The customer is king? Not in our day and age - I'm sick of being treated poorly
Evening Standard|July 31, 2024
ON a scale from one to high street bakery, how poor has the customer service you’ve received lately been? I don’t know what’s going on in London right now but you struggle to find any remotely happy or helpful people in most of the chains these days.
Fat Tony
The customer is king? Not in our day and age - I'm sick of being treated poorly

I started this week with that comment because there are particular places that seem to take the biscuit. I wonder: do they send their staff to some sort of academy for the most uninterested and unengaging people on the planet? “Do you want your store to be hated by locals? Do you want to ensure not one customer leaves your establishment satisfied today? Enrol in the University for Shit Attitudes now.”

I was one of these places — and there are far too many — there just the other week and a staff member asked me if “that latte” was mine. I politely said yes. She came round two more times and on both occasions I said yes. She proceeded to scoff, eye-roll and walk away twice. I asked the manager what was going on with her, who I have a good rapport with and he told me to just leave it.

What do you mean just leave it? All I want to know if why she thinks it’s acceptable to roll her eyes and walk away like that. He didn’t want to even discuss it. First world problems, I know! If that happened to me though, it happened to a dozen other people that day. And possibly put a damper on their day.

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