum wage.

 

[infohippie]

Retail. I believe that everyone must do at least a year of it and it will change how you see and approach life.

Hell no. You couldn't pay me enough to work retail. I KNOW people are assholes, no way would I want to deal with the general public. On the other hand, I also believe that retail staff are actual people, which seems to be a pretty unusual belief itself, and I will go out of my way to treat them as such. I'm proud to say I am never the asshole shouting at the cashier about my crappy expired coupon, or some similarly entitled crap. Retail staff will always get a "please" and a "thank you" from me.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Hell no. You couldn't pay me enough to work retail. I KNOW people are assholes, no way would I want to deal with the general public. On the other hand, I also believe that retail staff are actual people, which seems to be a pretty unusual belief itself, and I will go out of my way to treat them as such. I'm proud to say I am never the asshole shouting at the cashier about my crappy expired coupon, or some similarly entitled crap. Retail staff will always get a "please" and a "thank you" from me.

I don't know ... a lot of people are alright when you scrape away the neuroses and narcissism. You know when I got the most abuse? When I was a teacher. Parent-teacher interviews ... ugh. Some students may be bad, but parents are worse. Someone once offered me a shot at year advisor ... nooooooo hooooooo hooooooo waaaaaaay~~~. You could've given me an extra 20k a year ... still wouldn't do it.

 

[Parasondox]

Hell no. You couldn't pay me enough to work retail. I KNOW people are assholes, no way would I want to deal with the general public. On the other hand, I also believe that retail staff are actual people, which seems to be a pretty unusual belief itself, and I will go out of my way to treat them as such. I'm proud to say I am never the asshole shouting at the cashier about my crappy expired coupon, or some similarly entitled crap. Retail staff will always get a "please" and a "thank you" from me.

I don't know ... a lot of people are alright when you scrape away the neuroses and narcissism. You know when I got the most abuse? When I was a teacher. Parent-teacher interviews ... ugh. Some students may be bad, but parents are worse. Someone once offered me a shot at year advisor ... nooooooo hooooooo hooooooo waaaaaaay~~~. You could've given me an extra 20k a year ... still wouldn't do it.

There has been a lot more stories about parent teacher conflict in the past few years now which i just don't understand. when I had my parents evening, my mom and other parents would be on the side of the teacher because, well, they were teaching us little shits. Today it just seems like the parents, some not all, are even bigger shits. No teacher deserves that abuse from a bad parent.

TEACHERS ARE NOT PARENTS TO YOUR KIDS.

 

[Saelune]

The first one is very simple: I NEVER had an issue with Gamestop. NEVER! Not one single bad representative of the stores have ever graced my presence! It's all "How ya doing?" and "Can I help you find something, sir?" and "Let me check our database and see if we can order that for you.". I hear about other employees in other Gamestops...and they're shit! How did this happen? Do I coincide with Winter Solstice, the Bermuda Triangle, and the Wild Card of the Velvet Room? Or is it that there are just some really unlucky people out there? I say the latter, because while people CAN be bad, they can't ALL be bad!

I also was puzzled by the hate for Gamestop, as I also never had bad experiences with Gamestop employees...atleast until I became one myself for a short time, but that was more a case of bad experiences with co-workers (no one wanted to train the new person I guess).

 

[Mister K]

Hell no. You couldn't pay me enough to work retail. I KNOW people are assholes, no way would I want to deal with the general public. On the other hand, I also believe that retail staff are actual people, which seems to be a pretty unusual belief itself, and I will go out of my way to treat them as such. I'm proud to say I am never the asshole shouting at the cashier about my crappy expired coupon, or some similarly entitled crap. Retail staff will always get a "please" and a "thank you" from me.

I don't know ... a lot of people are alright when you scrape away the neuroses and narcissism. You know when I got the most abuse? When I was a teacher. Parent-teacher interviews ... ugh. Some students may be bad, but parents are worse. Someone once offered me a shot at year advisor ... nooooooo hooooooo hooooooo waaaaaaay~~~. You could've given me an extra 20k a year ... still wouldn't do it.

There has been a lot more stories about parent teacher conflict in the past few years now which i just don't understand. when I had my parents evening, my mom and other parents would be on the side of the teacher because, well, they were teaching us little shits. Today it just seems like the parents, some not all, are even bigger shits. No teacher deserves that abuse from a bad parent.

TEACHERS ARE NOT PARENTS TO YOUR KIDS.

I think that many parents love their children too much and do not even consider the possibility of them being at fault. Or they think that they are always right, ergo their children cannot be wrong. Thats a pride thing.

Also there is a thing about mommies and daddies thinking that they know everything about their child better than others simply because they gave birth to them. Spawning a child doesn't automatically make you best at decision making regarding your kid, people.

OT: I don't have many stories. I have one nice and one funny.

The nice one: when I was a kid, our school managed to give a few of us a place in English camp in the UK. This was a first time abroad alone for me and I was nervous. So during the first fay we had a trip to the city (museums, walks, etc.) and we want to the sandwich joint. When I was ordering mine, I was kind of stuttering and just being generally, well, nervous. But they guy at the counter was really polite, told me that my English is really nice (you know, the usual stuff) and thanks to the attitude of this guy I loosened up a bit. And it was a damn good sandwich.

The funny one: I was still a kid and just started discovering pornography. I decided to take a look in our local DVD store (I did not know about Internet porn back then). I saw a collection of Pamela Anderson Playboy shorts. I came with it to the counter, acting all casual (acting is a key word). There were two employees behind a counter, a man and a woman. So the next thing I hear is:

W: Oh my (said with joking disapproval).
M: Oh please, this is a good stuff.
A booming baritone from employee storeroom: I GREW UP ON THE STUFF LIKE THIIIIS!

All of this was said really loud and everyone else probably heard it. They still sold me the DVD though. Probably because it was actually erotica and not porn.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I once worked in a fruit & veg store.

Lady comes in asking for strawberries.

I tell her, "I'm sorry, we've sold out."
She says, "But I really need them."
"I'm afraid we don't have any to sell to you."
"It's not for me, it's for my friend. She's in hospital with cancer and she wants strawberries."
"I'm sorry to hear that, but we don't have any strawberries in the store. They're all gone."
"But she has cancer. She wants some strawberries."
"There are no strawberries in this building. If there were I would be happy to sell you some."
"She has cancer!"

At this point I just walked away. I was tempted to call her out on her bullshit, but you never know, maybe there really was a friend in hospital with cancer.

Oh yeah, I get a lot of that sort of thing, people seem to think that if they explain why this is important to them then I'll suddenly be able to help them.

 

[Jei-chan]

I'm not really sure which category this story falls into, but it's an interesting thing I've noticed about the difference between service jobs in Australia (where I live) and in America (where my fiance lives and I'll be moving eventually). In Australia nobody gives tips for anything, mostly because we have a minimum wage of about $15.85 an hour (I think, don't quote me on that, I can't say exactly) so waitresses and such don't need tips to get by the way they do in the US.

What this mainly results in is vastly different expectations for what I want out of waiters and servers in a restaurant and what my fiance and our American friends do. In America, it seems to be kind of expected that a server is assigned to your group and hovers around like some kind of personal butler asking you if you need things periodically, and it drives me FUCKING CRAZY. When I go out to dinner (which is REALLY rarely) I usually want to spend the time talking privately with the people I'm out with, and this is what all of my Australian friends who I've asked have said as well (I had to check to make sure it wasn't just me). It makes me feel like I'm being watched in a reality TV show the way they just pop up all the time. It quite literally unnerves me.

Over here, or at least in my city, a lot of places have an option where once you get shown to your table, there's a button to press once you're ready to order, and the waiters don't even approach you until you press the button so they don't intrude (this is common in Japan and Korea as well). So going to restaurants in America always feels kind of like someone is playing a practical joke on me the way they sometimes ask you what you want literally as they hand you the menu, although I guess local people are more likely to know what drinks are available immediately than me who has to stare at the list of soft drinks and try and interpret what their equivalencies are here. Feels like I'm being hounded.

(To clarify, I'm not blaming the waiters/etc. I know that's what's expected of them. I just think it's an interesting divide in how service jobs are viewed across cultures.)

 

[HybridChangeling]

I was working in a "insert big box retail store" 3 years ago, and a guy pretended to have a fake accent and claimed he wasn't from this country and asked where the phone cards were. I hoped he wasn't pranking me or whatever, but he was extremely suspicious, asking if there were other employees around. I followed and watched him shove a stack of phone cards into his underwear and walk out. Management didn't worry too much, they are useless without activation.

 

[Phasmal]

I've done my fair share of time in retail and service jobs. Waitressing, telephone sales, being behind a register.

I've learned to never be rude to retail workers, because if you don't work in retail, you have no idea the shit they put up with on a daily basis. A little bit of patience and good manners goes a long way.

But as for funny stories, let me think:

I remember this one extremely hipster-looking white dude who tried to count out his change in Japanese but got stuck after 3. I think my soul left my body on that occasion because I was laughing my ass of on the inside but still managed to stay completely professional on the outside.

Oh, I had this charming interaction with a customer at the restaurant I worked at.
Her: Is the chocolate cake vegetarian?
Me: Sorry, did you mean vegan?
Her: No. Vegetarian.
Me: ....
Her: Is there meat in it?
Me: Well... I hope not.
(I checked. There was no meat in it).

Back when I was working on the phones, I was in a little section of desks with a few other people, and this is an office based in Scotland, but I am not Scottish. Most of my co-workers are, but they are in no way hard to understand.
I hear one of my co-workers answer the phone, but it's clear the customer isn't responding, and then they hang up on him suddenly.
Then I get a call, I do my intro, which finishes with something like '-how can I help you?'.
There's a long pause.
Then a very posh sounding lady's voice says 'Oh thank god! I had to hang up on the last gentleman. He was a Scot!'.

Final thought. Old people are the worst to people in these kind of jobs. They're constantly trying to pull a fast one and get stuff for free, or even straight up stealing, on top of having shitty manners.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

There has been a lot more stories about parent teacher conflict in the past few years now which i just don't understand. when I had my parents evening, my mom and other parents would be on the side of the teacher because, well, they were teaching us little shits. Today it just seems like the parents, some not all, are even bigger shits. No teacher deserves that abuse from a bad parent.

TEACHERS ARE NOT PARENTS TO YOUR KIDS.

Yeah ... I had a parent complain I wasn't teaching their child proper social graces. I kind of get the feeling that many parents would just like all schools to become an English boarding school. They just don't want to pay the costs of said 6 years of extended leave from home.

I think that many parents love their children too much and do not even consider the possibility of them being at fault. Or they think that they are always right, ergo their children cannot be wrong. Thats a pride thing.

Also there is a thing about mommies and daddies thinking that they know everything about their child better than others simply because they gave birth to them. Spawning a child doesn't automatically make you best at decision making regarding your kid, people.

Definitely ego, at least. We had a child that would have been far better off special needs. The fact that the counsellor had to sell them on it was just the cherry on top of a shitty parent sundae.