Retail Customer Service – Suze tells it like it is… or does she?
Once upon a time in retail customer service…
Cath was forty-two years old and had never worked. Aged 16 she gave birth to the first of her four children and shortly afterwards married their father, Dean. In those days Dean had a good job as a carpenter. So what with the kiddies plus the child allowances plus Dean’s wages, Cath had more than enough to do – and just about enough to pay for food, rent, bills and occasional holidays in Great Yarmouth as well as the real essentials like cigarettes and cider – without getting a job as well.
No sooner had the youngest child reached the cut-off age for child allowance than Dean conveniently developed a chronic lung problem and was diagnosed as being allergic to wood dust. Invalided out of the workforce and unable to retrain for another trade as that might exacerbate his lung condition, he went on the full whack of State benefits including a generous disability allowance. What with that and the cash he made from installing people’s flat-packed kitchen units, Dean and Cath were able to continue living in the manner to which they had been accustomed.
One day Dean rode out on his friend’s motorbike and wrapped it around a tree. Having sustained several broken bones he now genuinely was disabled and although all the State allowances were still coming in, the petty cash from kitchen work, not surprisingly, dried up overnight. “Tell you what Cath,” Dean slurred from his hospital bed through a haze of morphine, “you’ll have to get a job.”
- Image by ngietka via Flickr
Cath snapped back into her seat in shock. “Job? Can’t do nothing, can I?”
“Course you can, love.” The morphine was making Dean slightly evangelical. “There’s shops and places crying out for nice old bags like you.”
After a couple of days this concept had sunk in and Cath decided to see what she could achieve. As luck would have it a card in her local Co-op was crying out for checkout staff and, putting on high heels, a tight leather skirt and somewhere between three and eight rings into the holes of each ear, she applied for the position.
“Ever done this type of work before?” The manager looked like a twelve-year-old and spoke in a whiny, high voice. “No? Not to worry. We’ll give you some training.”
Cath’s training occupied just over 20 minutes on her first day, after which time she was fully conversant with bar codes, debit cards and how to say “would you like any cash back?” Soon she was behind a till and greeting her first ever customer. She was proud of herself because she managed to ring up all the purchases and pack them into shopping bags without making a single mistake which, considering she had left school at seven months pregnant with no qualifications, was a creditable achievement.
As the customer shuffled off Sheila, on the next till, pulled herself up to her full height of 4-foot-11 and put her hands on her hips, flapping her elbows slightly to look more assertive. “And what the hell do you think you were doing, you stupid cow?”
Cath stared at Sheila in silence.
“You don’t bloody pack their things. What do you think this is – America? Don’t you dare do that again or the b*ggers will start expecting us all to do it. We get paid to run the tills, not wipe their bums for them. Got that?”
Having learned this important lesson in customer service Cath decided to cover her backside and imitate all the other ways of working as demonstrated by Sheila and the rest of the crew. Soon Cath was gossiping away with the other girls on the tills, retouching her chipped nail varnish and even taking calls on her mobile phone while simultaneously ringing up customers’ purchases.
“That’ll be £23.45,” she said to the cigarette display unit while shoving her hand under one customer’s nose. “You got your Co-op card?”
There was a growling sound on the other side of the till. “How the hell do you expect me to find £23.45 and my Co-op card when I’m trying to pack a week’s groceries with one hand and stop my kids shoplifting the chewing gum with the other?”
“Do you want any cash back?” Cath asked the Marlborough Lights.
“No I don’t want any bloody cash back, but a bit of help would be nice if it’s not too much effing trouble. Oh, sorry darling, yes, Mummy did say some naughty words. Bad Mummy!”
By now the customer was stuffing the last pack of sausages in the last bag. Cath turned her gaze to the front. “You what? Yeah, that’s £23.45.”
The customer flung £25 down on the counter. “Put the change in the charity box. Please.”
“Some people, honestly,” Cath shrugged to Sheila as she pocketed the change. “They can be so bloody rude.”
Have you seen the same in your local supermarket? Tell us all about it here, in the comments.
PS And before anyone shouts at me for being non PC, this story and every character in it are absolutely real and true, although of course I’ve changed basic details as I don’t want my windows broken…
About SuzanStMaurBusiness, marketing and nonfiction writer, 20+ times published author, Owner and Coach at “HowToWriteBetter.net”
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15 Responses to Retail Customer Service – Suze tells it like it is… or does she?
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This “generous disability allowance” – where does one apply for that??
To be honest, the people who work on the checkouts in our local shop are very friendly and helpful. My daughter had a part-time job working on the checkouts at Sainsburys while at college and university, and she would always be pleasant and cheerful, even ‘tho some of her customers were occasionally very rude to her.
Twitter: evenbreak
This “generous disability allowance” – where does one apply for that??
To be honest, the people who work on the checkouts in our local shop are very friendly and helpful. My daughter had a part-time job working on the checkouts at Sainsburys while at college and university, and she would always be pleasant and cheerful, even ‘tho some of her customers were occasionally very rude to her.
Twitter: evenbreak
I think in fairness the large retail organisations do train their staff much better and customer facing staff seem much more motivated than those working in smaller units and independents like CTNs, convenience stores, etc.
As for the “generous” disability allowance … the family concerned managed quite well on it along with the under-the-table earnings they acquired alongside it …
Much as we hear what you say about how disabled people are unfairly discriminated against and are wrongly seen as scroungers, it’s families like this one that do actually exist and so give honest disabled people a bad name.
It’s one of life’s little ironies that the guy concerned actually did become disabled in the end – is that what you’d call karma?
Twitter: SuzeStMWrites
I think in fairness the large retail organisations do train their staff much better and customer facing staff seem much more motivated than those working in smaller units and independents like CTNs, convenience stores, etc.
As for the “generous” disability allowance … the family concerned managed quite well on it along with the under-the-table earnings they acquired alongside it …
Much as we hear what you say about how disabled people are unfairly discriminated against and are wrongly seen as scroungers, it’s families like this one that do actually exist and so give honest disabled people a bad name.
It’s one of life’s little ironies that the guy concerned actually did become disabled in the end – is that what you’d call karma?
Twitter: SuzeStMWrites
My mother in law lived with MS for forty years and even with a teacher’s pension as well as disability benefits found it hard to get by. So I’m with Jane, on that.
Customer service is variable too, and depends on the individuals as much as anything. Although actually, the Co Ops around here have been so badly designed, with no room for anyone – staff or customers to pack bags, I think that would be enough to wear down the sunniest person.
Sometimes though it comes from somewhere else. The local GP practice used to be dreadful, with surly unhelpful receptionists. But then the practice changed hands, and now the same staff are friendly and helpful
I have found the same with Doctors receptionists. They seem to get just the right amount of ‘sneer’ into their voices and and if you ask them anything, they shush you and if you speak softly, they tell you loudly to speak up.
My mother in law lived with MS for forty years and even with a teacher’s pension as well as disability benefits found it hard to get by. So I’m with Jane, on that.
Customer service is variable too, and depends on the individuals as much as anything. Although actually, the Co Ops around here have been so badly designed, with no room for anyone – staff or customers to pack bags, I think that would be enough to wear down the sunniest person.
Sometimes though it comes from somewhere else. The local GP practice used to be dreadful, with surly unhelpful receptionists. But then the practice changed hands, and now the same staff are friendly and helpful
I have found the same with Doctors receptionists. They seem to get just the right amount of ‘sneer’ into their voices and and if you ask them anything, they shush you and if you speak softly, they tell you loudly to speak up.
very nicely written..amazing what life make out of us, we are the products of our experiences after all, it seems..
very nicely written..amazing what life make out of us, we are the products of our experiences after all, it seems..
Want a really ‘off-the-wall’ example of customer service? But you must PROMISE to keep it secret…
Many years ago a young girl shared the Saturday chores with her two big sisters whilst her Mum was at work.
One of them was to do the weekly grocery shop at the local supermarket forerunner of the time. It didn’t have check outs, you had to queue up at separate counters and pay for different parts of your ‘shop’, unless you just wanted one or two extras and the person behind the counter was nice enough to get them for you.
There was one particularly miserable lady who was always very brusque when dealing with these youngsters and made big huff about having to move a few feet either way behind the counter to gather the extras so they didn’t have to queue again.
In the days when it was purely down to the counter assistant to calculate the bill and ring it up, nobody ever guessed how much that ‘miserable’ woman lightened the load and the cost of that weekly shop for I don’t know how many families
!
Have you worked it out yet
?
Twitter: Linda_Mattacks
Want a really ‘off-the-wall’ example of customer service? But you must PROMISE to keep it secret…
Many years ago a young girl shared the Saturday chores with her two big sisters whilst her Mum was at work.
One of them was to do the weekly grocery shop at the local supermarket forerunner of the time. It didn’t have check outs, you had to queue up at separate counters and pay for different parts of your ‘shop’, unless you just wanted one or two extras and the person behind the counter was nice enough to get them for you.
There was one particularly miserable lady who was always very brusque when dealing with these youngsters and made big huff about having to move a few feet either way behind the counter to gather the extras so they didn’t have to queue again.
In the days when it was purely down to the counter assistant to calculate the bill and ring it up, nobody ever guessed how much that ‘miserable’ woman lightened the load and the cost of that weekly shop for I don’t know how many families
!
Have you worked it out yet
?
Twitter: Linda_Mattacks
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