Re: Very rude mobile : Wed Jul 03, 2013 1:25 pm  

Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote:

So your mother calls you on your mobile phone with some "emergency" right while you're at the checkout of Sainsbury's.

Your priority is to not offend the cashier, rather than your mother?

I'm terrible at answering the phone so it's not the best example to use for me! I more often than not call people back and if my phone went while I was at the till, I'd wait until I was done to check it - I wouldn't know it was an emergency until I answered it. If I was already on the phone and it was a real emergency, I'd be leaving without buying anything.

And I agree with what people say about the customer being right. Experience from when I worked in Tesco when I was younger showed that the customer, in a number of instances, is rarely right. I had a jar of peanut butter thrown at me because the till was closed, I was verbally abused on numerous occasions because certain items weren't in stock, and more that isn't coming to mind at the moment.

Re: Very rude mobile : Wed Jul 03, 2013 1:27 pm  

JerryChicken wrote:

That anecdotal phrase is one of the least correct sayings in regular use today, I work in customer service at the sharp end and believe me, the customer is not always right.

Our MD likes to use the phrase often but soon changes her mind when I start sending service engineers on 200 mile round trips for free because the customer said they were on a service agreement when in fact I found that they were not and should have been charged "But the customer is always right" would get me sacked under those circumstances

Clearly when a customer is trying to con something out of the company then the "customer is always right" maxim goes out of the window.

But that doesn't extend to cashiers refusing to serve customers for minor breaches of etiquette.

Re: Very rude mobile : Wed Jul 03, 2013 1:39 pm  

Ovavoo wrote:

Unless you personally witnessed the event how on earth can you make this statement????

I don't believe for a second that any manager would have permitted her to refuse to serve a customer who was on a mobile.

I think she was blatantly lying when she says it was a store policy.

Re: Very rude mobile : Wed Jul 03, 2013 1:46 pm  

JerryChicken wrote:

I'll tell you another thing that is correct etiquette and yet I bet at this time of year most people won't do (I learned this in a hot country ), removing your sunglasses when speaking eye-to-eye to other people especially if your glasses are mirrored or extremely dark - in the Carribean and in Portugal (two random places where I've done it) its regarded as polite to remove them when talking to others, especially in a business setting.

If I did that I wouldn't be able to see the other person but I see the point of it

Re: Very rude mobile : Wed Jul 03, 2013 1:48 pm  

JerryChicken wrote:

That anecdotal phrase is one of the least correct sayings in regular use today, I work in customer service at the sharp end and believe me, the customer is not always right.

The full quote including at the end, as i was taught many moons ago, "except when they are wrong"

Re: Very rude mobile : Wed Jul 03, 2013 1:51 pm  

Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote:

She was LYING to the customer about it being store policy when it was clearly not.

The woman has been offended by the cashier and said she'll shop at another store now. Sainsbury's are the losers in this, when really it was only the cashier who acted incorrectly.

I think that's the bit where she falls down. A better response from her would have been along the lines of 'its not store policy but just good manners' or something of that ilk.

Then in the resulting fallout Sainsburys would have had to decide whether its better PR to back their till operators against rude customers or go for the customer is always right line.
Think I know which way they'd have gone though.

Re: Very rude mobile : Wed Jul 03, 2013 1:58 pm  

Ovavoo wrote:

Unless you personally witnessed the event how on earth can you make this statement????

You didn't witness the event. No one on this thread witnessed the event. But you're all condemning the woman.

What if this woman only had a 30 minute work break to get the shopping done and received an unexpected call from her husband who's a serving soldier in Afghanistan?

She should hang up on her husband so that she doesn't offend the cashier?

Re: Very rude mobile : Wed Jul 03, 2013 1:59 pm  

Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote:

You didn't witness the event. No one on this thread witnessed the event. But you're all condemning the woman.

What if this woman only had a 30 minute work break to get the shopping done and received an unexpected call from her husband who's a serving soldier in Afghanistan?

She should hang up on her husband so that she doesn't offend the cashier?

Should she witter on about what she's wearing on Saturday night with her mate?

All of this is ridiculous speculation and completely pointless.

Re: Very rude mobile : Wed Jul 03, 2013 2:13 pm  

Chris28 wrote:

Should she witter on about what she's wearing on Saturday night with her mate?

All of this is ridiculous speculation and completely pointless.

It's pretty much certain that she was talking inane drivel to someone. But that still doesn't give a cashier the right to refuse service.

From Sainsbury's PLC point of view that customer could spend 100 pounds a week on groceries in their store every week. That customer is worth 5,200 pounds a year to Sainsbury's. And that cashier has just sent the customer to a competitor.

Re: Very rude mobile : Wed Jul 03, 2013 2:18 pm  

I think LGJM has a point. Of course it's incredibly rude to be on a mobile phone whilst being served at a checkout, but if retailers only agreed to serve those members of the public who were polite they'd soon go out of business. Every customer-facing employee has the right to go about their business without being abused or intimidated, but they don't have the right to dictate who they will and won't serve based on the customer's manners (or lack thereof).