I have been in customer service (retail) 20 years.
On Wednesday, September 12, 2001, my daughter (then a high school student, who worked part time at Joann's with me, where I was an assistant manager) and I opened the doors to Joann's in Staten Island, and dealt with the aftermath of the day before.
I had no choice but to go in, as the store was open, and some of the other workers couldn't get to work because all the bridges were closed. She should have been at school, but it had been canceled. I couldn't leave her home alone.
My daughter had stood and watched the towers fall from her classroom window. Not TV. Real life, real time. (as I did, down the street from her)
While at work, she received a phone call from one of her best friends, saying that the man who drove her home from school Monday(the father of another friend, since kindergarten) had not returned home yet, that though he was supposed to have gotten off work early Tuesday morning. (firefighter) He apparently had stayed late at the firehouse and ended up racing the rig to the towers.
Now, everyone was HYPER aware, hyper attenuated to each other; customers and workers alike, walked in a daze, questioned each other about being "OK?" (In NY, OK meant no one in your IMMEDIATE family perished. Cousins, sisters in law, friends died? you were "ok" )
My daughter at one point was apparently slightly 'harsh' to a customer, (who for some reason, seemed oblivious to the pain in the air) and she chewed out my daughter, and then me. I tried to apologize, and told the woman she had had some bad news, and the woman's response was "well, then she shouldn't BE here!"
"No, none of us should be here, ma'am," was all I wanted to say. None of us should be hunting through the store, scrounging up the last bits of yellow ribbon, blue ribbon, black ribbon, patriotic ribbon, anything that we, in our absolute lack of power can try to control by tying ribbons to our lapels, by getting up again in the morning, ignoring the smell in the air, the gray of the sky....
I had to simply ask my 17 year old to go look for something in the stock room, get her off the floor, not be able to comfort her,....
For all I know, that customer was not "OK" and just hadn't been able to lay her fury out somewhere else. Somewhere more productive, so she took my daughter to task.
It took until the end of October before they were able to plan a funeral for Mike Fiore.
There is always another side to every interaction. I do agree that the benefit of the doubt as relates to PERSONAL interaction needs to be accommodated.
The corporate mentality to the customer complaint?? That WE screwed up, we need to do what makes the customer happy. The corporate mentality, UP UNTIL the customer complaint? Cut hours, make do with less, sell the cheap garbage, hire low and don't provide hours and time for real training.
In all honesty? The customer is RARELY right. (If you don't believe me, you probably have never worked retail)
But we must treat you as if you are. With a smile. And patience. And know when to turn you over to someone else, someone who is neutral, who has not had to listen to you slap down for the past ten minutes your paternity, your integrity and your intelligence.
I do treat you and your concerns with a smile. (biting my tongue? perhaps) I do what I can to fix the error. I accept blame on behalf of the person who F'd up.
But still, the customer feels the rules are not for them.
To the woman with the cancer scare, I hope it was just that.
To everyone else. There is a reason I don't shop in Walmart.
I posted a blog before Christmas, "Christmas without Wally". I received some seriously cranky, nasty responses, and I was really rather tame in my explanation.
Totally taking this to it's tangential end, there is a reason the products at WM are the quality they are. There is a reason that other companies who want to produce higher quality products keep closing.
Remember, purchasing things for a song, we are destroying slowly our economy. No matter how many people work AT WM, the number of jobs lost BY WM....(ok soap box being yanked out from under me....
:thumbup:
to the OP.... I hope you were able to resolve this to your satisfaction.