What ever happened to “the customer is always right”?

Karens and Ricks.

You sound like the problem and not the solution.

Go troll somewhere else.

Customers have long taken advantage of ‘the customer is always right’ mantra and have become petulant children who throw a temper tantrum to get their way.

[Quote] What ever happened to “the customer is never right”?

Fixed it for you, hon.

A customer is someone who purchases goods or services.

Asking to shit in the public restroom doesn't make you a customer.

Attempting to return obviously used goods without a receipt doesn't make you a customer.

The Goodwill Outlet is one of my favorite places for a few reasons. One, if you question the over consumption of humans, go there. This is where all the thrift shit goes to die. This is what is going into a landfill. Seriously, go look at it.

One of the other things I love about that place is they will tell you once. They'll give you a warning ,and then you are out. It cracks me up how harsh they are with customers, but they aren't wrong .

“The customer is always right” only worked when there was a social construct of politeness and respect expected in the course of a mutually beneficial commercial transaction.

Now bitches are throwing French fries at fast food workers because there wasn’t enough ketchup.

Return policies have gotten stricter. Warranties have gotten more expensive and stricter. A lot of items are designed to break, suspiciously just shortly after warranty expires.

Hold on to your receipt.

I have been doing most of my shopping online but that can be tricky too as quality in clothing and products can be deceiving online

When you became a fickle two-timing bitch who chased after the lowest price, you threw away your presumptive rights.

That privilege is reserved for customers who provide a dependable income stream - not some fat whore who does nothing but drive around looking for a $3 savings.

I've also noticed a customer Stockholm Syndrome where they side with the business against their own interests. I've seen this in discussing about how terrible air travel is, fir instance. Blaming the fellow travelers and not the airlines.

It parallels the maggot mentality. It is similar to the anti union sentiment.

It is interesting how brainwashed the public is. And to think a few decades ago it was the communists who we in the land of liberty and the free said were doing this to their citizens with their propaganda.

How dumb we are.

Lately, why is at least one response calling someone a "troll"? Pick a thread at random here and you will see that. The word is hackneyed and should be retired.

Also, people in the retail/service/hospitality/food service etc. industries would take the opposite stance as OP: "why do the customers ALWAYS think they're right"?

Pendulum has swung too far. No the customer isn't always right but service to customers is still a good thing

The customer is always right until they become a threat to the operation of the store and to other customers. That's when you throw them out on their ass and wait for the video to prove you were right. ie Ricky Schroder and Costco

These days it’s more of a hassle (or potentially worse) to say anything, unfortunately.

A few months ago I had to go to my doctors for a quick Nurse visit. I got there 15 minutes early checked in - still waiting a half hour later but I’m right there in front of the receptionist’s eyes so she knows I’m waiting, surely she can’t be THAT bad at her job. 15 minutes after that I go up and I ask her you know my appointment was a half hour ago....she tells me she paged the nurse, and she’ll page her again. The nurse comes right out, apologetic and concerned about my wait. I played it off like “it’s ok, it happens” but I told her In the office that I’m sure the receptionist didn’t page her because she usually comes right out.

I mean, what can you really do in that situation really?

"I mean, what can you really do in that situation really? "

Throw a fit, bust up the office and claim victim

r16-- I hear you. I was having trouble getting to my doctor's appt. (crash on I95). So I called to see if I could cancel, reschedule and get a prescription for non-narcotic medicine. Yes - not Vicodin, not oxy, not benzos, just a simple antibiotic.

Per the receptionist, my doctor was not responding. What if I got there late? Dr booked all day. So finally, I said, "I'm on I95; I have a panic attack weaving in and out of traffic trying to get there on time.

Receptionist: Okay, I'm getting out of my chair and finding him

👿👿👿👿👿👿👿👿

R17 which is, exactly, the new reality.

People don't give a shit about social etiquette and contracts anymore.

Back in the old days people really kept to their budget and every non-food expense (like, say, clothes) was not purchased on a whim. In a lot of families there was a lot of financial planning involved even for something like school clothes for the kid, or kids. People knew what they needed to buy and did proper research and then bought what they needed. There were fewer cases of buyer's remorse.

Now, I am not trying to full on blame business and the economy itself but advertising got a lot more aggressive decades ago (going after kids who simply MUST have the latest toy or the latest gadget) and enouraged purchases that are based on a need created by companies themselves instead of what the people themselves really need. This created a dynamic we know as "living well above your means" which creates a lot of buyer's remorse and a lot of frustration based on financial issues like debt. And that makes people angry at themselves and others they like to blame for their own problems. Including being rude and disrespectful to staff in stores and supermarkets.

I worked retail when there were only two rules.

1. The customer is always right. 2. If the customer is wrong, refer back to rule one.

If we didn't carry the item you were attempting to return, we'd accept it anyway if not too expensive and hopefully gain a return shopper.

We'd hold items for a few days until someone could pay for it.

We'd carry packages to elderly customer's cars. The local Publix in the same plaza had bag boys that weren't supposed to accept tips because it was part of the service.

Went to hell with big box stores and then customers became overbearing, nasty and demanding.

Good customer service starts with good customer.

R14 I agree - Uber is the perfect example, where if you don’t kiss the drivers ring and deign to politely question the route they’re going (which is almost always wrong, because they don’t know whatever city they’re in), they dock you with a low rating. And of course there’s basically no real/meaningful way to complain about bad or unsafe drivers, since none of these companies even have PHONE NUMBERS anymore, so they can just hide behind the automated responses on their app.

For the amount they charge, people deserve so much better.

Only svelte and good-looking ones are always right, otherwise...

I remember reading a lot of articles in the late 90's and early 2000's encouraging people to 'stand up for themselves' and speak to the manager and how often you can get a better result. Many times the examples were mere inconveniences, but I believe it started a complaint culture.

Add in online reviews and you now have people who think they have the power to destroy your business if they don't get exactly what they want. I don't think it's any coincidence that the Karen phenomenon has come out of this type of thinking.

I've worked at several places where people have unreasonable requests and then they threaten (and post) negative reviews on every site they can find - and they have their friends or family join in. And then there's the scam people who just want shit for free and use these channels to bully to try to get their way.

When they don't see that it works like they hoped or planned, all shit breaks loose. Very few businesses are out to fuck you over or to make you have an unpleasant or dissatisfactory experience. But many customers do not want compromise or accept some responsibility on their part.

It's gone too far and I'm glad to see vids of employees standing up for themselves and shutting this uncivil behavior down.

Why should the customer always be right? That is now used as an entitlement to excuse all kinds of unreasonable customer behavior demands. As someone said, the notion goes back to a different time with stores actually having clerks and help and regular customers paying retail. It doesn’t work with customers fighting over cases of toilet paper. You will still get that treatment in high end stores but not when you are trying to return opened and used makeup to Walmart.

Abuse of customer service policies. Karens abusing staff. The "I'm going to call corporate" nazis who have no sympathy for retail workers and hold thier careers in their badly manicured Lee Press on nailed hands.

People are feeling bad about themselves. That's why they treat others like shit.

This had been increasing.

Because, guess what, the customer isn't always right. Service employees get paid to provide the specific services involved in the venue they work for, not to be your casual sex worker, emotional punching bag, accomplice in breaking clearly stated rules that other customers have to follow, or practice partner in assertiveness training. By the way, those people serving you are not mindless robots without feelings or their own needs for payback. If you think that pitching tantrums and humiliating them and making them scramble to please you is going to get you better results, you're truly insane. They'll talk about you in the workroom. They'll spit in your coffee. And yes, they'll slash your tires.

Well, this thread didn't go the way OP thought it would...

R27 THAT is definitely true. Same reason people make a sport of bullying people on Twitter and other social media - because deep down they know they’re getting nowhere in life, so they lash out.

[quote]Service employees get paid to provide the specific services involved in the venue they work for, not to be your casual sex worker.

Hey, whores are people too.

I honestly don't get people who don't realize a little kindness goes a LONG way with service workers. Cinco de Mayo, I placed a pickup order at a local Mexican favorite. SHOCKINGLY, the kitchen was backed up and things were running behind. I understood (holiday + COVID) and was very chill about it. I got 4 free margaritas while I waited for my food and they took 15% off my bill.

Shhh, R32. You aren't supposed to say that part out loud. You're ruining it for those of us who know how to get along, and revel in it.

R33 my b!

Any customer-friendly policies a business offers will be exploited by asshole customers that want to grab any advantage and don’t care that they ruin it for everyone else.

I tip well, and treat people well. It works like magic. Amazing what a bit of courtesy can accomplish.

^If I have a complaint or a problem, I always treat whoever is helping me with courtesy, as I would wish to be treated in the opposing role. To uphold this idea within yourself is one of the reasons I am one of the people who thinks a year of retail/food service work should be mandatory in most countries.

Ive seen both sides of it. When I worked in restaurants there was an expectation that we were to smile placidly as any entitled, red faced nutjob screamed and raged at us for the pettiest reasons. Not joking when I say that job was one of the reasons I'm such a misanthrope to this day. And generally I'm sympathetic to the workers because I know how bad the conditions they work in are .

But..... I have also seen service workers get nasty and demeaning attitudes for customers for no apparent reason. It's like they take out their anger at rude customers on the polite ones.

A former boss told me "The customer's never right, but they're never wrong."

(1) ... the internet & social media happened, for one (the motto about customer always being right was many generations ago, in a different era); and

(2) big box stores killed Main Street, malls, and mom & pop establishments that relied on repeat-customer goodwill, for two.

Leaving this here.

R38 both are true and it’s definitely a balance. There’s a place in Chelsea called Cafeteria (very gay friendly place even back when) and the waiters all have such a fucking attitude seriously you ask them to refill your water and they act like you asked them for a kidney. The only time we’ve ever had a nice, courteous server there was a woman.

It goes both ways for sure. And if you have this attitude like you “deign” to work here you shouldn’t be in the service industry, surely.

It’s true. Manners and dignity are out the window. Now it’s all faux outage and social media theatre.

It’s all obese women in hideous clothes, black/white/brown, screaming at each other and even brawling. All for Twitter and the ‘gram. Everything is for the clicks and life.

Reminds me of that Madonna movie when Warren Beatty mocked Madonna by saying she wanted to do everything for the camera, there was no point to life (as she saw it) otherwise. Sadly, we’ve become a world of narcissists with very boring lives.

How sad must your life be to either film and post arguments with customers/store employees, selfies and other utterly banalities of every day living? The women that do this are, I suspect, the same ones who made the Kardashians famous. Empty, hostile, stupid, lazy, vapid and entitled.

“Likes” not “life.”

But, likes ARE life, I guess…

Karen happened, and employees making a decent wage for putting up with Karen never happened.

I’m guessing OP has never worked in customer service.

I can tell you one place: Disney parks, resorts, and cruises. Ask and you shall receive.

Did you ever hear of "bait the waitress"? This phrase meant guys (straight white guys) who liked to lord it over waitresses, asking for things not on the menu, etc. I always thought the Jack Nicholson behavior in Five Easy Pieces was a perfect example. Why can't he order off the menu? No, he needs something else. I don't think treating people in the service industry like idiot slaves is okay.

But on the other hand, a lot of people in today's service industries (salons, restaurants, retail, etc.) act like the customer is supposed to go out of his/her way to keep the employee happy. There seems to be a Millenial attitude of "poor me, I have to work!" Don't expect any service, just treat me like your best friend or I'll sulk, get angry, throw you out, etc.

I worked at a Burger King briefly as a teen. To this day I still resent their "Your way, right away" slogan.

I'll throw Bed Bath & Beyond into this mix. Fraus have become accustomed to if they bitch up a storm they'll get some sort of discount and/or special treatment.

As a teen at our BK we used to joke, ‘Have it your way, but not today!’

I have only ever yelled once at a CSR and my partner yelled at me telling me to apologize. It was a gate agent and i was frustrated with their policy (I had pre-checked in and she told me I had to check in again.) I apologized right after. Having been a waiter in college I tip 20 percent minimum - no matter how bad the service.

[quote] Uber is the perfect example, where if you don’t kiss the drivers ring and deign to politely question the route they’re going (which is almost always wrong, because they don’t know whatever city they’re in), they dock you with a low rating.

I have a 5.0 rating and have suggested alternate routes a number of times. It's all in how you say it.

Though to be fair to R22, Uber has no recourse for when a driver flakes and doesn't pick you up and after waiting for 10 minutes the app just says "Driver has cancelled ride, finding you a new driver"

Which means "driver could not find your location", "driver decided there was too much traffic" or (in LA) "driver called called about an audition and bailed"

R53 and if you report the ride, the driver gets dinged, and you get credit.

[quote]I feel like we have regressed away from this and customers are being screwed over in so many ways.

you're a fool and a troll

It was downsized

that happened to me in NYC we were waiting at night right outside Rock Plaza - finally the uber shows up and I open the car door and say are you for so and so (me) he goes yeah, We all get in and he says "you are not my riders" and kicks us out and takes off.

Went the same place as "Look both ways before you cross the street". Please teach your kids they only have the right of way in a marked crosswalk. I am ready to run over the next bitch who steps out in front of my car, nose in the air.

My father was manager of a variety store, the stories I could tell you about the customers, but one that has always stuck with me was the woman who had bought some candles, she came back in complained that the candles burnt too fast, of course they were gone, they burnt too fast and she wanted her money back and she got it.

The problem with that policy is that it makes everyone else pay for her candles through higher prices, unless you believe that the shareholders of the company and the management paid for the loss, LOL.

[quote]What ever happened to “the customer is always right”?

"I know that this costs $60, but I feel that I should only pay $40 for it, so you're going to charge me $40 for it."

This guy has his finger on the pulse of America, including that Wisconsin Trumpster and her bizarre inability to order online.

R61, with better sound.

Customers (people) ARE ASSHOLES!

R60

Haggling is actually common in some countries, and in certain industries still today. What you’re attacking is actually not a bad thing at all and has been a common market tactic since the beginning of mankind.

It's only appropriate in certain situations.

“The customer is always right” is the refuge of a scumbag.

The customer hasn't always been right for decades now. This started dying out in the aughts, when civilization became all about "me" and navel gazing and everyone had to have the last word. When customers became violent, petulant children who take advantage of the good graces of stores and employees, they don't get to always be right anymore. Cameras prove otherwise. Take a look at the People of Walmart. Hell No are they always right.

What R2 said. The attitude you describe, OP, is classist and elitist to the core. It serves the upper classes at the expense of workers. Besides, it's a blatant falsehood. No one is "always right," unless you're a fascist at heart, which you probably are if you're still clinging to this outdated bullshit.

All a bunch of bitches.

One of the grocery stores I use for delivery is always forgetting items or making mistakes, and the two times I tried to say something about it, as politely as possible, the employees yelled at me. I finally asked their home office to cancel my membership but I didn't feel comfortable saying why because I don't want these people fired in the middle of a pandemic, but seriously, if I politely say, "The detergent wasn't in my order this morning, can I get a refund please?" then you shouldn't snarl "male Karen" at me, I don't care how unhappy you are at your job.

I know that I can't say anything about this kind of stuff anywhere but Datalounge without making people mad, though. The big social media thing these days is that every service worker is a saint and complaining, even if justified, makes you evil.

Millenials think you should apologize to them for them having to have jobs. They don't seem to realize almost everyone has a job, including many of the grey hairs they sneer at and refuse to treat with respect as customers. Thank god I understood that working is a privilege and enjoyed my jobs by trying to do them as well as possible. I left my angst at home where it belongs and made the best of some very shitty work situations before I found the work (hard work) I absolutely loved. Too bad for these losers who think a 'bad' customer is someone who doesn't kiss their asses.

Go fuck yourself r71 and your sanctimonious attitude. The service industry has had to put with exponentially more bs from customers over the last decade with zero increase in wages to account for cost of living.

Even today an economist can go on national tv and say that service workers do not deserve $15. The level of disrespect is astounding, especially with what these “essential workers” had to deal with in the last year. It is not a privilege to serve someone for $7.15/hr. People don’t want their ass kissed, they want to be treated with respect.

A millennial admin in my office said recently, half joking, “Millenials book the flight and THEN request the time off.”

The customer was never right.

I assume you mean well r72 but this tweet came across my timeline today and it's pretty much exactly what r71 describes. I doubt the person who wrote it meant it completely seriously but you see this kind of thing constantly, and after a while you do get the impression that Millennials feel they've had it the worst of anyone who ever existed.

[quote]being a millennial is like if someone threw you down a well at birth and then came to the edge of the well every day to shout down at you that living on the surface is awesome and they don’t understand why you’ve chosen to be stuck down a well

[quote] you do get the impression that Millennials feel they've had it the worst of anyone who ever existed.

I think the problem is that most people don't attempt to look at it from anyone else's perspective.

Every generation has had its own issues to face. It's not about better or worse in some cases it's about "different."

Few want to accept that things are different than they were when they were younger.

[quote]It is not a privilege to serve someone for $7.15/hr. People don’t want their ass kissed, they want to be treated with respect.

When I was a kid, a couple of decades ago, I made that for my very first job. It should not be the same rate in 2021 and I've yet to see a single argument that didn't come across as ill-informed supporting it.

Like this one

[quote]Millenials think you should apologize to them for them having to have jobs. They don't seem to realize almost everyone has a job, including many of the grey hairs they sneer at and refuse to treat with respect as customers. Thank god I understood that working is a privilege and enjoyed my jobs by trying to do them as well as possible. I left my angst at home where it belongs and made the best of some very shitty work situations before I found the work (hard work) I absolutely loved. Too bad for these losers who think a 'bad' customer is someone who doesn't kiss their asses.

At no point during this statement did this person attempt to accept even the slightest possibility that things are different than when they were younger. "It's just not humanly possible that a perspective other than my own exists as I talk about a generation of people that I am not a member of who came of age at a completely different time of history under different global circumstances! "

R76 I think they were responding specifically to me relating a story about how I'd been patient after multiple errors at one store I used to go to, and still got called names by the 20-something employees there despite my being polite as possible. The comment in r71 about refusing to treat customers with respect makes it seem like they are talking specifically about the employees who have chips on their shoulders and take it out on others.

That's not to say I personally think Millennials are the only ones who did that. Gen Xers that I worked with when I was younger did it too, sometimes I'd have to take over a table when I was a waiter or take over a phone call when I did customer service because someone else would give a customer attitude for no real reason.

Theoretically it's fine to say that people forced into working those jobs have to deal with a lot so it's understandable that they're cranky and upset. In practice though there have been a lot of times when I had just a whole heck of a lot on my plate, surgeries and deaths and major appliance or car malfunctions and layoffs, and some little 25-year-old grocery store employee decides I'm a "male Karen" they need to snap at to make themselves feel better.

They do that because they're self absorbed. You accused r71 of being self absorbed but so are the employees taking their frustrations out on customers. R71 was being indulgently rude about it but that's how it goes on DL.

That guy in the video at R62 seems like the type to go beszerk someday.

Funny story from old boomer days (maybe it's funny--you be the judge): I was in a service job where I'd see customers (lawyers and accountants) maybe once a week, didn't know them that well, but certainly recognized them and knew many of their names. But I have this dyslexia thing where when a word isn't pronounced anything like it's spelled my brain has a seizure and I can't relate the two. This guy's name was Fuchs and he pronounced it "Foosh," naturally, since you wouldn't say Fucks! But every time he'd come in and say "Foosh" I'd mess up and say, "How do you spell it?" I'd always apologize, but he thought I was messing with me and one time totally lost it--I thought he was going to hit me! I really felt for him with that name, but it wasn't exactly my fault!

I placed a grocery order with Instacart. The shopper left a half eaten can of Chicken of the Sea with a plastic spoon in it inside one of my bags. eeewww

Part of it is the people who could make it right - at the customer facing level - don't have the authority to make it right and don't believe managers or management have their back. And they're probably right.