[Closed] How to deal properly with rude customers...

Damn, expecting some Sick! content.

The tattooist lived up to Scotland's motto: Nemo Me Impune Lacessit.

I'm cynical but it seems a bit made up?

That said, in sure the are customers out there like that.

I’m cynical but it seems a bit made up?

Nope.

He's my mate. Posts these things all the time whenever someone sends a ridiculous request to the Facebook page for his tattoo parlour

I work for a local authority, we see this type of complaint all the time.
Still amazes me how many people;
1. Take no responsibility whatsoever for their own actions.
2. Have a sense of entitlement that makes you wonder how they even function in the real world.
3. Will then do everything they can to take revenge on the business for the perceived slight via complaints/bad reviews etc.
I have no doubt Glasgow will get this complaint in from the customer, via various channels, and will provide a similar, although politer response.

The lady who got upset that we didn’t have a “ congratulations on your Siamese twins card”
The lady who bought her paper poppy back because the black plastic bit in the middle fell off.
The man who scratched a photo album on the shelf then said he’d bought it and wanted a refund because it was scratched.
The sheer amount of people who will walk past a sign blocking the door , step over all the tools and dodge around a ladder to look at stuff in the shop while lock down decorating. “ Sorry ,I thought you were open.”
“ I bought this elsewhere don’t like the colour but could you swap it as I don’t want to go back to kingston”
And on and on and on...

We deal with them at least every week.
Social housing repairs. The vast majority of our tenant are thoroughly decent people.
But, a small percentage are absolute scummers.
Drug dealer tenant had his door kicked in during lockdown. We visited, boarded it up as much as possible (it was totally ruined), and put a padlock and hasp on the inside and outside, so it would have been at least partly secure.
He was a horrible bloke who was shouting and swearing saying it wasnt good enough, he wanted a new door putting up at that moment - 4pm in the afternoon. This is during April, when the builders merchants were shut, so we had no chance of getting a door if we wanted to.

A week later, it happened again. The door was even more smashed in. He was mouthing off again, saying it was our fault for not fixing his door! We again put a load of t+G floorboards over the door, to make it, probably, tougher than it had ever been.
We walked off site when he started getting threatening, saying he wanted a new door at that moment.

On to 3 weeks later, and a complaint came in from the local MP about our service.
He was put right by our Manager, and explained the Tenant would have to buy a new door himself, or, pay us to do it. The Tenant knew who had done it (drug associates) and wouldnt report it to the Police. Without a Police crime number, we will not replace doors or windows free of charge.
Letters again went back and forth, until, finally, the MP realised he was being taken for a ride, when the local Police said the Tenant had been arrested for drug possession and will likely face dealing charges - the MP had reported it himself, so the Tenant could get a new door from us, the Police went round, smelt cannabis, walked in, to find him in the bedroom, with a load of packets around him.
It made us all smile.

It made us all smile.

Made me smile too, that’s hilarious!!

I have the endless delights of dealing with some members of the public who evidently have a lot of time on their hands and find it inconceivable that the local authority doesn’t just sit around on endless standby waiting to rush out and sort their minor problems out.

At present most complaints are about other people on buses not wearing a face covering and sitting where they like. I’ve had people tell me that bus drivers should be doubling up as security guards and throwing people off the bus as soon as they transgress. Pre-Covid it was usually bus stops being vandalised “why do you let your shelters get in that state”? Only for me usually to remind them that it’s usually the neighbourhood scrotes smashing them up, not my employees or contractors.

When I was a bus driver in London in the 80's and 90's the complaining punter was an almost daily occurance. A mate of mine, when faced with a red faced buffoon shouting and screaming, would very slowly and calmly take a book of stamps out of his pocket and give one to them. He would say 'that's for the letter of complaint you're going to send in because I'm not interested'.

I just used to tell them that when they complained to tell the company that I called you a (###)t as well, very rarely had anyone complain!

Bite ma banger . Superb , I’m having that one 👍

BoardinBob
Full Member
I’m cynical but it seems a bit made up?

Nope.

He’s my mate. Posts these things all the time whenever someone sends a ridiculous request to the Facebook page for his tattoo parlour

Fair enough and more power to him.👍

Whichever idiot said "the customer is always right" has clearly never worked in a customer facing role..

Whichever idiot said “the customer is always right” has clearly never worked in a customer facing role..

+1. When I worked in retail the mantra was “the customer is always confused”. It’s amazing how stupid customers are in shops, the odd thing is that I’ve found myself doing those daft things now after 10 years out of retail! I’m always polite and nice and try to chat to anyone who serves me and I ask how they are - it can make a really crappy day seem ok when customers go out of their way to be nice to you.

Well I think the guy should go ahead and get the tattoo off your pal now Bob.

I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

Whichever idiot said “the customer is always right” has clearly never worked in a customer facing role..

Used to get it in bike shops too. The obvious "I was just riding along..." but stuff like wanting a puncture fixed under warranty.

We had a guy who bought a mid-range lock then came in a week later, the lock had been broken and his bike nicked. He wanted a new bike free of charge as we'd obviously sold him a defective lock/claimed it was unbreakable. He went right to the top with his complaints, letters threatening legal action and all sorts.

And one guy who'd been knocked off his bike got really arsey with us when we wouldn't fix it cos it was covered in his dried blood from the crash. Sorry sir, that's a health hazard, but if you wash it and bring it back we'll happily fix it. We even offered him a bucket of hot water and a sponge to clean it outside on the pavement.
Cue a Trump-worthy paddy on the shop floor.

Customers. Meh.

Worked for a while as a bike mechanic in the Leeds branch of a Scottish capital based shop chain. Had a particularly obnoxious individual buy a Stumpy and return it 2 months later with a knackered bottom bracket. We swapped it as a goodwill gesture and suggested he avoid jetwashing in that area of the bike. He was adamant that he'd not pressure washed it despite it being "too clean" loaded into the back of his Audi and stomped off. 2 months later he turned up ranting that it had gone again, same story, he was quite shouty this time. We stuck another one in and off he went. A few days later one of the staff spotted him at the local garage, he'd been for his weekly ride around the slop of Roundhay Park, the bike was filthy and he was jetwashing the bejesus out of the bike before putting in his car. Sure enough a few weeks later he turns up at the shop apoplectic. I invited him to wheel his bike down to the workshop, while he watched I took out the chainset and about half a pint of water ran out. Still protesting his innocence, we showed him a photo that the colleague had taken of him jetwashing. We didn't see him again.

Customers? Who mentioned the C word?

Yes I've had the I don't jetwash my bike biblical flood out the bottom bracket conversation, also had a guy who was complaining his headset was broken. Obviously her never touched it, opened it up and bits in the wrong place and bits missing. He fessed up that he'd taken it apart and didn't know how to out it back together, if he'd just said that we'd have fixed it but starting off blaming us doesn't go down well.

I had a new rear bike light delivered yesterday, and couldn't find a part of the bracket in the packet. Sent an email, (polite) to the customer service address and got a reply, not an automated one within one minute. Impressive for a Sunday.

One more minute later my missis came through from the front room asking me what this bit of black rubber was she'd just found on the black sofa, so the customer service woman had to deal with 2 emails within a few minutes of each other at the weekend. 😁

Customers - arsehole's. Even when they're not trying to be.

We had a lady in the shop on friday complaining that after we had worked on her bike (new brake pads and cables) they had suddenly stopped working while she was riding. We had a look at the bike, no brake pads in the calipers and zero cable tension. Has anyone else touched the bike since you had it in with us? Nope. Are you sure? Yes. Nobody has touched it. Manager continues to explain how it has been checked by two mechanics, signed off by the workshop manager etc. The customer finally admitted that they had fiddled with the rear brake, but somehow it was still our fault. Unbelievable.

Nope.

He’s my mate.

@BoardinBob - please offer him my best wishes, and thank him for giving me and my g/f possibly the best laugh we’ve had in ages! Spectacular job. 🤣

Shipped a very expensive server and rack mount kit to a company, nothing abnormal. Get an email a couple of days later asking us why we hadn’t included the rack mount kit, and due to this, he wasn’t able to install it, lost a day, missed a deadline, caused the collapse of western civilisation etc. We responded asking if he was absolutely sure it wasn’t at the bottom of the box.

‘HOW DARE YOU EVEN SUGGEST THIS! I AM NOT AN IMBICILE! SEND OUT THE KIT IMMEDIATELY!

20 minutes later:

I am very sorry for my previous email. No need to send a replacement.

Fair play for apologising I guess.

Oh god... customers!

When I was a manager for a large National chain of Chemists, I had a customer absolutely lose her shit at me over the return of a product.

She went to great lengths to tell me about being a retired solicitor and was going to sue me.
The issue? She had bought a vaginal lubricant (Vagisil if anyone is interested) but it didn’t work so wanted her money back. Absolutely not an issue, I apologised for her discomfort (whilst keeping a straight face) and refunded her money. What I didn’t and couldn’t refund, were the loyalty card points (a total of ~12p)
That was it, toys out of the pram, every name under the sun shouted at me and then at the top of her lungs screamed “I have just walked all the way up that bloody hill chafing my vagina red raw how dare you insult me like this”

Thankfully I had a pharmacist on hand so handed  one raw fanny over to them to look at.

Some customers do not understand the impact their complaints can have.

Years ago I turned up at a clients house to do some work. Which I did, without issue.
The client contacted the company after saying I'd turned up drunk for reasons that are beyond me. I assume for money off as the work couldn't be questioned.

Nearly cost me my job at the time as I wasn't seeing eye to eye with the boss, and it took a great deal of self control to not pop back an demand an explanation.

@BoardinBob – please offer him my best wishes, and thank him for giving me and my g/f possibly the best laugh we’ve had in ages! Spectacular job

Some of his previous classics

Not suggesting that any posters on here are "old".... but spare a thought for younger people / students working in retail.

I used to work in Sainsburys when I was younger/a student, and the utter contempt with which some customers treat you is staggering. Having sat on a checkout for 8 hours a day for almost every Saturday for a few years, I can tell you that by far the rudest demographic (in that environment are upper-middle-aged women, with the same demographic of men being the most polite/friendly.

As much as I don't like the "karen" stereotype - I do recognize it

upper-middle-aged women,

Named Karen.

Brilliant.

I used to love a testy customer. As a younger man I used to run restaurants and this time of year we were awash with work bookings. This was easy money and really helped the usually slow Monday nights. One night we had a party of around twenty who had spent over a grand with 80% of that alcohol. One lady decided to complain that the ribs she had been served had made her vomit on the floor. I was called over to deal with it and listened intently while she told me with slurred words that she was disgusted that she’d been served vomit inducing food and under no circumstances would she be paying for it. I said that staff had seen her try to make herself sick several times before succeeding, I’m sure the 4 pitchers of sex on the beach hadn’t helped, why not go to the toilets, and would you like to come and look at her performance on cctv? She was gunning for the whole bill, I took the ribs off. I think it was an attempt to pocket some money but I’m not sure how. I complained back through the booking which turned out to be HR and this Rib Lady was actually a Director. Ouch.
Customers are often lovely, sometime idiots.

Having spent a lot of time in and around support / service areas, it astonishes me that we spend far too much time going "I'm terribly sorry sir" rather than "get ****ed and don't come back."

Cf. https://notalwaysright.com/

I took the ribs off.

Case in point. She won. Should've had a size nine up her chuff.

Some of his previous classics

That's what I'm talking about. Good work.