The thought of dealing with a customer service representative can make a consumer cringe. It seems that everyone has a story of an employee who was rude or had a bad attitude towards a customer. As an employee in the customer service department of a grocery store I try not to give employees a bad rap. I try to make every customer feel like their concerns are a priority and their problems will be addressed. However, customers themselves do not always return the favor.
For every costumer’s story about a rude employee I have a story about an unruly customer. Although I may get stressed out by the customers throughout the day I usually come away laughing because sometimes that is all you can do.
Some of my favorite stories to tell are the ones that tested my patience the most. For instance, I once had a customer reach across my counter to answer my phone. I believe she wanted to make a personal phone call, but instead of using the pay phone outside or asking to use my phone she reached across my counter just as my phone started to ring. She picked up the receiver and then realized that someone was on the line and began to hang it up. I ran over to the phone and kindly took the receiver from her before she could place it back down and answered the phone. The customer gave me the dirtiest look like I had just violated her right to make a phone call or something. I couldn’t believe what had just happened.
I often run into customers that assume that they know how to do my job better than I do. I sell Money Orders at the customer service center and I once had a customer who thought he knew how to make them better than I did. After 20 minutes of the customer yelling at me for every one of his 25 money orders he finally told me that “it wasn’t as hard as it looked was it?” and that it looked like I was “finally” learning and might be better at it the next time he came by. I believe this was the only time I actually snapped back at a customer. I tried to stay calm and politely tell him that I had been doing this job for four years, I knew what I was doing, and if I wasn’t doing it right then he could come and try to figure it out for himself. I felt awful after I said that and I haven’t snapped since but sometimes customers are worse to deal with than the employee.
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1 comment:
I bet you have some even better stories to tell than what you relayed. Still, it was interesting to see the other side of the issue.
The column seems short at 440 words. With another 200 words or so, you might have developed a more thorough piece, perhaps including more stories, perhaps including tips for people who are in a job like yours...
Also, perhaps some details about exactly what you do might have put some more punch into the column (but not thrown at customers...)
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