Tag: Customers

This is less a story submission, more a curious question based upon my time in retail, as to what the correct etiquette is in this situation.

I work in for a retail chain in England, and most of our stores are have between ten and fourteen tills available. Customers join one queue, and when they reach the front, they are called down to the next open till and it flashes up a number and an arrow to point them along the way. So far, so simple.

My question is regarding correct etiquette for pairs of people queuing. To explain my query better, I will offer an example from last Saturday. I happened to be serving on till number eleven that day – the first customer is the queue will be level with till number three. I have pressed the buzzer to call down a customer to my till, and two women have begun to walk down to me. When they are level with about till number nine, the customer at till number seven walked away, and the lady operating that till hit her buzzer to call down a customer – a gentleman left the front of the till to approach her.

At this point, one of the two women who had been approaching me broke away, saying to her friend ‘Oh, it will be quicker if I just go here’, and her friend came down to me to be served – however, the gentleman also arrived at this point, and was put out to find that he’d been called to a till that was already occupied. The member of staff on this till tried to ask the lady to continue down to me, explaining that she had assumed the two of them were together, and therefore called this gentleman and would now be serving this gentleman. The woman then got very shirty, arguing she had been ‘first’ in the till, and became extremely argumentative.

I’ve had situation happen like this numerous times, and sometimes been quite worried by how confrontational customers will get about being told that since they started to go to one till, they need to continue to that till, rather than grabbing the next free one regardless of if another customer has been called – and I wanted more of an opinion.

My personal thought, and indeed, my company’s policy, has always been if you walk toward the till as a pair, you have effectively signaled you are paying together, either as one transaction or two separate ones put through at the same till. If you were that concerned about getting through quickly, you ought to have one of you go to the first till, while the other stays at the front of the queue and waits to be called – but if you walk away together, effectively leaving the queue, you cannot though split up after another customer has been called. But I have had, on many occasions, people get very angry at being told this is the message they’ve been sent, to the point where I have feared violence – and indeed, sometimes the people behind them, who have walked down to the till and found somebody else there, have often been extremely angry.

So – are we out of line with our policy?  1216-11

In the US, we have a similar set up inTJ Maxx/Homegoods stores and I am sure other stores as well.

What is happening is that a pair of customers have agreed to expedite their payment time by going together to the same till/cashier.   If the intent is to check out at one cashier’s till as a twosome then by all means, they should have the integrity to carry through with their original intent regardless of whether some new opportunity arises.   Their body language assures the cashiers and the waiting customers behind them that they are moving in the direction of one till in order to finish their purchases.   But if midway to the intended till they separate, one to the originally targeted till and the other to the newly opened till, the intent all along was to exploit the situation to their best advantage, i.e the fastest method of checking out possible.    They broke the unspoken contract observers assumed they were committed to doing.

When caught in their selfishness, is it really surprising that the reaction is a tantrum?  The only recourse to firmly direct the person to the originally intended till and carry forth with the transaction with the appropriate customer.

I could fill volumes with stories about bad customers, but here’s one of the worst:  I work at a gas station, and there are two registers in the store.  It always seems that if there are two people at the counter, any given customer will immediately go to the attendant who is the busiest.  Usually I just laugh this off, but this lady was intolerable.

I was standing with my back to the second register stocking cigarettes on the wall behind me, my co-worker was standing completely idle at the next register just waiting for a customer to come in.  But this lady HAD to be helped by me, couldn’t be bothered to walk the extra 4 feet to the available attendant.  She walks up to the register and says, “EXCUSE me,” in the rudest way possible.  I ignore her as I often do when this happens, and my co-worker says that he can help her at the other register (and he is by no means soft-spoken).  No dice.  Apparently it has to be me.  Again this time, louder and ruder,  “EXCUSE ME!!!! ARE YOU GOING TO HELP ME?”  At this point my manager is also up front, she knows I can handle customer BS, but is always willing to step in if needed.  All I really want now is this person to leave the store so I go ahead and help her out for which I get a huff and “Finally!”  Whatever, she’s about to leave.  I hand her her change and she doesn’t reach out to take it so I set it down on the counter.  I turn around to get back to stocking, and I hear, “Aren’t you going to put that in my hand?”  No, you are perfectly capable of picking that up yourself.  My manager picks up the change, places it in the woman’s hands, and tells her not to come back to the store unless she finds a better attitude.

Fortunately, the rest of the day went smoothly, and I have been in customer service jobs way too long to let somebody’s snarky attitude and bad day get to me.  I haven’t seen her since. 0517-09

Several years ago, while a midlife graduate student, I worked part-time for a specialty breads bakery. Often I accompanied the owner to home & garden shows and the like where she would have a booth. I helped slice the breads into bite-size samples and put toothpicks into them.

I won’t get into the disgusting behavior of people who would reuse toothpicks for other pieces, drop their toothpicks everywhere, and the sample vultures who would clear a tray out and never buy.

But I can’t forget one non-customer.

I live in a state that loves college basketball, and the loyalties and rivalries are devoted. The owner had purchased, as a Christmas gift for her husband, a large framed and matted photo taken after their favorite team’s recent championship victory. She had it propped up in the rear of the booth, but anyone could see it, and we received a handful of good-natured comments.

One very tall, robustly built man came up to the booth accompanying his wife. As the owner chatted with the wife, I saw the husband eyeing the photo. I was at the opening between the booth and the walkway where he was standing. I made a passing comment along the lines of, “Oh, I see you’re wearing a ____ shirt, did you enjoy seeing the game?”

In response, he grabbed me and drew me to him. I’m five feet tall and came up to his sternum at best. My face got mashed into his chest. Over my head, he said, “This is NOT a ____ shirt. Do you see the logo? It’s different!”

He let go and I backed away. Calmly, I said, “No, I guess I missed it.” (The color was about the same, and the logo was pretty faded. It bore a resemblance to the university’s logo.) He stalked off and the wife hastened after him, as if used to this sort of thing.

We were busy with other customers, and I don’t think the owner saw the exchange, so I just let it go. But it still creeps me out. 0821-10

Must have been a Duke fan.  hee hee hee!

Yesterday, I was at the local store to pick up about 8 items, I was in a hurry so when I was ready to check out I got into the express lane. The express lanes are usually reserved for people with 20 items or less, sometimes people don’t follow that rule, but life goes on.

Yesterday however, when I got in line, there were 2 people in front of me, a young man who was starting to pay and a woman who didn’t have any items. I figured the woman was getting something that she couldn’t get in the store, like cigarettes or stamps. When she arrived to the register the man behind the register asked what he could get for her and she responded with, “Oh, nothing, my husband is on his way with our groceries.” We all proceed to wait for her husband to arrive, which he did pretty quickly. On the other hand, he arrived with a basket with no less than 50 items.

It’s not like it was the biggest inconvenience ever, but I thought it was incredibly rude to get in line before having your groceries and then bringing far more than you’re supposed. 0829-11