Look at how greedy you have become!

People feel that being a customer gives them the "right" to be rude,
obnoxious or just downright mean and evil. But then those are the
persons who are probably that whether they shop or not probably.
Dispositions vary - people are different.

Peronally I believe the reason the phrase "the customer is always
right" has suffered greatly in this past decade is because businesses
grew weary of those customers who took advantage of them. They are in
business to make money. Too many thefts of merchandise that was then
returned to the store for a cash refund, sans a receipt, made it
difficult for those of us who did shop honestly to return items
without that receipt.

Although my ego was not wounded when asked to present a receipt when
returning items, many people still feel outraged at this. They take it
as a personal attack on their intergrity and feel they are being
targeted as a thief.
However sometimes those who protest too much are not always the
innocent.

I have been in the retail business for over 30 yrs. I have worked for
major retailers all the way up to district mgr. I am also a huge
consumer of electronics and clothes as I raised 6 children. Sounds
like you work in retail and customers are getting on your nerves.
People are upset when the few dollars they worked for are taken in a
sale and the sale does not work for them. I have dealt with upset
customers and scam artists as well. The person who works in retail is
the one who has to decide if its a scam or is it real. Losing your
temper or feeling like they are coming at you or looking to get away
with something is wrong. Every upset customer is an opportunity to
solve a problem and keep that customer coming back. Since most scam
artists are so good at it those you may never see coming. Maybe just
some customers who think they are owed something you need to find out
why. Then let the Manager deal with it. Its not easy dealing with
the public but most business are in it to keep customers as that is
how they pay their people.

Ihave followed this thread for a few days after seeing it linked on a
very nice website for people in service type jobs and I agree with
the common sense answers that the majority of the responders have.
But I'm appalled and incensed by some of the other answers,thoughts
and suggestions trotted out by some people who are the victims of
faulty thinking. Unfortunately,specific examples can't be pointed out
here without risk of censure.

to say the least.

Thank you for posting!!! I agree. I also would like for people to
understand that just because you have a small child, are pregant,
is/was in the military, you are not entitled to special treatment.
Just leave that part out of your complaint. If you have truly been
"done wrong" what difference does your personal situation make? You
are still no more special than anyone else.

Over the past two weeks I have made returns at Target, Victoria's
Secret, Abercrombie and PacSun. Every return was handled easily and
efficiently. I had receipts for every item. (I have a teenage
daughter is the reason for all the returns, *sigh*)

I have responsibilites as a consumer as much as the retailer or
vendor. Every single transaction is a mini-contract.

One thing that makes me sad is how many posters have young children (i
know this because they find it necessary to note it in their
complaint?!) and they waste so much time here complaining. Spend
time with your children and don't let them see you get so upset over
little things.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where the squeaky wheel gets the
grease. The whiners and ranters, and those who act in a childish
manner are often the ones who get rewarded. It's a poor system, and I
hope it's SLOWLY changing.

I'm confused as to why people want robot-like efficiency, but then are
upset when rules can't be bent or changed at their whim, or why they
aren't being given "special" treatment that's different from everyone
else. You sure as heck can't argue with a machine, so if you are
going to treat me like one, then why are you arguing with me?

I try not to take my "personal" life to work, but honestly? I work to
live, I don't live to work. I don't have a career, I have a job.

When a customer gets unreasonable and wants to put me in a no-win
situation that turns personal (wanting to shop past closing time,
threats, abuse), I am done dealing with them and they can come back
when they decide to act like an adult. I am a human being, and I am a
human being 100% of the time with all the positives and negatives that
entails. While I try to keep my personal and "professional" life
separate, I can't simply "shut off" part of myself while I am at work,
or I wouldn't function at all. If that's unreasonable behavior for an
employee, so be it.

I am tired of hearing this "You should be grateful for employment" and
"the customer is always right" misunderstood bull. ALWAYS means
ALWAYS. If there is a point at your job or at a business where you
would draw the line with a customer for ANY reason (even something as
silly as letting them take money out of the register), then this
statement is false. "The customer is always right" is a mindset you
use when dealing with an issue. In crude, it means you don't call a
customer an idiot, even when they are being an idiot.

I actually ENJOY being friendly and polite when giving customer
service, and I have NEVER yelled at a customer, or made a rude comment
towards them even when they are being nasty. I continue to smile and
offer alternative suggestions, I'm even happy to explain WHY the
policies are in place if they want me to. However, even THAT gets me
in trouble as then I have been accused of being "condescending." So
how do you win, knowing they people will interpret things however they
want to?

I ultimately WANT a customer to be happy with the business and their
encounter with me.

If you don't have the patience, as a customer, to deal with store
policies and occasional (non-catastrophic:non-life threatening)
mistakes, I suggest you stop doing business with the entire human
race.

Constructive and detailed criticism and suggestions are a great way
for companies to see where problems are and how they can fix them. I
fully encourage those.

But "OH! Poor me! But if you give me something, I'll forgive you!"
letters are not. I laugh SO hard when I read those: "Oh, I had a
terrible awful time and it was horrible and I was traumatized and boo
hoo! Oh, PS, if you send me some gift certificates, everything will
be ok. THX."

Dude.

There is no magic fairy that will fix things for you. Remember that.

Judging from man of the current letters - your letter hasn't made one
bit of difference - unfortunate.

I agree with you 100%

"Or complaining because a shop chose to close on time and wouldn't let
you in for that "one thing?" Seriously, those are not worth a
complaint." That is a legitimate complaint, maybe your opinion
differs but it's just that, your opinion.

As far as asking for "free stuff", if a company is smart they throw
freebies out to foster goodwill. A financially strong company can
absorb and write-off the freebies. If they don't want to offer any
sort of compensation they don't have to but it doesn't hurt to ask. I
personally think it's tacky but when service is truly bad an "I'm
sorry" falls a little short.

Customer service is almost nonexistent, if people were truly happy
with interacting with store employees the internet wouldn't be as
popular for shopping.

In the end, whether you're a customer or an employee, you're a
person.

If you treat the person you're dealing with as a person, things go
much better.

I've disgusted by those that take the attitude that someone that, as
an employee, someone needs to be less of a human being.

Yes, people have jobs to do. That's what they are paid for. But,
sometimes, people are, well, people.

Just because someone works behind a customer service desk does not
mean that they are less of human being. And anyone that walks in
thinking that, as a customer, they "deserve" unwavering
professionalism is, to my mind, full of themselves.

Your money is not buying a person. It makes me sick when someone says
that it does.

I've worked both sides of the counter. I've been a manager, an asst
manager, a team leader, and a plain old employee of various retail
establishments. I've worked in grocery stores. I've worked in fast
food. I've worked in restaurants. And I've worked in
business-to-business customer service settings. So, I know what it's
like to work with the general public. It's not easy...to say the
least.

However, I'm also a part of the general public and a customer of
various retail establishments. Whenever I read a letter here on PFB, I
try to approach the situation from both points of view (employee AND
customer). In the end, the customer side tends to win out because
that's where the majority of my dealings have lain, even when I was
working retail. Plus, companies don't necessarily have a vested
interest in keeping employees, but they do have a vested interest in
keeping customers.

There are many times when I agree wholeheartedly with a LW and many
times when I don't. But, just because a LW may be in the wrong (IMO),
it doesn't necessarily translate into the business being in the right
either. In a lot of cases, I can see where the business could've
improved in their interaction with the customer. That's the approach I
try to take when reading a letter, no matter how arrogant,
self-important, greedy, and just generally despicable a LW may come
across.

And even the LW is coming across as a crusty sodbucket, in the end,
it's up to the CSR to maintain their professionalism. I don't care how
bad of day they've had, or how long they've had to work, or whether
they're sick and can't take the day off, in the end, they are a
representation of the company they are working for.

I think it's important to remember that while we certainly have the
right to comment on a letter a LW chooses to share, in the end, the
one who will determine whether a complaint is legitimate or not is the
business. I don't always agree with a LW's assessment of the situation
from a personal standpoint; however, no matter how petty WE may feel a
complaint is, it is still valuable feedback for the company.

One more thing. I think it's easy to assume from reading some of these
letters that all customers are greedy, self-important jackholes. BUT,
in all my retail experience, and in my experience as a consumer, the
nasty, insulting, abusive customers were in the very low minority.
Most people I dealt with were reasonable, patient, and actually quite
pleasant.

When I read alot of these responses I think of a few things.

Alot of the letters that come through here are very vague and hard to
reply too.

So and so was rude to me when I placed my order. Ok how was she rude
to you?

I think letters like this should not be allowed to be posted. Its a
waste of time to read, and a waste of time for the corporations to try
to handle. How are they supposed to deal with a situation when they
dont have any details?

Some letters are just vindictive, racist, rude, and/or condecending to
the employees. Alot of these letters start out with a legit issue (my
order was wrong etc) and then degrade into, "when i went to complain
to the dropout that he screwed up my order". Any post that the
customer admits to antagonizing the employee should also be deleted.

All these posts make it rough for the corporation to sort through and
find legitimate complaints. Eventually they are just going to start
ignoring letters from PFB because they know its just another nonsense
complaint.

I know I am fishing in the realm of the impossible for the PFB staff.
It would be near impossible to police them all, but maybe there should
be a flagging system. This would be readers allowed to flag a post
that seems to be nonsense or incomplete and then up for review.

You know whats sad, is that people will take advantage of an employee
who was never rude to them in the first place, or completely make up a
situation that never happened, and turn around and complain about them
just to get a freebie. I hope and pray that the employee still has
their job, because there can be some very rotten people out there who
only think about themselves.Excellent letter, Amelia!

(n/t)

This letter should be the opening greeting to this website.

PFB serves a purpose, though lately its value has seriously been
diluted as it serves primarily as a pulpit for any disgruntled
consumer to post about how they've been maligned in some perceived way
by a company.

But the letters never cease to be entertaining which is why I continue
to read them.

Thank you thank you thank you THANK YOU!

It's about time someone wrote a letter from the other point of view.


I agree, some times complaints are VALID. sometimes they need to be
addressed. But I read so many that are just "I was told NO! Even
though what I was asking was totally unrealistic/silly/against company
policies, I was still told NO. Give me free stuff and FIRE PEOPLE!"
in some form or another. and it makes me sick. I've come to the
conclusion that every person, whether they are rich or poor.
Regardless of upbringing or back ground. Should be REQUIRED to spend
no less than 2 years working as a retail grunt. I think it would
really change how people treat eachother...and the people on the other
side of the counter.

I really hope that people read this letter and take it to heart.

Thank You again
~RED

i think you are wrong. i have worked nothing but fast food, dine in
restaurants, and customer service jobs my whole life.

in fact, that is what provokes me to write letters when i write them.
cashiers DO have control because in lots of establishments they have
control to make decisions (based upon the manager) and in others, they
have control to fetch the manager which they don't always do -
resulting in a horrible experience.

being an employee in the service industry and knowing the
expectations/limitations is what makes it even worse when i walk into
a place and get horrible service because i think to myself, "i would
NEVER do that!"

companies really DID send refunds and extra product and coupons.

In 1990, I drove 40+ miles to Milwaukee, just to get out of the house
with my small child. We'd recently moved to a new city.

I went to Toys'R'Us and bought two gadgets that would fit over a juice
box. I got home and found that one box was missing an important
piece. I wrote a letter to the manufacturer in Vermont or Maine. I'd
paid about $4.50 for the unit--enough to be unhappy but not enough to
drive the 100-mile round trip. The earliest the letter could have
arrived at the manufacturer would have been Friday afternoon or even
Saturday.

My telephone rang shortly after 8:00 a.m. on Monday morning. I had
not included my telephone number in my letter. The manufacturer had
gone to the trouble to find my telephone number, in 1990!, and waited
until a moderately reasonable hour to phone me. A new juice-box
holder was on the way, and the manufacturer was incredibly sorry.

By Tuesday, I'd received a whole new juicebox holder, PLUS the missing
part.

Before the Internet, Mr. Olie had bought a box of Fruitful Bran.
Sadly, it ended up being "Fruitless" Bran, as it included about 3
pieces of fruit. Our letter of complaint(including receipt and box
top) asked for either a refund or a coupon for a new box. We receive
a check for a refund and TWO coupons for free boxes of cereal.

Before the Internet, people had to actually WORK to read the boxes for
company addresses. Consumers had to actually WRITE a letter and send
an envelope to the proper address. Consumers had to use a STAMP!!

I think that the Internet has resulted in people's greed. People just
type in a web address and expect free coupons. Unlike the past, where
we consumers had to find an address(even if it was on the side of the
box), write out a letter on actual paper or type it on a typewriter if
we were lucky enough to own one, and address an actual envelope with a
real-live USPS stamp.

And then--WAIT. Four weeks, six weeks, long after you'd forgotten
about the price of a box of cereal.

In the Internet Age, and with sites like PF, consumers forget that we
might have to, you know, WAIT.

Are you going to write a similar letter on how all customers should be
treated with decency and respect by customer service reps?

With all the problems in the world today, it is shocking to see what
people complain about. But some feel that every complaint is a valid
one.

If I see one more letter from someone who thinks they should be
treated like royalty in a fast food joint, I'll (metaphorically)
scream. Then there are the letters full of poor grammar complaining
about a lack of English skills in minimum wage workers. I won't even
go into those that aren't comprehensible for one reason or another.

That said, I think the letter is probably going to fall on deaf ears.
The spoiled, entitled writers who need to read it will think it
doesn't apply to THEM.

Ditto! I've said before that I think that some people found this site
and think that it's Planet Freebie

Unfortunately some people are obsessed with the "customer is always
right" motto. They feel they can abuse, degrade and otherwise
humiliate someone because they feel they are working a job that is
beneath them.

Its almost a blessing when I read some of these letters and the people
are basically put in their place. Especially when they admit in the
letter that they abused the person helping them because they are a
min. wage earning high school dropout that cant read. God I love that
line lol

Amen to that! I wrote a simliar letter here about a year ago, it
generated quite a response, heres hoping that the community will get
involved (and maybe explain themselves)