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| You can't buy happy, apparently. |
There needs to be new legislation put before Parliament.
It needs to put into law the following: every adult MUST work a minimum of one week (weekend included) in retail in a mall during the Christmas Season.
If so inclined, your week's work over Christmas may be exchanged for the Victoria Day long weekend, provided it is served in a Garden Centre and include ALL THREE DAYS.
Those of you who have this kind of work experience know why.
Empathy.
Experience such as this will forever stop comments such as this: "Remember! The customer is always right." The correct response to this is, of course: "No, actually, the customer is seldom right" but, as a lowly employee, I am not allowed to make these kinds of obvious corrections.
Or how about this one? A customer demanded a discount because of the 'horrible customer service' she'd received. Truth was, the service she received, considering how rude and obnoxious she was, was exemplary. If she'd bothered listening to the long-suffering employee for half a second she would have known this. But she didn't care. She'd come into the shop loaded for bear and determined to find something to complain about. So complain she did. For half an hour. With swearing. By the time she left, she'd received a discount, sure, but also heartfelt bad-wishes from the entire staff, and instructions to never darken our doors again.
I am of the firm belief that most people are good, mean well, and wish to leave a good impression. Unfortunately, this majority are sullied by the 1 per cent of the population who go through the world actively sowing ill-will.
How about the man who approached an employee and refused to talk to her because she was a student? Excuse me, but she's a student of horticulture and knows exactly what's wrong with your plant (you left it in the pot all winter, that's what wrong). Or the woman who used me as an example of what kind of job her daughter would 'have to do' as an adult if she didn't study hard enough? No, no insult taken at all. Or the man who called me a stupid b***h because the flower he described as 'pink, maybe' and 'it was right here the other day' was not one I could immediately identify? I mean, who raised these people?
I tell you, one week working in retail during a peak season would solve a lot of this. We could call it Empathy Training.
In the meantime, remember this: good customers get good service. Bad customers get quoted in blogs like this one.
Help me get through this busy retail season: share some of your best 'worst customer' stories.
Image link: http://www.land-of-web.com/stuff/40-free-high-quality-shopping-vectors.html
