“Thank you for your patience.”
I hate when the subway conductor says this after I’ve been standing in the sardine box for 30 minutes between stations. It’s not like I had an alternate, acceptable choice.
Running the “How are you today?” “Did you find everything OK?” “Is it still raining outside?” routine with each customer in the express line, as the line is getting longer and longer. IS NOT good customer service.
Having a “greeter” to slow/distract/annoy me as I enter a store IS NOT good customer service.
I have started responding with “Not in my experience” when the kids at Radioshack (who do not, in fact, know a transistor from a transformer) ask “Can I help you find something?” Offering assistance, when in fact you should know damned well you can’t provide any IS NOT good customer service.
Here’s one from Qworst: As a convience to customers (avoid waiting in phone queue) you can pay your bill over the phone with a credit card via an automated system…but only 9-5 M-F! WTF ? Oh, and we only mention this restriction AFTER you have entered ALL the required info including credit card # AND responded by pressing 1 when it is read back.
Another from Qworst: If you pay your bill over the phone, you must enter data from your paper bill in order to verify your identity. Hey Qworst: If an imposter wants to pay my phone bill for me; please let them!
Qworst again: Same “data from paper-bill verification” routine if you want to view your account online. Never occurs to them that maybe, just maybe, people might be checking thier bill online because the freakin’ paper bill is not handy/lost/whatever.
Phone queues suck…but if we must have them, can’t we periodically tell each customer thier place in line as they advance? Only once have I encountered anything close to this, which gave only a time estimate. Dumb, just inform me how the line is moving, and I’ll form my own estimate. Better yet have your damned computer take my number and have the computer return my call a few minutes before a human becomes available.
And when I get to the front of that phone queue, it REALLY pisses me off when you go into a long speil about your commitment to customer service. See first point in this rant.
I’ve gotten used to most of these little things - the company I work for requires employees to greet within 30 seconds and likes it if you tell them about the sales within a minute. Working retail and food service has given me a proper respect, I used to be the kind of person that left a dressing room in shambles.
Although I don’t like it if a salesperson won’t leave me alone after I say ‘I’m just browsing.’ You’ve initiated it, I’ll come back to you when I need you.
You’ll like the alternative announcements on this page.
I work in a 4-star restaurant and this is the case for us. In addition to water, we also have a similar policy on other refillable drinks. I’ve found this works very well. On a busy night, if I make a mental note when the glass if half-filled, by the time I get out with a new drink or pitcher of water, the drink level will be low enough to actually need refill.
Personally, I hate reaching across the table or interrupting the customers to ask if they need a refill of water, but it must be done. Some customers get too caught up in the conversation to remember to ask. They want their waters filled, but won’t pass their glasses over to me unless I politely interrupt and ask. The grateful looks on their faces and their ‘thanks’ let me know that my interruption was necessary. I wish that all customers would move their glasses to the side when I came by with the water pitchers, but many of them don’t. It’s the same with people who don’t know how to properly signal that they are finished eating. If all customers knew and practiced this, I wouldn’t have to interrupt to remove their platters.
As for the coming by the ask how things are doing - I personally prefer to signal down my server when I need something new or want to order a new item, but many people will only give their requests to me if I initiate the conversation. Some of it is the restaurant’s fault, especially if random people are coming up to your table every 5 minutes, but other people are responsible for a lot of the customer service seen at restaurants.
What is the proper way to signal you’re done eating? I’m a slow eater, and I rarely finish a plate, so I would love to know.
Peeve #1: when the cashier at the grocery chek-out announces to the world what my total purchase is, when I am able to read the registar screen quite well.
Peeve #2: When a clerk comes directly to me and asks “is there something I can help you find,” or " can I help you?" When I decline they walk away, ignoring the rest of the customers in the area. Is this because I look too stupid to be able to find something by myself?
Conform or DIE!
Um, I had no idea the whole hand-touching thing was such an issue.
I don’t do it intentionally, but my hands often touch the customer’s hands when I’m giving them change (or their coffee) just by chance and accident. There are easy enough ways to avoid touching most the time, but it still just happens. I’m obsessive about washing my hands though, so whoever accidently comes in contact with my hands when I’m giving them their change doesn’t have to worry.
Oh, you’re the one!
As it is I have to repeat myself eight times before the poor harassed clerk actually hears me and understands that NO BAG WILL BE REQUIRED – often this happens after the product is actually in a bag, and very often when my own cloth bags are right there on the counter. (For some reason, the clerk who was so enthusiastic about bagging my purchases is never quite so hyper about putting them in my bags.)
(One time I bought a bag — that was already packaged in a bag – and they tried to put it in a bag!)
For this, press number 1 or say what you want.
I have conflicts with my manager over things like this. He gets mad at me because I don’t tell people their totals - my argument is that they already know how much they have to pay because the total is right in front of their face. I’m winning this one.
He use to get annoyed with me for greeting customers with “hello” and not, “Hello, how may I help you today?” Dammit, I work at a coffee shop - when somebody walks up to the register, I know what my mission is. Nevermind that it grates my nerves when I hear him say it because its so damn fake.
As a server I’m perfectly aware that most people don’t wan’t to be bothered while they’re trying to eat. But there are some things we MUST do. We MUST ask how your meal is, otherwise a sizeable percentage of diners will try to weasel out of paying by claiming that the meal they ate every bite of had something wrong with it and NOBODY EVER ASKED HOW IT WAS. Even in nice restaurants. I’m not kidding.
As for the enquiring while mouth is full complaint, well.
You’ve taken a few bites, had time to try your meal. I’m walking towards you, making eye contact. If you’ve EVER eaten in a restaurant before, you ought to know what’s next. Couldn’t you pause that fork for just a sec, hmm?
Other than that I’m all for leaving you alone until cued.
If I was paying attention to the wait staff, I might. Odds are I’m reading and such, though!
I was taught:
The X position which is commonly used actually means that an individual is not finished eating.
Also, if you have to get up, don’t put your napkin on the table. Leave it on or drape it over your seat.
Well, when I’m at a restaurant I am usually with someone and talking with them and not watching for the server who may actually be behind me. Also I am very nearsighted (but not of the Mr. Magoo variety that would require me to always wear glasses) so if you are a couple tables away and walking toward me and making eye contact, I can’t see that you are even though I might be facing that direction. Since the server is the one approaching, they could possibly time it better than I could.
This reminds me of another one – servers who are constantly trying to take your plate, or asking if you’re finished yet. I’m a slow eater too; at a certain restaurant, I’ve learned that I have to lean over my plate with my arms placed on either side of it to keep servers from taking it. At this same restaurant, my father’s steak had just arrived at the table when he got a call from work. He stepped out to take the call; in that time, five servers came by and attemped to remove his untouched plate from the table. There were no offers to box the meal to go, either – they all assumed he had left for the evening.
This is an interesting thread, because although it was started with the intention of working out what servers and companies and sales clerks are doing wrong, it turns out that we customers are a pretty fucking fickle lot, and that everyone seems to like thing s done differently.
The whole question of refilling non-alcoholic drinks seems to vary from place to place. In Australia, where i grew up, if you want a new soda, you pay for a new soda. Many places here in the US refill for free, but i’ve also eaten at places where they asked me if i wanted a refill, and i then found out that i had been charged for two soda on the bill.
I like restaurants that make sure everyone has iced water, but i do get annoyed when they come around to refill it every five minutes even if it’s still three quarters full.
And one anecdote from my own experience as a waiter: I was working in a restaurant in Vancouver, BC, that catered mainly to the lunchtime tourist crowd. The manager was a large, gruff, no-nonsense German guy who was a lot of fun to work for, but could also get irrational about some things. For a while he went on a “no water unless they ask for it” kick. We had been in the habit of bringing water to the table as soon as the party sat down, but one day the manager—in a bad mood from some other issue—marched over and started shouting at us that everyone who drank water cost the restaurant money, and that we should be pushing the booze. “Don’t give them fucking water unless they ask for it.”
Well, that’s all well and good for an evening dining crowd, but not too many tourist families are interested in the two-martini lunch. We just ignored him and kept providing water, because whenever we didn’t they would ask for it anyway, making our lives even more difficult as we ran around doing something that we could have done when they arrived at the table.
Keep fighting the good fight.
I much prefer servers who interact with customers naturally, rather than churning canned corporate greetings.
This is another one of those things that seems to vary from place to place. In Australia and the UK, it is generally considered that placing your knife and fork right next to one another, generally somewhere near the bottom of your plate indicates that you are finished. This website suggests a position of 4:20 on the plate, which seems about right, and kimera’s post suggest that many people in the US are taught the same thing.
Of course, i’ve seen some people who have finished everything on their plate leave their cutlery all over the place. And, back when i was a waiter, i quickly learned that some people had no fixed pattern for how to place their cutlery at any particualr stage of the meal. But i always worked by the rule that, if the knife and fork were on opposite sides of the plate (i.e., in an easy position to pick up and resume eating) then i didn’t clear the plate.
I fucking hate that shit! :mad:
Don’t drop my fucking coins on the counter and make me go scrabbling for them. Place them politely and neatly in my hand.
I get just as furious with customers at the grocery store who do this, too. The cashier will hold out his or her hand to take the money, and the customer will, instead, chuck it down on the conveyor belt. When this happens, i feel like picking up the coins and ramming them down the person’s throat.
And this surprises anyone? 
Darn it, I’ve managed to avoid posting in this thread whilst lurking all this time, 'cuase I’m so very sympathetic to the worker’s plight …
But I got SOOO annoyed at a restaurant yesterday where not a single coffee-refiller (several women, none of them my waitress) ASKED if I wanted more coffee before adding it to my (obviously creamered) cup.
Frigging fraggle rinkin’ damplering goobersnell…messin’ up my coffee/sugar/cream ratio…A person should have a signed permission slip before messin’ with another person’s coffee!