Bellow “I won!” at the top of your lungs, leap onto the table, and do an NFL victory dance complete with exaggerated hip thrusting. Scoring imaginary touchdowns with the plate is optional.
I haven’t read through all of these…
My beef, and it is a big fat cow, is the drive-thru’s that offer to sugar & creme your coffee for you.
Uh. No. You won’t put enough of either in and it will taste awful.
It isn’t a service. Just give me 6 cremey things and a handful of sugar packets.
Then I can do it myself. Really, I have a license to drive and everything, I think I know my own coffee tastes.
Oh, while we are at it, I hate the to-go lids that you have to tear away the drink section. Why can’t they all have the single hole thingy? Why Why Why!!!111!!!
Signed,
Shirley
In the vein of overly attentive store clerks, there’s a store here in town where clerks will not only ask you if they can help you [every 3 or 4 minutes], but they’ll come up to you, stand next to you, pick up an item near you, and read you the packaging with an “oh, isn’t this neat!” tone of voice.
I don’t go in anymore.
Some people can’t see/read the registers properly. Some, like myself, are busy scrabbling around in their purse or pocket or bag for money, any money. It’s a courtesy just to tell the person how much they’re paying. I also have mild dyslexic spells, and on more than one occasion have read the register wrong, then had to do a double-take when the staff told me what the actual amount was. Just standing there silently expecting me to hand over the green is just, IMHO, rather rude.
That’s unfortunate. I think it’s very useful to have the total read out loud. It’s a polite way of saying “I’m done scanning, now pay up!” And even if the total is displayed “right in front of my eyes,” it often takes a couple seconds to look up from where I was looking (maybe inside my wallet to find that $20 bill I know I have), look around and find where the total is displayed. And I’m sure there are people with weak eyesights who appreciate not having to ask for the total to be read out loud.
24/7/365 service hotlines.
Only trouble is, they only have two operators. :eek:
Maybe so, but I have a lot of moody smart ass customers who get annoyed when I read out the total. It’s become habit to not irritate them.
Sorry if it seems rude, but its not like I mean to be. The vast majority of the customers are regulars and get the same thing everyday, they don’t like being told the total. One gets into the habit of not saying anything right away because of it. If there is a pause and its obvious the customer is finished, then the price is announced if they’re not handing over money. I guess it depends on the place and what the customers are like. Never had any complaints (believe me, if there are any…we hear about it).
Any complaints we get are on company policy that we can’t do anything about. A different rant entirely.
Those morons who design forms where there’s a box to tick and the message: “Tick here if you don’t want to receive drivel from us”.
A specifically Hong Kong/Chinese gripe. Shop staff who don’t refer you to other stores where you can buy what they don’t stock. WH Smith in the UK had a referrals policy when I was a lad working in FMCG. They said it paid for itself several times over in terms of the goodwill it generated.
Regarding the above comments about how it seems that everybody wants something different–that’s true of course, but usually the majority do want it one way.
And some of these things are done one way because if the customer wants it the other way, it’s easier to reverse it in one direction. For example, if you go to hand the customer the receipt, a few will want it in the bag. Either they will put it in themselves, or say so, and then it’s easy enough to stick it in the bag. Conversely, if you put it in the bag, and they want it in their hand, it’s often a pain in the neck to fish it out.
Others are done one particular way because customers who want it that way are more likely to get offended than the ones who like it the other way. In other words, a lot of customers get offended if you don’t put their item in a bag, like you’re cheating them out of their rightfully earned bag, goshdarnit! Customers who don’t want the bag may get annoyed at the perceived waste, but they don’t think they’re getting cheated. (I do wish stores would encourage cashiers to be more cooperative/encouraging to those of us who don’t want bags, however. Like matt_mcl, I frequently either have my own bag, or don’t want yet another bag if the item is easy enough to carry. Sometimes they make a big show of putting a “paid” sticker on my gallon of milk. Oy.)
I agree that that sounds fake–especially if it’s a customer you serve frequently. I’d be totally weirded out if the guy at the local Dunkin’ Donuts said “how may I help you today?” instead of a smile and a “hi, how are you?” *
I really really hate it when I am at a fast food place or somewhere with a posted menu, and I’m obviously reading the menu, trying to figure out what I want to order, and the order taker says “may I help you?” I feel very much like I’m being put on the spot, and that the cashier is demanding my order RIGHT NOW! Note that in these instances, I’m not holding up the line, and I’m not even looking confused. I’m not even on line yet. I’m purposely not on line, standing away from the counter, reading the menu. Or sometimes as soon as I set foot in the door someone says it. No, I don’t know what I want before I walk in. Sorry, I don’t have the McDonalds menu memorized, and it makes me feel like they think that I ought to! I hate it, because don’t like being put in the position of having to say a negative like “just a minute” or “I’m still deciding.” I mean, it’s completely obvious that’s what I’m doing, and I’m not going to make the cashier stand there and pay attention to me, when she could be serving someone else or daydreaming or picking her proverbial nose. When a customer is ready to order, she’s not going to be standing 50 feet away staring at the ceiling. She’s going to step up to the counter and/or look at the cashier. I remember being in a very long narrow fast food place, where I was purposely standing as far away as I could from the counter while still barely making out the menu, and the cashier started hollering “may I help you” across the store. I guess it’s a corporate policy that they have to do this, but it’s a good example of something that companies think is great customer service, but makes the customer feel uncomfortable.
Back when I worked for Eastern Mountain Sports, the policy was that every customer should be greeted within 20 seconds or 20 feet from the door. But we specifically weren’t supposed to go shouting “may I help you.” We could just say hello. It let the customer know we were available to help them if they needed it, without putting them on the spot. (It had a loss-prevention purpose as well.) Even if the customer walked right in and approached the counter, or was specifically looking like he or she needed help, we were supposed to avoid the dreaded “may I help you” phrase, as people so often had an immediate negative reaction to it. People hear “may I help you,” and “just looking” pops out of thier mouth automatically! We did much better with “what can I do for you?” or “do you have any questions?” or even just another “hi, there.”
- A tangential story–I went into the Dunk one evening, to find two cops, a young woman, and the Dunk guy having a very cheerful conversation. Turned out that the Dunk guy–I think he’s Indian–had just gotten his American citizenship that day, and was showing off his papers. We all started quizzing each other on points of American history. The Dunk guy kicked all our butts, of course. And it was all I could do not to say in my best Apu voice “okay, slavery it is.”
)
Oh Og no. If I’m going to pay $2.00 for coffee, I want you to make it, and I want you to make it right.
I won’t go to any place that doesn’t make your coffee for you just for this reason. Bruegger’s I’m looking at YOU.
It’s even worse that they do all this stuff no matter how long the line is. There can be 2 cashiers and 40 people in line, but they’ll still spend that extra time trying to sell you more stuff rather than just ringing up the order faster so that the guy at the back of the line can spend 10 fewer minutes at the store. Forget bad customer service, it’s bad business - they’re forgoing the money of the people (like me) who see the line and just walk out of the store so that they’ll have that 1% chance of selling someone a $10 subscription to EW.
The big 3 letter telecommunications company. The big one that has a nickname that sounds like ‘ah hell’.
Calling their customer service line to complain on a Monday or Tuesday. You get the helpful message that says call volume is greatest on Monday and Tuesday, and you should call some other time.
If they -know- the call volume is greatest on Monday and Tuesday, and they are super large mega corp… why don’t they just hire folks or schedule more folks to work Monday and Tuesday?
I suppose it is because a recorded message is easier and cheaper than actually providing customer service.
Last time I got through to them, I told them to please note that I never, ever, under -any- circumstances wanted to use them, in any way, for any service. Ever.
Yep, I sold $6000 one day in the after Christmas rush working at MGR and using just those tactics. It’s one of those hateful things that works sometimes to great benefit and all other sides of it be damned! Lots of people bolted when we’d ‘vulture’ them, but a great many stayed and paid. (It helped to dress like a slut.) Now, I’m a bolter myself.