Customer Service

it seems the incident with the flight attendant has highlighted customer/ service personnel relationships from the employees point of view. I have worked in retail most of my life and sometimes situations develop that are hard to control. My first really bad incident came when a small boy tossed an item he was looking at in a place it didn't go and as part of my job, I picked the item up and placed it back where it belonged. For some reason, this act upset the child's father who preceded to rant at me and even threatened me with bodily harm My manager engaged the customer, explained I was only doing my job, and that he needed a better excuse to get angry than he didn't like my looks.

Once I had a customer pull a gun on me and promised to kill me. Unbelievably, he had already called the police to have them force me to let him into the store which wasn't open yet due to a power outage.

Once when i worked a second job in a convenience store, a woman preyed using a credit card for gas on pump 10. She went to her car and them moved it from pump ten to pump eight. When the pump won't come on, she came back into the store. I told her she moved from one pump to another so I had cancelled that transaction and would set her up on pump eight. I asked for her card again and she said she had already paid. I told her no, that transaction had been cancelled. She wanted me to issue her a credit and I said I could not because she was never charged.

She refused to move from in front of my register and the line was backing up. In just a few minutes I had over twenty people waiting behind her I finally told her that if she continued to interfere with business I would have to call the police.

One other time a customer became upset because I refused his ID as proof of age in order to purchase beer. He said he wasn't leaving the store until he got his beer and accused me of refusing to sell it to him just because I didn't like him. i explained that an out-of-state ID card was not acceptable in NC for proof of age to purchase alcohol but he only became more belligerent. He calmed down when I offered to call a policeman to explain the law to him. He liked that idea. unfortunately for him, the policeman placed him under arrest for carrying a concealed weapon.

I could write a book on bad behaviour of customers but suffice it to say that no matter how bizarre a person's actions were, I have never gotten angry, felt like striking them, or retaliated in any way. I understand that sometimes people are under stress, don't understand the procedures, or are just looking to cause trouble. If I can't handle the situation, I refer it to a higher authority.