Some Customers!!

[kuhio98]

Why doesn't your employer put a sign up saying that no one is allowed to hold the ferrets? Then, you can simply point to the sign and tell them that it is the store policy. That way they can't accuse you of being rude and unhelpful.

[BC_MoM]

Wow. I totally would have lost my cool with her. And probably my job.

[Jessika]

Why doesn't your employer put a sign up saying that no one is allowed to hold the ferrets? Then, you can simply point to the sign and tell them that it is the store policy. That way they can't accuse you of being rude and unhelpful.

You know, I'm not sure why. Its a good suggestion. I suggested the same thing about the sweater rack because customers think its OK to open every single sweater and then just throw the sweaters on top of the rack and throw the bags on the floor Or just throw them on the floor altogether. ARGH!

[Allecto]

Well, I don't think you were wrong exactly, but I am a store manager for one of my jobs that is paying for school, and I wouldn't be thrilled if one of my customer service reps handled her that way. The things I would ask my CSRs to avoid:

1) She was speaking to her daughter, asking her daughter (not you) how you knew she didn't want a ferret. I would for sure not be happy if my CSR stopped helping another customer (the mice person) to jump into the mother and daughter's conversation to be defensive. If you hadn't done that, I doubt she would have made a scene. She probably would have just been a little ticked that you weren't using the ferret to babysit her daughter while she shopped, and gone about her shopping.

2) I would have been unhappy with my CSR for further escalating the problem by giving the customer a laundry list of how they should be behaving and what they were doing wrong. You should simply have explained to her that her daughter was not old enough to hold a ferret on her own, and her daughter had said she was not planning on buying a ferret. Giving her a little lesson in how customers should behave just made her more defensive and upset. The rules should be calmly and politely explained, and then you can offer to go ask a manager if it is ok to allow the ferret to be handled.


That said, I HATE customers like that, and I fully realize that sometimes there is just not a gosh darned thing you can possibly do to make them happy, but it sounds like you handled it ok. I'll stop playing manager now .

[Miss Z]

I think that you handled the situation professionally and politely. It's the customers' fault if they're rude, not yours. People like that seriously annoy me

[Laura's Babies]

I think a sign on the cage is called for and that takes the burden off your shoulders of having to explaine anything to anybody. I find signs get great results (usually).

Some people, no matter what, are going to complain about anything and everything and others, by nature are just plain rude. I asked a co-worker one time "Did you have a nice week end?", and he jumped all over me for asking him about his personal business and how his week end went was NOT my business.. Unfortunally, there are people like that in this world.

[Jessika]

2) I would have been unhappy with my CSR for further escalating the problem by giving the customer a laundry list of how they should be behaving and what they were doing wrong. You should simply have explained to her that her daughter was not old enough to hold a ferret on her own, and her daughter had said she was not planning on buying a ferret. Giving her a little lesson in how customers should behave just made her more defensive and upset. The rules should be calmly and politely explained, and then you can offer to go ask a manager if it is ok to allow the ferret to be handled..

I didn't do that?? I never told her how to act or what she did wrong?? But I do agree. Now looking back on the episode.. what a week later now?, its in the past. I guess it just really frustrated me because of the fact that I have had customers just.. walk up and reach into the ferrett cage and pick up ferretts without even asking the second I turn to scoop more food or what have you and just argh. You're entirely right, I probably should have kept my mouth shut, but what's done is done and she wasn't the only customer who's reacted in that way about that situation (not that it justifies anything) and just ARGH sometimes for the ferretts sake (and my sanity) I wish we didn't even have them in the store lol Nobody ever asks to hold the chinchillas (they aren't allowed to, anyway, because of their delicate rib cages).