I get it. The employee is always right.

The BBQ Pit
1

Read it if you haven’t already.

I am not defending the actions of customers who cut in line, raise their voices, or otherwise behave badly. I am not claiming that customers should always get what they want. But regardless of how badly they behave, there is no excuse for an employee to respond in kind.

It seems that all these employee go-offs (and I know that not all the go-offs were committed by Dopers) are prompted by the employee’s frustration. They feel that, when they’re being treated badly, they are justified in behaving badly right back. Do they think that if they ream a customer, they’ll never have a problem customer again?

If I heard a gift-wrap person say “Look, bitch” to a customer, I would not sympathize with them. I would think that, regardless of what the customer might have said to provoke them (and the customer might not have been combative) the gift-wrap person was a low-class jerk.

I’m paraphrasing from a book called “The Mental Game of Baseball”. (It’s not just for athletes; it’s informative for anyone who wants to develop a good work ethic.)

“One of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming that everyone around them should deal with them honestly and fairly, and that it’s terrible when they don’t.”

The world does not revolve around the employee any more than it revolves around the customer.

2

Why can’t you keep it in the thread, since you’re not even at a tangent to it? Just felt like being in the forum list?

And since you already spawned it, why should pregnancy be a valid reason to be an ass?

3

“Do they think that if they ream a customer, they’ll never have a problem customer again?”

No, we think that we’ll never have that particular customer again. And that is a good thing.

4

Wikkit: I wanted to dicuss this issue, without my post getting drowned out by all the back-slapping in the other thread.

Pregnant women have hormonally-driven mood swings. Their moods are also affected by physical changes: hard to fit behind the wheel of a car; nauseous; have to pee every five minutes; an ordeal to balance while going up and down stairs. Hard to keep an even temper, especially if it’s your first and you’ve never experienced this before. Being crabby is inevitable. Not necessarily excusable, but inevitable.

Nice attitude from you, BTW.

Silentgoldfish: How many particular customers are you willing to lose?

5

I’m sorry, I tend to be a bit snippy when people open new threads to continue a discussion when they think they’re losing.

I’ll quit if you will.

6

You weren’t even listening. What’s there to quit?

To reiterate: No matter how badly a customer behaves, if you curse at them, raise your voice, or otherwise make a scene, you have surrendered your position of authority. There are ways to dismiss them without descending to their level.

7

“How many particular customers are you willing to lose?”

All the assholes.

8

I should add that that was the stance taken by my former employers – if someone’s being nice, pleasant, or at the very least not rude, bend over backwards to help them. If they’re assholes, fuck 'em. They go somewhere else, we don’t have to deal with them anymore.

It was a policy that served the company well… that is until we got bought by a subsidiery of worldcom and everyone got fired :).

9

I’ll second that.

10

Why be polite to assholes?

Really, why should I smile and act nice to someone who is berating me? Are you saying that they are worth MORE than me?

11

You can discourage them without being an asshole yourself.

12

You can’t, actually. Someone’s being a jerk? They’ll just keep complaining higher up until they reach someone with the authority to be a jerk right back.

13

The customer from the linked thread would not be discouraged.

There are bad people in the world. IMO, we should start off being nice to everyone. And when someone is an ass in return, then we should stop being nice. There is nothing gained from being a doormat.

14

Nobody is always right. Nobody. Not the customer, not the retailer.

15

Again I say, I am not defending customers who get out of line.

I understand that some customers are more trouble than they are worth, and should not be cultivated.

But there is a way to deal with a problem customer.

It does not involve yelling back.

It does not involve cursing.

It does not involve hurling insults.

It does not involve making a scene, or contributing to one that the customer is making.

What it involves is maintaining a professional demeanor. It involves letting security remove the customer if necessary, because security is trained to keep their emotions out of the interaction. It involves keeping one’s cool and stating firmly that the company cannot comply with the customer’s request.

That policy will clear out the so-called assholes.

But what defines an “asshole”? A customer might not be an intrinsic asshole, but just coincidentally having a bad day.

If your business seems to be overrun with assholes, maybe, possibly, you’re defining the term wrongly. Or perhaps there’s a reason why people magically turn into an asshole as soon as they enter your place of business. If you have a problem with the majority of customers, perhaps you should look at the one constant in the equation. Or perhaps you’re in a line of work where people are just not ever going to be in a good mood when they’re seeking your services.

My husband is a film electrician. He’s had jobs where he’s had to take unfathomable amounts of shit. He’s been on shows where the gaffer, or the DP, or the director seemed to take delight in reaming people. Not even because his work in particular, or that of the lighting crew in general, was unsatisfactory. Just because they could. He says “Yes sir” and he does what they ask. No matter how rudely they asked.

And he always gets hired back. Or hired for other shows. Sometimes by the people who reamed him on the previous show. On Spiderman, Sam Raimi took him aside on the last night and complimented him on doing such a terrific job. Sam Raimi, ladies and gentlemen. Sam Raimi noticed an electrician.

And do you know why this is? Because no matter how much shit someone gives him, he can always take more.

What none of you seem to be hearing is, it is not all about you. I don’t care if your ego took a hit. I don’t care if the “asshole” is the hundredth person who’s rubbed you the wrong way. It’s your job. You just have to take it. From everyone. And no, that does not mean giving in to unreasonable requests. But it does mean behaving reasonably. And behaving reasonably does not make you a “doormat”; it makes you an adult.

You’re not obligated to placate the customer at the expense of the company. When they don’t get what they want, they will take their business elsewhere, and if that’s what they wanted, it’s all good. But that’s all the control you have over the situation.

You’re not entitled to any get-back. You may know the perfect thing to say to this person. You may know the perfect thing to do with their latte. But if you do or say something unprofessional, you are the asshole.

16

Seems like you are.

17

No, I am not.

I am stating that it is possible to deal in a professional manner with someone who is out of line.

How can you not understand that?

18

(upon previewing, I see others have posted what I wanted to say. Oh well, here it is anyhow)

Rilchiam, it would be very nice if all the assholes of the world could be handled effectively with ‘polite discouragement’. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. There are seemlingly rational adults out there, with houses, families and paying jobs, who nonetheless are walking around in a fantasy world in which they are the bright warm centers of the universe simply because they’re wearing their magical customer hats.

You act polite to them, they act like assholes. You explain their request is not possible, they act like bigger assholes. You try ‘polite discouragement’, they start sprouting subsidiary assholes. You have an upper (or lower, if you prefer) limit on your behavior. They don’t. Eventually, you are left with a limited set of options.

1. Continue with ‘polite discouragement’ ad infinitum, or until the customer finally gets bored and leaves (during which time who knows how many other customers have gotten tired of waiting for you to grow a spine and have left, never to return).
2. Give in to their demands, probably pissing off a few other customers in the process, and ensuring that the asshole will come back again and again, now that s/he knows you’re a pushover.
3. Call the police to have the customer escorted out. Good luck with this one.
4. Snap the customer out of fantasyland by dropping the mask and verbally slapping the shit out of them, then telling them to get the fuck out and never come back again. Yes, you have “descended to their level,” but you have eliminated the problem and can now wait on your other customers, with whom you may then be just as cheerful and polite as you were before.

Some people simply will not respond to the carrot, no matter how it’s presented. For them, only the stick will work.

19

Because it is simply not true. If you added the qualifiers sometimes and some people it would be.

20

Option 4a: Get fired for “arguing with a customer”.

There is no clear-cut way out of this. I admit that. But yelling “WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?? WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?? I WANT YOU TO TAKE YOUR SHIT AND GET OUT OF HERE!!” repeatedly, for an hour, presumably in front of other customers, is not cool, not professional, and not something to admire or be proud of.

I don’t presume to know how each individual business is operated. But I can think of another option.

5. “Sir/Ma’am, I’m afraid I can’t do anything for you. Would you please step aside so I can serve the next person. Yes, sir/ma’am, I can help you right here.” If you don’t let them gear up by continuing to let them rant and rave, they’ll be discouraged sooner.