I'm old enough to remember when the phrase "the customer is always right" was not as ubiquitous as it is now. When it was enough for a business to give the customer what it said it was going to give with a minimum of friction. When the goal wasn't to "delight the customer", but to simply to provide the customer what they were paying for. Egregious rudeness was not tolerated, neither from the business nor from the customer. A business transaction was just that, a transaction where both sides treated each other with respect, or at least without disrespect or overt rudeness. When I was a young man I had a weekend job in a full service gas station. The station manager was a surly ex-Marine by the name of Al Kramer. He was in many ways very difficult to work for, but when push came to shove, he didn't allow customers to abuse his employees. One afternoon a customer complained that I had short changed him. In those days gas purchases were not rung up on a register. Everybody who worked the gas pumps was given a "bank" to start his shift and the cash from each transaction was held by the worker until the end of his shift. Each pump had a little counter that kept track of dollars and gallons - these numbers were written down at the beginning and end of every shift and compared with the money that was turned in. If there was question of a customer being shortchanged, that particular pump would be shut down, a reading taken, and the money counted and compared to the difference between beginning and ending readings. In this case, I had the exact amount of money that I should have, therefore, I had not shortchanged the customer. The customer, however, was not satisfied with this answer and accused me of stealing the money, and not including it in what I turned in, and asked Al what he was going to do about it. His response to "what are you going to do about it?" was to tell him that he was going to give him a kick in the ass and threw him out of the station. How common do you think it would be today for a manager to not only stick up for his employee, but to do so in such an emphatic manner? Al Kramer may have been an extreme example, but I can't imagine any retail manager back in those days allowing a customer to verbally abuse an employee. What changed?
As I stated earlier, it used to be that a business person's only goal was to provide their customers with their product at the advertised price. Of course I'm aware that there was a time, before the rise of unions, when employees where viewed as little better than slaves. Low wages, horrible working conditions, no job security. But the interaction between the business and the customer was one of caveat emptor, i.e. "let the buyer beware". Somewhere along the way, "customer service" became as much of a commodity as the product itself. I ask again, what changed? I'm going to blame Walmart as one instigator of the change to "the customer is always right", although there are certainly other causes. Walmart, or giant companies like Walmart, can be viewed as instigators, not because they emphasized customer service, but because of their strategy of driving competitors out of business by offering prices so low that it was almost impossible to compete on the basis of price. If you couldn't compete on price, you had several competitive options open to you: one was quality, the other was service.
In the scramble to stay in business in the face of the steamroller that is Walmart, retailers tried (and are still trying) numerous ways to keep their customers. The one path that has led to the present-day culture of customers abusing workers with impunity was to give the customer what he or she wanted, usually without question, and to reward the rudest customers for their rudeness. It's no secret that the "Karen" (or her male counterpart) who yells the loudest and is the most insistent usually is given what she wants. When in decades past a customer who yelled at or insulted the teenager ringing up groceries would be escorted out of the store, today the same customer is apologized to and given a gift card for their trouble. Unlike the Al Kramers of days gone by, an abusive customer isn't offered a kick in the ass, with the employee being given the benefit of the doubt, but today's employee is assumed by management to be in the wrong and the customer is courted and begged to forgive. As I used to say when I was a retail manager: we've trained customers to be assholes.
Some people just want to control other people. They fall into several categories:
The Truly Powerful Person
People who have real power, whether it is in the political realm, the business world, sports, social status or even being physically intimidating are used to getting their own way. Sometimes it comes from being surrounded by sycophants who cater to their every whim. Sometimes it comes from being used to employing the fear of being beat up or shot to get their way. This type of person, in his or her daily life, sees no benefit to treating others with respect or kindness. That doesn't mean that people in power can't treat others with respect or kindness or that they won't, just that there is no social pressure to do so. In everyday interactions, the Truly Powerful Person (TPP) is habituated to giving orders and having them obeyed without question. So what happens when the TPP is in a situation where no one knows that they are powerful or where there power is irrelevant? When confronted by this indifference to their exalted status, the TPP often responds by saying things like "Do you know who I am?" or "I'll have you fired". They are so flabbergasted by the absence of the deference that they are usually accorded that they lash out. The TPP often knows people. Perhaps they play golf with the company president, or have connections at the mayor's office. There's a good chance that they will get what they want and more, just by suggesting that they're going to talk to their other powerful friends. When encountering retail employees their natural inclination is to see them as just another person to provide them without question, with everything that they ask for.
The Conventionally Powerless
Many people have little to no power in their everyday lives. They are far down the ladder of power and authority in their jobs, socially, politically and economically. They may be a persecuted minority, they may be a low skill worker, they may be poor. They spend most of their time being disregarded and treated badly. So what happens when they encounter someone over whom they may have some small measure of power, even if it's only temporary? The smallest slight becomes cause for retaliation. They act in a manner similar to those who have actual power. In fact, I have seen this type of person become more abusive and eager to throw their weight around than those who have real power. At one of my previous positions we had a guy that we called "hand basket guy". We called him that because he would enter through the exit door and, not seeing any hand baskets (they were usually by the entrance door), would curtly say "hand basket" to whoever walked by. Not, "where are the hand baskets?" or "can you get me a hand basket?", but simply "hand basket". He was a dick. This man, not only raised hell whenever he had a legitimate complaint, but he seemed to come in looking for something to complain about. He would berate checkers when they didn't respond to him in the way that he thought was "correct", but we noticed that when he was shopping with his wife, he was as meek as a lamb. Possibly she had the real power at home and he came to the store to exercise a little control. People in this category are wont to threaten to sue you if you do not comply with their wishes. However, they generally are the kind of people who can't afford a lawyer and haven't the slightest idea of what is legally actionable.
The Person Who Has Authority in a Teeny, Tiny Area
You sometimes see this with people who have been given a small measure of authority: small town police and government officials come to mind, the clerk at the DMV or the guy checking IDs at a popular night spot. Somebody gave them some power and dammit!, they're going to enjoy it! They may not have a lot of power in the grand scheme of things, but they're going to exercise it in their own narrow sphere. Fortunately, these people usually practice their power grabbing assholeyness in their own circle of authority, and rarely take it out on retail clerks. Watch out if you're speeding in their town though.
The Hybrid
A combination of the truly powerful and the conventionally powerless, this is a person who comes from a typically powerless group, like a racial minority, or is uneducated, or comes from the "wrong side of the tracks". When this person gains power and prestige, either by education, success in sports, music or business, or maybe even in the realm of criminal activity, "respect" becomes very important. Respect is demanded in all situations. When the fantasized level of respect is not accorded to the hybrid, not only will this type of person lash out, like the first category of person, but accusations of bigotry are thrown around as well. This person probably won't sue you. They probably think that they know powerful people, but actually just routinely annoy powerful people. They'll write letters to the editor and flood social media with their view that you are an idiot.
Whatever category of control-seeker a customer may be in, the knowledge that their behavior will be encouraged emboldens them.
So, if the culture has shifted so much that abusive behavior by customers is accepted and mainstreamed, why does it seem like bad customer service is as widespread as it is? Before I answer that, let me tell you what I think good customer service consists of (and what it doesn't):
* It's not acting like you're my best friend. I don't care if you like me. I don't care if you are uninterested in my personal life. If you're a cashier, ring my order up accurately and quickly; if you're a waiter, take my order and bring me what I ordered. I have told several checkers over the years that they were "my favorite" because they didn't pretend to like me
* It's not spouting out clearly insincere phrases like "Welcome to Ralph's Hardware"
* It's not asking me if I found everything that I came in for unless you plan to do something about it
* It's not having every employee run up to me to "greet" me ((I'm looking at you, B&R Five Feet & Greet)
* It is answering any questions I may have about availability or location of products, but not rolling your eyes and sighing if you think I asked a "stupid" question; or correcting my pronunciation of a product
* It's having advertised products on the shelf throughout the life of an ad or giving me a raincheck or making a substitution if the product is not available
* It's focusing on my order and not holding personal conversations with other employees
On occasion I have encountered over-the-top rudeness by retail employees. I have also witnessed numerous examples of just plain poor customer service skills. A few months ago a purchased several dozen folders from a local store. There were two different varieties with a small variance in price between each. I double checked the UPC codes to make sure I was getting the right product. When the cashier was canning them I saw that about half of them were ringing up at a wrong, higher, price. When I pointed this out to the cashier, she replied "Oh you probably got the wrong ones". When I assured her that I had not, she countered with "Sometimes things are different prices". Yes, sometimes customers grab the wrong items and sometimes things are different prices, but leading with a suggestion that the customer is wrong is...wrong. She could have asked someone to do a price check, or asked a manager for input, but she continued arguing with me. Eventually a manger came over. When I attempted to explain the situation, he ignored me. He, seeing the amount of money was relatively small, gave in. In this scenario, no one was overtly rude to me, but neither the cashier, nor the manager, was engaging in basic customer service with a polite customer who had a legitimate complaint. How does this happen.
Poor training.
How often does a new employee get thrown into her job with insufficient training? How many managers got thrown into their jobs with insufficient training? And now, because they have no idea how to handle customer questions or complaints, or for that matter even the basics of customer interactions, they have participated in a vicious cycle that gives the customer a pretext for escalating into rudeness.
Speaking of vicious cycles, how many rude retail employees are acting that way because they have had enough customer abuse, have had enough of a lack of support from management, are sick of being in a system where you are expected to bow and scrape to people who treat you like dirt? To not only accept abuse, but often be forced to apologize to the abuser for objecting to the abuse? Just because someone is young, is in their first job or is uneducated, doesn't mean that they're stupid. They know that calling them an "associate" or a "teammate" doesn't make them any any better than when they were called simply an "employee". They see that the retail culture devalues them, and it's not going to get better. So they act as if they don't care.
Because they don't, they know there's some other low-wage job that they can get tomorrow if you fire them today.
