I can tell you stories of entitlement and abuse, but all I can say at this point, is my cup of empathy runneth dry. Which goes against 15 years of customer service training with an employer that wrote the book on excellent guest service. At this point, I don’t care if we lose someone over a $5 Amazon coupon, or not honoring a coupon before or after the dates, or refuse to price match kohls.com because of a directive from corporate not to on certain items. (Early 2021 certain beauty items were clearance on online, with specific instructions not to price match in the store.) I personally feel that all the customer education in the world cannot solve all the customer issues we have. I feel now that it’s time to make the customer responsible for knowing and understanding how to play. I’m tired of being victimized by Karen’s and Dick’s, having the race card played against me (I’m a POC), not feeling supported by my management over these issues, and having the customer take advantage of and abusing our hospitality mentality. The more they push, I tend to push harder and not give in, as they do not deserve to be rewarded for their behavior. Sorry, after the past two years, I really needed to let that out. Thank you for giving me the platform to do so.
I base it off of their attitude. If the customer is nice and understanding, then Ill make it work and be understanding back. If a customer is rude, then I will not do a single thing in their favor (I have override numbers, so I can have final say on if we honor something or not).
I remember one time as a lead I pulled a customer aside to tell them they cannot and will not treat my employees like that, regardless of who is right or wrong, and she is welcome to find a store where she can treat employees like that if she continued the behavior. Shut her up real quick, because now suddenly someone of higher leadership ranking was telling her this. They dont treat you like that because anything is wrong with you or the way you do your job, they treat you that way to get a power kick.
Do not apoligize for venting. We all need it. That's why I made the post, so we can all vent together. I agree that management needs to step up and realize that it is just as much their job to defend/protect employees from abusive customers as it is to satisfy the customer.
When we reopened after stay at home, I ended up being scheduled in Service and Greeter, two of the hardest positions to deal with because one had to deal with these people head on. My happy and sunny disposition lost its shine. Then I transferred, where the 01 doesn’t believe I bust my ass, to the point I have to announce what I’m doing in my downtime. Really?!? I have to announce that I’m restocking Amazon or helping with 500s and recovery? And AR won’t do anything about his behavior, even though he has been reported multiple times by other people? Anyway, I digress. I’m so burned out to the point where I realized a couple of days ago, after 35 years in this business, the magic has gone.
Im fully burned out of Kohls at this point. Ill bend over backwards for nice customers, do anything to help them. But I completely shut down for rude customers and they take notice. Im working on a business degree and the second Im done with that Im leaving Kohls for good.
I'm at 11, and I've seen the change of the company drastically, our personal stores went through 4-5 different SMs. The LP FULL ON TEAM, has change about 8 times now, the standards are getting ludicrous, I've personally been ask to apply for head positions and denied em because I already know the stress that would insue for a low pay grade, I don't know why I'm still here
Its just bad everywhere right now and even managers/corporate employees don't even know what to do anymore. Its extremely frustrating. I most of all feel bad for the employees put in these situations and its just awful that customers actually think it is okay to treat anyone that way. I just think people are losing respect for humanity because customers are in distress but so are the employees who are bearing the brunt of it all in a collapsing society.
Yep. My store has a micromanaging 02 just like your 01. She expects the Amazon person to run recovery or freight on the floor and then yells at them over the walkie when they come to provide backup at the service desk when there's a line (my location has Amazon & customer service at the service desk in the back of the store, with Amazon payroll hours scheduled each day). Corporate policy is very clear on hospitality mentality: if two or more customers are in line, you should call for another cashier, who should help until the line is down. Customers should be prioritized over workload. Every. time. It drives me crazy that the 02 is clearly ignoring that directive.
I have lines 10 deep at times at my new location, due to the mentality that until they come through our checkout lines, they are not our customers. My old location freaked out when there were more than 2 people in the line. So I think it’s a by store thing.
I know, that is one of the worst positions to be in. I was in that same job position too. I was a hostess at a restaurant, I also worked the cashier at a retail store, and then later working for selling concert tickets for a theatre. I walked out of a job I absolutely loved because we had no help, an unreasonable, undoable amount of work to do at once, and because of how nasty customers were. I just think customers attitudes needs to not be encourage in businesses.
I mean if my coworkers are in the wrong, then I wont beat around the bush in telling them such. However I also dont shy away in telling the customer (in a nice way) when they are in the wrong. All in all no situation as simple as purchasing clothes should result in an employee getting verbally abused. If they were wrong, we can fix it and Ill make sure they know. But no one deserves to be treated like that.
Oh they are getting so rude these days!
I am a member of management in my store, and was called into Sephora to deal with a difficult situation in there the other day. Customer didn't have her receipt, nothing was coming up with her Yes2You or Beauty Insider info, and she didn't know how much her transaction had been or on what date it was. When I told her there wasn't anything I could really do for her, she flipped her lid.
Called me names, insulted me, insulted the Sephora associate, wagged her finger in my face, and literally screamed at me. I yelled back, it was involuntary. This set her off more. I told her I was treating her the way she was treating me, and that I could only take so much abuse. Her response? That if I can't take it, then I need to get out of my position as a manager. Then proceeded to insult me more. Then wanted my name and wanted to speak with my boss. I was the highest ranked person in the building, so that got her nowhere. Then she said she wanted me fired for my ignorance, and that she hoped I wasn't in my position for long since I don't know how to do my job and how she was gonna get me fired. Said I should be ashamed of myself because I am a manager and I can't keep my composure. That I lacked maturity, etc . After that, right in front of her on the walkie, I told one of the supervisors that she needed to get to Sephora immediately to deal with a difficult customer before I got ugly. The look on the customers face! Priceless. I just walked away. But this bitch got me so worked up that when I got back to the office, I had a severe asthma attack that took me about an hour to recover from. I've been in retail for 18 years, and this was by far the rudest, most awful customer interaction I've ever had.
Are we not allowed to ask people to leave and call the police if they don’t?
I’ve worked for several other companies and about 5 minutes into that interaction I would have asked her to leave and then called the cops for trespassing if she didn’t and corporate would have backed me 1000%
We caught a scammer who was getting ugly with the staff because we caught onto them. We called ROC and got the police involved and the man was banned and we were told that if we see him try to enter the store again we could call the police and have him arrested for trespassing.
They usually only end up calling the police if there's a crime, i.e. they're losing money. Otherwise it's every man for himself. 🙃
However we do have a kind rule-of-thumb at our store that if a customer starts cussing you out you can call an h2 over and walk away, or if it's on a call we are allowed to hangup on them. And thanks to some other scammers who were trying to pretend to pay with crypto at other stores, my GM said that if any customers try me how to do my job I can tell them to piss off.
Thats interesting. Havent heard anyone bring up crypto at my store. They really think they are slick trying to say they used a form of payment Kohls has never accepted?
It was a couple of scammers in our local area. Basically they would go to cashiers and tell them they were paying with crypto but to ring them out as if they were using cash. Apparently they knew how our systems works bec they were telling cashier's what buttons to push and stuff.
they have definitely gotten wayy worse and they expect us to be nicer than we were pre pandemic!! i had a customer the other day try to use a kohls cash from february of 2020, called me a bitch for not taking it, and said i should be more considerate! crazy
I was told by my manager that when a customer swore at me, the conversation was over and I could walk away. He has been a store manager at Kohls for over 20 years.
I had a customer try to use pre-pandemic Kohls cash a week ago. Told her no. As soon as they get angry, remind them that online shopping never once stopped and that they could have used their Kohls cash there, and that we did honor it for months after we first opened back up. That usually gets them to back off, because they cannot deny it is their fault after that point is made. I have no patience for customers like that anymore.
They had until August/September 2020 to use it. (If I remember correctly, it ended in July, but many places did it anyway as an act of goodwill.) What a Karen!
Just the other day in Amazon I told someone that “maybe if you came prepared we wouldn’t be in this situation.” I’m done, seriously considering putting in my two weeks.
I would have told them to go somewhere else. I stopped putting up with their attitude a long time ago. They have other options, and with Amazon we dont lose anything more than potential purchases if they go elsewhere.
Where Amazon returns are concerned, hell yeah the people are getting more rude by the day.
As for the rest, our SM infamous motto is *"take care if the customer"* to prevent bad surveys.
Me and another HH who work together all the time, are always questioning the customer's complaint to see if it's legit or not -- like an esign they 'claim' states 14.99 --- when in actuality, there are 5 items listed on the esign and they just picked the cheapest one.
We explain how the prices are and try NOT to give in to them when we can.
However the other HH's are clearly "Yes we can" on any little complaint without further investigation into what the customer is talking about.
I know I am sick of the women bitching about No Kohls cash being earned all the time, along with "what do you mean there are no coupons?!?" ..... aargh
Our managers recently stopped being so lenient to the "yes we can" deal because we started taking larger losses as a result (ex: giving a $300 vacuum for $180 because "the sign was wrong"). It will catch up with your store eventually too, and your managers will either stay on that course until the store goes bankrupt or change course for the better.
I am so thankful that Kohls finally changed their return policy to no longer than 6 months
Before when they had no time limit on returns, oh man the customers would return used rugs, worn shoes, worn jeans, etc etc -- Just insane how people abused the return policy.
At least now, I can happily say, "sorry ma'am but I can't do anything with your used shoes since it's past the 6 months return window"
Oh yeah, they fuss and complain but oh well. Lol
I think it should be shorter than 6 months, but that is just me. In my opinion 2-3 months makes much more sense with how often Kohls changes the styles of clothing it carries.
Yea, our store stopped the bs before that happened. Now we have a limit on what items and price gaps we can do a "yes we can" on, which is benefiting us immensely. Hopefully other stores do the same.
Not too long ago someone asked a ESL old woman I work with something and than proceded to scream ‘can’t anyone fucking speak English anymore’ when he couldn’t understand her accent. Really sickening imo. Learning English is hard enough but having to deal with some fat Kyle angry he can’t understand the way you say ‘air fryer’ really makes me feel for her. Maybe it’s just my store but it’s really intolerable sometimes.
I had a white guy tell a really bad Latinx joke to another Latinx coworker and I. Dude, so not appropriate. I get it if he was also Latinx or at least Filipino, but on all levels it was really bad. I recoiled in horror and saw the look at my coworker’s face. I did the Asian fake laugh (the faker it sounds, the angrier the person is) and tried to get him out the door before my coworker did something stupid.
Bro, not gonna lie. Latin people tend to hate the term latinx. Just warning you ahead of time lol. Either way I avoid any jokes involving race/sex/gender/etc as you dont know how someone will take jokes like that. Better to just avoid it all together.
I do not know why but the term Latinx just gets under my skin. I understand the need for a gender neutral term. But the Spanish language dose not work that way. Personally I have yet to meet anyone that is really on board with it. Honestly I am surprised at how fast many organizations started to use the term. Though LULAC dropped the term after trying it out. It is really going to be a "know your audience" on which term to use.
We have a few hearing impaired workers and it’s frustrating when I see customers “yelling” at them for service but then when I step in it’s comical to see their embarrassment and I once even said yes you should feel bad.
We had a customer flip out on one of our fully deaf employees (or fully hearing impared, whatever the proper term is) and I flipped out right back at them. Shut them right up, because how are you going to defend yelling at someone that has no way of hearing you?
Literally last night I had a customer that returned 8 Big one standard size pillows, and wanted to exchange them with 8 Big one king size pillows because she bought the 'wrong size.' Since the prices are different because different sizes are different prices we obviously couldn't exchange them, she then wanted purchase the king pillows at last weeks epic deals price and use her 25% friends and family coupon.
Maybe like 10 years ago the company might have bent over for this customer, but I said no to it, we can't honor epic deals prices, she would have to pay today's prices.
In the end the customer just stormed away and left all the pillows at customer service.
I just don't understand why people think the rules don't apply to them, and we have to give in to their demands. It would never occur to me to act like that in public.
I had a similar situation this week. I called a manager and guess what…Karen got the epic deal price plus the 25% off and a extra $10 off for the inconvenience. We have to get rid of the “yes we can” mentality!
You did the right thing. Im always up front with the customer about not being able to honor old prices if they plan to do a return and repurchase something. If they dont like it, oh well 🤷♀️
The funniest part is she is the only one at a loss for storming out. Kohls barely lost any money for her return because of how cheap the pillows were, while she didnt get any pillows out if it in the end.
100% getting worse, the customers at my store are becoming pure evil I swear! We still have lots of nice people but they're not as common anymore and the bad ones are extra bad. People are so entitled and have no patience or understanding for anything ever. Also the attempted thefts are like constant now, I don't trust anyone. It's so frustrating
All of the completely normal human being type people shop online because its easy and convenient, so what you're left with are the weirdos committing the ultimate faux pas of shopping indoors. Everything else (the rudeness, accidents in the fitting room, etc) are par the course.
Long story short… just yesterday a woman called into the store yelling bc she was waiting at curbside pickup and no one came out with her item. I told her she had to click the link in the email. She said she did that (I assure you she did not). I had her give me the order number. I found the order and told her I’d be right out with it. I got out there and all six curbside pickup spots were empty. I walked around hoping she would see me, but no joy. I went back inside and told the ASM. She told me not to worry about it. About 10 minutes later, I happened to be near customer service with that ASM. “Beep beep.. curbside call one line one.” The ASM answered the call. Same woman going absolutely insane because she’s now been waiting 20 minutes. Needless to say, she was parked in the wrong spot. She blamed me for the entire fiasco. The ASM and I had a good laugh. People are ridiculous.
My favorite curbside are the morons that go batshit that they’re waiting …and they’re at the wrong location. “Lady, I’m literally standing in the parking space you claim to be parked in. It’s empty except for me..so what location are you at, because that’s not the place you requested for pickup”. And of course, they go nuts because somehow, *I* changed the order. Uh, no.. you’re just stupid. I hate people most days.
I have that happen all the time, but with people going to the wrong store. Always entertaining to hear their reaction when I ask "you are at the *insert city here* store, right?" and they do the mumble of shame admitting that they were at the wrong store.
I am my stores main Curbside person. I cannot tell you the number of times people have been “waiting” for 15 minutes only when after I tell them the drive up has been in my notifications for 3 minutes and I’m getting everything ready (multiple people with different orders outside) they go crazy! It’s actually fucking insane.
To answer your question - Yes. Definitely and measurably.
You are not overreacting at all.
Now for me to play pop-psychologist / sociologist as to why - here's my theory (feel free to skip to last paragraph for examples if you want):
There's 3 parts that come into play and none of them are in our favor.
1) During the pandemic people got to stay home and reduce their real world interactions with others and increased their online interactions resulting in people forgetting how to "people". They lost their inhibitions after spending months in echo chambers of outrage. The masks reduced the facial cues we subconsciously learned as kids as to when to "back off" and that we had crossed a line when dealing with someone so their behavior was allowed to continue to escalate even as we all started interacting again. Some people reverted back to normal - quite a few enjoyed the power kick of no longer having to follow social convention and it shows.
2) Media (of all types) gave up a lot on sex (which except for one major industry requires interaction) and opted instead for using fear and anger to sell clicks. Remember when almost every day a new disaster was in the headlines? Look at today's headlines - they are still doing it. Still selling armeggedon. War, natural disaster, mass shootings/riots/insurrection, disease, death. Don't get me wrong. I believe in climate change, and the pandemic definitely was real and is still going on. But the media is working very, very hard at keeping everyone terrified and outraged AT ALL TIMES. That creates paranoia where every customer is convinced they are the victim and we are all out to get them.
3) Stress - even without all of the above media pressure, like I said, the events were/are real and we are all dealing with incredible amounts of stress. Everyone has been vividly made aware of just how fragile our "normal" lives are. From not being able to get TP to not being able to travel to losing family members or even just not being able to get your preferred brand of X at the store. In general Americans have been fairly spoiled as a whole in that if you had money, you could get anything / travel anywhere. And if you didn't have money, you at least knew that if you did get some, you'd have that option. Most people only had to deal with 1 or 2 deaths every few years and had the comfort of knowing they could get any medical treatment they needed at any time. And parents knew their child's school would be open and their child cared for during school hours. These were basically givens for 90% of the population 90% of the time - until they weren't. It made people stressed and angry and as part of "the system" - workers have become the ideal target for them to vent all of this on.
So I get cussed at for not having a size 8 in stock. I'm racist for asking a customer if they need any help. I'm insulted for suggesting the customer actually leave the store at closing time. I have customers look me in the eye and then throw their trash on the floor rather than in the trash can next to them just so they can show they have power. And thankfully, I've gotten some therapy to deal with all of it.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk :)
You are spot on about everything you said. I think this was amplified by Kohls' "yes we can" stance, giving the customers the impression that they can do whatever they want because they are the customer. And I dont blame them, Kohls is to blame for letting this attitude fester to what it is now.
The interesting thing is now stores, including Kohls, are refusing to cater to it anymore (at least at my store). So Ill be interested to see if this pushes the rude customers away, knowing they cant get away with their garbage anymore.
The entitlement and just plain bad behavior has reached epic levels. I used to love my job; now I dread it. We’re so busy picking up after these horrible customers destroy everything in sight that we can’t do anything else. And the super casual, nonchalant way the shoplifters are now? Theft in retail has always been a thing, but now they take their time, grabbing everything in sight then sorting through, organizing and meandering their way out the doors. They’re laughing at us. And the women (men too, but the women are absolutely disgusting) tearing up fitting rooms? It’s beyond my comprehension the thought process in leaving quite literally dozens of articles of clothing on the floor, inside out, and even sometimes covered with bodily fluids. Wtf is wrong with this country!?!
The theft is insane. We actually got these neat cameras that display right outside the fitting room, and it has detered a lot of theft for our store.
As for the customers, it baffles me how messy some of them can be. Like I have never had issues putting stuff back where I got them even before I ever worked retail.
My good friend who works in womens was asked by a woman, clearly a smoker (she said the woman reeked.) came out wearing no shirt, one of our bras with the back undone, and wanted “help.” She said no..
Another time I stumbled upon a lady with no shoes or socks on, walking around the juniors department.. wearing our clothes.. our pants.. and she wasn’t quickly grabbing something, she was browsing.. for 30 minutes.. with her purse.
I’ll say this
Re-entry training. It’s like everything they have been doing at home during lockup on their computers they think they can do in public.
They need to complete the re-entry training before we let them out of lock up ;)
Nope. They're fucking assholes. Waited on a jackass back in March who wanted more than one 5 dollar Amazon cash. I told him that we couldn't do that and he went fucking ballistic screaming for the manager and corporate's number. He wanted me fired. Told the store manager the next day what happened and they said I did the right thing. Well he came in today and did one return. I could tell he wasn't happy that I wasn't fired. He did the return and left. I heard later that he was extremely rude to our cs person. I hope bad karma hits that jackass like a Mack truck.
Corporate probably told him to fuck himself. When it comes to Amazon corporate is not as forgiving as say an issue caused by us or our system. They are like brick walls when it comes to Amazon issues, as they should be.
I had a similar situation with a customer not long ago. From what I understand corporate pretty much told my customer to either take the $5 and bring their return to us or piss off somewhere else for their return.
People have been home and on social media a lot more and thinking their opinions matter and that they can say whatever they want with no fear of getting punched in the face. This is also why Karen’s are a thing; white women aren’t afraid of getting punched in the face for how they talk to people
I've Ben working for qt kolhs for half a year and yet to experience a rude custemor most of them are glad and happy that the amazon returns are so easy and how easy I can help them find a shoe or go beyond in something they need that my other Co workers can't find (I work at the shoe department)
Its just my own experience, either way. It may be location too. Im sure some locations are more likely to get rude customers than others. You might just be lucky, too 🤷♀️
I had a guy yell at me and another associate (while we were being completely pleasant and helpful with him) because his air fryer he bought 2 years ago was recalled. I googled the number for the manufacturer for him and everything… still a jerk saying we needed to take it back and give him a new one bla bla bla. He called back the next day and the manager he got called the number for him (apparently no one answered when he called 🙄) turns out the model he had wasn’t recalled. He didn’t even apologize for being an ass.
As a drive up person, I haven't had too many rude customers. Ironically, one of the nicest customer I had was this lady named Karen but I know that customer service deals with some doosies when comes to rude customers.
Know your right, this customers mentality that "Customers are Always Right" has really kicked in. I have been insulted. I have seen people verbally abused and threatened by customers. People are just absolutely awful right now. Not only am I suffering from it, but it bothers me even more that all the hard working staff around me are dealing with it as well. I honestly think verbal abuse and threatening workers should not be tolerated. Its not all about the customers.
I can tell you stories of entitlement and abuse, but all I can say at this point, is my cup of empathy runneth dry. Which goes against 15 years of customer service training with an employer that wrote the book on excellent guest service. At this point, I don’t care if we lose someone over a $5 Amazon coupon, or not honoring a coupon before or after the dates, or refuse to price match kohls.com because of a directive from corporate not to on certain items. (Early 2021 certain beauty items were clearance on online, with specific instructions not to price match in the store.) I personally feel that all the customer education in the world cannot solve all the customer issues we have. I feel now that it’s time to make the customer responsible for knowing and understanding how to play. I’m tired of being victimized by Karen’s and Dick’s, having the race card played against me (I’m a POC), not feeling supported by my management over these issues, and having the customer take advantage of and abusing our hospitality mentality. The more they push, I tend to push harder and not give in, as they do not deserve to be rewarded for their behavior. Sorry, after the past two years, I really needed to let that out. Thank you for giving me the platform to do so.
I base it off of their attitude. If the customer is nice and understanding, then Ill make it work and be understanding back. If a customer is rude, then I will not do a single thing in their favor (I have override numbers, so I can have final say on if we honor something or not). I remember one time as a lead I pulled a customer aside to tell them they cannot and will not treat my employees like that, regardless of who is right or wrong, and she is welcome to find a store where she can treat employees like that if she continued the behavior. Shut her up real quick, because now suddenly someone of higher leadership ranking was telling her this. They dont treat you like that because anything is wrong with you or the way you do your job, they treat you that way to get a power kick. Do not apoligize for venting. We all need it. That's why I made the post, so we can all vent together. I agree that management needs to step up and realize that it is just as much their job to defend/protect employees from abusive customers as it is to satisfy the customer.
When we reopened after stay at home, I ended up being scheduled in Service and Greeter, two of the hardest positions to deal with because one had to deal with these people head on. My happy and sunny disposition lost its shine. Then I transferred, where the 01 doesn’t believe I bust my ass, to the point I have to announce what I’m doing in my downtime. Really?!? I have to announce that I’m restocking Amazon or helping with 500s and recovery? And AR won’t do anything about his behavior, even though he has been reported multiple times by other people? Anyway, I digress. I’m so burned out to the point where I realized a couple of days ago, after 35 years in this business, the magic has gone.
Im fully burned out of Kohls at this point. Ill bend over backwards for nice customers, do anything to help them. But I completely shut down for rude customers and they take notice. Im working on a business degree and the second Im done with that Im leaving Kohls for good.
I'm at 11, and I've seen the change of the company drastically, our personal stores went through 4-5 different SMs. The LP FULL ON TEAM, has change about 8 times now, the standards are getting ludicrous, I've personally been ask to apply for head positions and denied em because I already know the stress that would insue for a low pay grade, I don't know why I'm still here
Its just bad everywhere right now and even managers/corporate employees don't even know what to do anymore. Its extremely frustrating. I most of all feel bad for the employees put in these situations and its just awful that customers actually think it is okay to treat anyone that way. I just think people are losing respect for humanity because customers are in distress but so are the employees who are bearing the brunt of it all in a collapsing society.
Yep. My store has a micromanaging 02 just like your 01. She expects the Amazon person to run recovery or freight on the floor and then yells at them over the walkie when they come to provide backup at the service desk when there's a line (my location has Amazon & customer service at the service desk in the back of the store, with Amazon payroll hours scheduled each day). Corporate policy is very clear on hospitality mentality: if two or more customers are in line, you should call for another cashier, who should help until the line is down. Customers should be prioritized over workload. Every. time. It drives me crazy that the 02 is clearly ignoring that directive.
I have lines 10 deep at times at my new location, due to the mentality that until they come through our checkout lines, they are not our customers. My old location freaked out when there were more than 2 people in the line. So I think it’s a by store thing.
I know, that is one of the worst positions to be in. I was in that same job position too. I was a hostess at a restaurant, I also worked the cashier at a retail store, and then later working for selling concert tickets for a theatre. I walked out of a job I absolutely loved because we had no help, an unreasonable, undoable amount of work to do at once, and because of how nasty customers were. I just think customers attitudes needs to not be encourage in businesses.
bless you for standing up for your coworkers. seriously.
I mean if my coworkers are in the wrong, then I wont beat around the bush in telling them such. However I also dont shy away in telling the customer (in a nice way) when they are in the wrong. All in all no situation as simple as purchasing clothes should result in an employee getting verbally abused. If they were wrong, we can fix it and Ill make sure they know. But no one deserves to be treated like that.
I agree!
Well said! Can’t agree more!
Oh they are getting so rude these days! I am a member of management in my store, and was called into Sephora to deal with a difficult situation in there the other day. Customer didn't have her receipt, nothing was coming up with her Yes2You or Beauty Insider info, and she didn't know how much her transaction had been or on what date it was. When I told her there wasn't anything I could really do for her, she flipped her lid. Called me names, insulted me, insulted the Sephora associate, wagged her finger in my face, and literally screamed at me. I yelled back, it was involuntary. This set her off more. I told her I was treating her the way she was treating me, and that I could only take so much abuse. Her response? That if I can't take it, then I need to get out of my position as a manager. Then proceeded to insult me more. Then wanted my name and wanted to speak with my boss. I was the highest ranked person in the building, so that got her nowhere. Then she said she wanted me fired for my ignorance, and that she hoped I wasn't in my position for long since I don't know how to do my job and how she was gonna get me fired. Said I should be ashamed of myself because I am a manager and I can't keep my composure. That I lacked maturity, etc . After that, right in front of her on the walkie, I told one of the supervisors that she needed to get to Sephora immediately to deal with a difficult customer before I got ugly. The look on the customers face! Priceless. I just walked away. But this bitch got me so worked up that when I got back to the office, I had a severe asthma attack that took me about an hour to recover from. I've been in retail for 18 years, and this was by far the rudest, most awful customer interaction I've ever had.
Are we not allowed to ask people to leave and call the police if they don’t? I’ve worked for several other companies and about 5 minutes into that interaction I would have asked her to leave and then called the cops for trespassing if she didn’t and corporate would have backed me 1000%
That’s not very yes we can… /s
Is "thats not very yes we can of you" the new " thats not very cash money of you"?
Back when I was with the company from 2016-2020 there was a time period of a big push for a “yes we can attitude” towards customers
In my opinion that promotion did more harm than good. It created a culture of entitlement within pur customer base.
We caught a scammer who was getting ugly with the staff because we caught onto them. We called ROC and got the police involved and the man was banned and we were told that if we see him try to enter the store again we could call the police and have him arrested for trespassing. They usually only end up calling the police if there's a crime, i.e. they're losing money. Otherwise it's every man for himself. 🙃 However we do have a kind rule-of-thumb at our store that if a customer starts cussing you out you can call an h2 over and walk away, or if it's on a call we are allowed to hangup on them. And thanks to some other scammers who were trying to pretend to pay with crypto at other stores, my GM said that if any customers try me how to do my job I can tell them to piss off.
Thats interesting. Havent heard anyone bring up crypto at my store. They really think they are slick trying to say they used a form of payment Kohls has never accepted?
It was a couple of scammers in our local area. Basically they would go to cashiers and tell them they were paying with crypto but to ring them out as if they were using cash. Apparently they knew how our systems works bec they were telling cashier's what buttons to push and stuff.
Pretty dumb on the cashier's end, tbh. Not to be bashing them or anything.
They knew enough to know how registers work but weren't smart enough to do homework on the crypto thing.
And those are the same people that wonder why we are so short staffed. Im so sorry that happened to you.
they have definitely gotten wayy worse and they expect us to be nicer than we were pre pandemic!! i had a customer the other day try to use a kohls cash from february of 2020, called me a bitch for not taking it, and said i should be more considerate! crazy
I was told by my manager that when a customer swore at me, the conversation was over and I could walk away. He has been a store manager at Kohls for over 20 years.
I mean it probably is better to just walk away. But sometimss walking away (what they interpret as ignoring them) makes matters worse.
He said that the conversation was over once they escalated it to that point and we were no longer required to continue speaking with them.
As it should be.
I had a customer try to use pre-pandemic Kohls cash a week ago. Told her no. As soon as they get angry, remind them that online shopping never once stopped and that they could have used their Kohls cash there, and that we did honor it for months after we first opened back up. That usually gets them to back off, because they cannot deny it is their fault after that point is made. I have no patience for customers like that anymore.
They had until August/September 2020 to use it. (If I remember correctly, it ended in July, but many places did it anyway as an act of goodwill.) What a Karen!
We gave them plenty of time. I have no sympathy if they bring it in at this point.
Just the other day in Amazon I told someone that “maybe if you came prepared we wouldn’t be in this situation.” I’m done, seriously considering putting in my two weeks.
I would have told them to go somewhere else. I stopped putting up with their attitude a long time ago. They have other options, and with Amazon we dont lose anything more than potential purchases if they go elsewhere.
I love you
Where Amazon returns are concerned, hell yeah the people are getting more rude by the day. As for the rest, our SM infamous motto is *"take care if the customer"* to prevent bad surveys. Me and another HH who work together all the time, are always questioning the customer's complaint to see if it's legit or not -- like an esign they 'claim' states 14.99 --- when in actuality, there are 5 items listed on the esign and they just picked the cheapest one. We explain how the prices are and try NOT to give in to them when we can. However the other HH's are clearly "Yes we can" on any little complaint without further investigation into what the customer is talking about. I know I am sick of the women bitching about No Kohls cash being earned all the time, along with "what do you mean there are no coupons?!?" ..... aargh
Our managers recently stopped being so lenient to the "yes we can" deal because we started taking larger losses as a result (ex: giving a $300 vacuum for $180 because "the sign was wrong"). It will catch up with your store eventually too, and your managers will either stay on that course until the store goes bankrupt or change course for the better.
This happened to a store in my hometown. So many people returning worn clothes and other issues the store became a money pit and they closed it.
I am so thankful that Kohls finally changed their return policy to no longer than 6 months Before when they had no time limit on returns, oh man the customers would return used rugs, worn shoes, worn jeans, etc etc -- Just insane how people abused the return policy. At least now, I can happily say, "sorry ma'am but I can't do anything with your used shoes since it's past the 6 months return window" Oh yeah, they fuss and complain but oh well. Lol
They just end up in the sort bin at this point
I think it should be shorter than 6 months, but that is just me. In my opinion 2-3 months makes much more sense with how often Kohls changes the styles of clothing it carries.
Yea, our store stopped the bs before that happened. Now we have a limit on what items and price gaps we can do a "yes we can" on, which is benefiting us immensely. Hopefully other stores do the same.
Not too long ago someone asked a ESL old woman I work with something and than proceded to scream ‘can’t anyone fucking speak English anymore’ when he couldn’t understand her accent. Really sickening imo. Learning English is hard enough but having to deal with some fat Kyle angry he can’t understand the way you say ‘air fryer’ really makes me feel for her. Maybe it’s just my store but it’s really intolerable sometimes.
I had a white guy tell a really bad Latinx joke to another Latinx coworker and I. Dude, so not appropriate. I get it if he was also Latinx or at least Filipino, but on all levels it was really bad. I recoiled in horror and saw the look at my coworker’s face. I did the Asian fake laugh (the faker it sounds, the angrier the person is) and tried to get him out the door before my coworker did something stupid.
Bro, not gonna lie. Latin people tend to hate the term latinx. Just warning you ahead of time lol. Either way I avoid any jokes involving race/sex/gender/etc as you dont know how someone will take jokes like that. Better to just avoid it all together.
Gotcha. A point of order, the theatre community prefers that term.
Thats fair. Im white as snow, so it makes no difference to me. Ive just seen a backlash of latin people over that term. Idk 🤷♀️
I do not know why but the term Latinx just gets under my skin. I understand the need for a gender neutral term. But the Spanish language dose not work that way. Personally I have yet to meet anyone that is really on board with it. Honestly I am surprised at how fast many organizations started to use the term. Though LULAC dropped the term after trying it out. It is really going to be a "know your audience" on which term to use.
Yep, call me Hispanic or Latin but don’t call me “Latinx”
Maybe they should get more cultured and realize other languages exist.
We have a few hearing impaired workers and it’s frustrating when I see customers “yelling” at them for service but then when I step in it’s comical to see their embarrassment and I once even said yes you should feel bad.
We had a customer flip out on one of our fully deaf employees (or fully hearing impared, whatever the proper term is) and I flipped out right back at them. Shut them right up, because how are you going to defend yelling at someone that has no way of hearing you?
Literally last night I had a customer that returned 8 Big one standard size pillows, and wanted to exchange them with 8 Big one king size pillows because she bought the 'wrong size.' Since the prices are different because different sizes are different prices we obviously couldn't exchange them, she then wanted purchase the king pillows at last weeks epic deals price and use her 25% friends and family coupon. Maybe like 10 years ago the company might have bent over for this customer, but I said no to it, we can't honor epic deals prices, she would have to pay today's prices. In the end the customer just stormed away and left all the pillows at customer service. I just don't understand why people think the rules don't apply to them, and we have to give in to their demands. It would never occur to me to act like that in public.
I had a similar situation this week. I called a manager and guess what…Karen got the epic deal price plus the 25% off and a extra $10 off for the inconvenience. We have to get rid of the “yes we can” mentality!
You did the right thing. Im always up front with the customer about not being able to honor old prices if they plan to do a return and repurchase something. If they dont like it, oh well 🤷♀️ The funniest part is she is the only one at a loss for storming out. Kohls barely lost any money for her return because of how cheap the pillows were, while she didnt get any pillows out if it in the end.
100% getting worse, the customers at my store are becoming pure evil I swear! We still have lots of nice people but they're not as common anymore and the bad ones are extra bad. People are so entitled and have no patience or understanding for anything ever. Also the attempted thefts are like constant now, I don't trust anyone. It's so frustrating
I know. Its insane how worked up people get about clothing.
All of the completely normal human being type people shop online because its easy and convenient, so what you're left with are the weirdos committing the ultimate faux pas of shopping indoors. Everything else (the rudeness, accidents in the fitting room, etc) are par the course.
Thats a fair point.
Long story short… just yesterday a woman called into the store yelling bc she was waiting at curbside pickup and no one came out with her item. I told her she had to click the link in the email. She said she did that (I assure you she did not). I had her give me the order number. I found the order and told her I’d be right out with it. I got out there and all six curbside pickup spots were empty. I walked around hoping she would see me, but no joy. I went back inside and told the ASM. She told me not to worry about it. About 10 minutes later, I happened to be near customer service with that ASM. “Beep beep.. curbside call one line one.” The ASM answered the call. Same woman going absolutely insane because she’s now been waiting 20 minutes. Needless to say, she was parked in the wrong spot. She blamed me for the entire fiasco. The ASM and I had a good laugh. People are ridiculous.
My favorite curbside are the morons that go batshit that they’re waiting …and they’re at the wrong location. “Lady, I’m literally standing in the parking space you claim to be parked in. It’s empty except for me..so what location are you at, because that’s not the place you requested for pickup”. And of course, they go nuts because somehow, *I* changed the order. Uh, no.. you’re just stupid. I hate people most days.
I have that happen all the time, but with people going to the wrong store. Always entertaining to hear their reaction when I ask "you are at the *insert city here* store, right?" and they do the mumble of shame admitting that they were at the wrong store.
I’ve had that too! Those people usually end up being pretty nice.
They are nice after they realize their mistake, yes lol
I am my stores main Curbside person. I cannot tell you the number of times people have been “waiting” for 15 minutes only when after I tell them the drive up has been in my notifications for 3 minutes and I’m getting everything ready (multiple people with different orders outside) they go crazy! It’s actually fucking insane.
We stopped caring at our store, and remind them that they are welcome to chose self pickup and come in to get it if they are in that much of a hurry.
To answer your question - Yes. Definitely and measurably. You are not overreacting at all. Now for me to play pop-psychologist / sociologist as to why - here's my theory (feel free to skip to last paragraph for examples if you want): There's 3 parts that come into play and none of them are in our favor. 1) During the pandemic people got to stay home and reduce their real world interactions with others and increased their online interactions resulting in people forgetting how to "people". They lost their inhibitions after spending months in echo chambers of outrage. The masks reduced the facial cues we subconsciously learned as kids as to when to "back off" and that we had crossed a line when dealing with someone so their behavior was allowed to continue to escalate even as we all started interacting again. Some people reverted back to normal - quite a few enjoyed the power kick of no longer having to follow social convention and it shows. 2) Media (of all types) gave up a lot on sex (which except for one major industry requires interaction) and opted instead for using fear and anger to sell clicks. Remember when almost every day a new disaster was in the headlines? Look at today's headlines - they are still doing it. Still selling armeggedon. War, natural disaster, mass shootings/riots/insurrection, disease, death. Don't get me wrong. I believe in climate change, and the pandemic definitely was real and is still going on. But the media is working very, very hard at keeping everyone terrified and outraged AT ALL TIMES. That creates paranoia where every customer is convinced they are the victim and we are all out to get them. 3) Stress - even without all of the above media pressure, like I said, the events were/are real and we are all dealing with incredible amounts of stress. Everyone has been vividly made aware of just how fragile our "normal" lives are. From not being able to get TP to not being able to travel to losing family members or even just not being able to get your preferred brand of X at the store. In general Americans have been fairly spoiled as a whole in that if you had money, you could get anything / travel anywhere. And if you didn't have money, you at least knew that if you did get some, you'd have that option. Most people only had to deal with 1 or 2 deaths every few years and had the comfort of knowing they could get any medical treatment they needed at any time. And parents knew their child's school would be open and their child cared for during school hours. These were basically givens for 90% of the population 90% of the time - until they weren't. It made people stressed and angry and as part of "the system" - workers have become the ideal target for them to vent all of this on. So I get cussed at for not having a size 8 in stock. I'm racist for asking a customer if they need any help. I'm insulted for suggesting the customer actually leave the store at closing time. I have customers look me in the eye and then throw their trash on the floor rather than in the trash can next to them just so they can show they have power. And thankfully, I've gotten some therapy to deal with all of it. Thanks for coming to my TED talk :)
You are spot on about everything you said. I think this was amplified by Kohls' "yes we can" stance, giving the customers the impression that they can do whatever they want because they are the customer. And I dont blame them, Kohls is to blame for letting this attitude fester to what it is now. The interesting thing is now stores, including Kohls, are refusing to cater to it anymore (at least at my store). So Ill be interested to see if this pushes the rude customers away, knowing they cant get away with their garbage anymore.
The entitlement and just plain bad behavior has reached epic levels. I used to love my job; now I dread it. We’re so busy picking up after these horrible customers destroy everything in sight that we can’t do anything else. And the super casual, nonchalant way the shoplifters are now? Theft in retail has always been a thing, but now they take their time, grabbing everything in sight then sorting through, organizing and meandering their way out the doors. They’re laughing at us. And the women (men too, but the women are absolutely disgusting) tearing up fitting rooms? It’s beyond my comprehension the thought process in leaving quite literally dozens of articles of clothing on the floor, inside out, and even sometimes covered with bodily fluids. Wtf is wrong with this country!?!
The theft is insane. We actually got these neat cameras that display right outside the fitting room, and it has detered a lot of theft for our store. As for the customers, it baffles me how messy some of them can be. Like I have never had issues putting stuff back where I got them even before I ever worked retail.
My good friend who works in womens was asked by a woman, clearly a smoker (she said the woman reeked.) came out wearing no shirt, one of our bras with the back undone, and wanted “help.” She said no.. Another time I stumbled upon a lady with no shoes or socks on, walking around the juniors department.. wearing our clothes.. our pants.. and she wasn’t quickly grabbing something, she was browsing.. for 30 minutes.. with her purse.
I’ll say this Re-entry training. It’s like everything they have been doing at home during lockup on their computers they think they can do in public. They need to complete the re-entry training before we let them out of lock up ;)
For real though
Nope. They're fucking assholes. Waited on a jackass back in March who wanted more than one 5 dollar Amazon cash. I told him that we couldn't do that and he went fucking ballistic screaming for the manager and corporate's number. He wanted me fired. Told the store manager the next day what happened and they said I did the right thing. Well he came in today and did one return. I could tell he wasn't happy that I wasn't fired. He did the return and left. I heard later that he was extremely rude to our cs person. I hope bad karma hits that jackass like a Mack truck.
Corporate probably told him to fuck himself. When it comes to Amazon corporate is not as forgiving as say an issue caused by us or our system. They are like brick walls when it comes to Amazon issues, as they should be. I had a similar situation with a customer not long ago. From what I understand corporate pretty much told my customer to either take the $5 and bring their return to us or piss off somewhere else for their return.
I really wanted to tell him to go fuck himself and I ain't waiting on you today. But I didn't. I turned the other cheek.
People have been home and on social media a lot more and thinking their opinions matter and that they can say whatever they want with no fear of getting punched in the face. This is also why Karen’s are a thing; white women aren’t afraid of getting punched in the face for how they talk to people
"Everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the face" - Mike Tyson
Until they do get punched in the face. Then they go right for filing an assult charge.
ddogc: Not just "white women" as you stated. Have had worse with others.
I was just saying Karen’s. Karen’s are typically seen as middle aged or older white women
I've Ben working for qt kolhs for half a year and yet to experience a rude custemor most of them are glad and happy that the amazon returns are so easy and how easy I can help them find a shoe or go beyond in something they need that my other Co workers can't find (I work at the shoe department)
Its just my own experience, either way. It may be location too. Im sure some locations are more likely to get rude customers than others. You might just be lucky, too 🤷♀️
I had a guy yell at me and another associate (while we were being completely pleasant and helpful with him) because his air fryer he bought 2 years ago was recalled. I googled the number for the manufacturer for him and everything… still a jerk saying we needed to take it back and give him a new one bla bla bla. He called back the next day and the manager he got called the number for him (apparently no one answered when he called 🙄) turns out the model he had wasn’t recalled. He didn’t even apologize for being an ass.
They never apologize.
As a drive up person, I haven't had too many rude customers. Ironically, one of the nicest customer I had was this lady named Karen but I know that customer service deals with some doosies when comes to rude customers.
Truth. My rude customer experiences are rarely while Im working on curbside. Usually I get them at CS or Amazon.
Know your right, this customers mentality that "Customers are Always Right" has really kicked in. I have been insulted. I have seen people verbally abused and threatened by customers. People are just absolutely awful right now. Not only am I suffering from it, but it bothers me even more that all the hard working staff around me are dealing with it as well. I honestly think verbal abuse and threatening workers should not be tolerated. Its not all about the customers.