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This might have been mentioned before but Im interested to kno if any of you guys had any experiences of this that stood out- seen as unfortunately dealing with the public its likely we’ll get abuse on a daily basis.
😯My personal feelings on the subject are- fair enough people are peeved off that their appliances are knacked and they have to pay for a repair but why should we put up with people being abusive and just downright rude ❓
I’ll admit I do not have a lot of patience and It doesnt take much for me to lose the plot ( I am scottish and female after all :scot: ) but I try to be as understanding as possible…but the moment someone starts to get aggressive, abusive or rude I walk away. Fair enuff It may cost a customer and money at the end of the day but TBH I dont want customers like that and I do not want their money.
Ive been assualted, racially abused ( for being Scottish- was told by the customer to ” Go and learn English” 😕 ) Chastised for being female ( ” How can you know anything technical- you’re a woman” 👿 ) and been called every name under the sun. The reason? Because I was doing my job.
Anyway like I said- Im really interested in hearing of any of your experiences and your opinions of individuals who are intent on treating others in such a wayRe: ABUSIVE CUSTOMERS
They beggar belief at times.
Try & get a dentist for a raging toothache, and you may have to wait 2 weeks, a hospital apppointment may take up to 2 years. Try and tell a customer that we can call tomorrow to look at a dishwasher, and you get a torrent of abuse.
If a customer Eff’s & Jeffs to us on the phone, we tell them to calm down or we will end the conversation. If howerver he or she (as becoming the norm) Effs & Jeffs about the machine/retailer, but is civil on the phone with us, and prepared to work with us, we take little notice. In fact we are sharing and aware of the frustration that is with the product, not in our efforts in reaching a solution. When they say “This thing is effing rubbish”, we do not take that as abusive.
When they get personal or offensive, then they get nowhere. If we get a real abusive one we put them on speaker and tell the customer the whole office is now listening to their ranting. If it is really bad, we won’t deal with them until there is an apology. That includes in guarantee and insurance work.
We have refused to attend some calls on a health & safety matter where there is a risk of abuse, and engineers have walked off site if met with a compromising situation.
One guy confronted the engineer in the road outside his house, and asked him why he did not bring a manager with him as his call required special attention, (Beko cooker on D&G Ins.) Engineer who was a specialist with 20 years experience explained he could fix it on his own, customer told him to Eff off. So he did. That was beginning of December 2003, 1 week before Christmas we were getting phone calls from D&G, who agreed with our actions, and the Friday before that Christmas his Mrs phoned up begging us to call, needelss to say we didn’t.
It is getting worse now, and people cannot see we are trying to help. Without being sexist, and I don’t know why? we are finding lately the women are the worst. I’ve spent my life around women, 2 daughters (who can tell a dirty joke better than I can), and the cat is female; yet to hear such abuse at times from customers disappoints and saddens me.
Alex
Re: ABUSIVE CUSTOMERS
Alex your not being sexist- i agree with you- it was a woman that lamped me in the face (broken cheekbone from that one).
We women are the worst 😆 God knows the minute I start getting abuse the individual knows about it.
When I mentioned earlier about people being abusive- i did mean personally abusive. If they are having a rant and rave and effing and blinding then I can handle that- it is understandable in most circumstances I find.At the end of the day my opinion is with so many things happening in the world today- a broken washer or fridge is not the end of the world.
Saying that however we have instances occasionally when someones fridge has broken and they kick off ( quite rightfully so IMO) as they need the unit to store medications and such.
In cases like that, we give the customer special consideration. The other side of the coin of course is that if these people rely on their fridges so much for this reason, why do they not have a back up-such as a mini fridge? It sounds daft but they dont cost a lot and they are handy if we cant repair the unit on the same day.Re: ABUSIVE CUSTOMERS
It’s getting worse :eeek:
Most people are fine, 99{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} infact, but the ones that are abusive, really are abusive and insulting. 👿Here’s another thread for this issue:
http://www.ukwhitegoods.co.uk/modules.p … highlight=
Adrian 🙂
Re: ABUSIVE CUSTOMERS
Yep agreed….. Some people seem to be under the impression if they have a hissy fit and throw their toys out the pram they get what they want.
Treat people as you wish to be treated as they say…..
Here’s a question tho- What people are the worst? .. Personally I find its the posh toffs who look down your nose at you or the chavy single mums with a dozen kids who seem to have no control over their vocal range and seem to have trouble using the f word less than 17 times in a sentence-which is always ended with ” Ken whit am sayin” or ” Ken whit ah mean an that”
If you need the above translated- let me kno :snigger:
Re: ABUSIVE CUSTOMERS
on a telephone call from or to a customer and they use the f word i find it personally offensive, however i acknowledge that f this and f that is common parlance on the tv…i and my family do not use the f word so why should i have to hear it?? when i hear it on the tv it makes me sick, the english language is renowned for it’s wide vocabulary, why are so many usefull words ignorned and its back to basic old english, not quaint just downright obscene. sorry about this rant but i’m strongly old fashioned. 😳
Re: ABUSIVE CUSTOMERS
Hi All,
I must be very very lucky with my customers having had none of the above bother apart from about 5 years ago when I fitted a main oven thermostat to a built in oven, a few months pass and the customer comes on the phone saying same problem again not heating up so still under guarantee.I exlpained that it was, however if it was something else causing the problem then of course a charge would be made, at that the customer says, Oh you’ll say it’s something else anyway and will still get charged and slammed the phone down.
Anyway sorry to read all of the above tales.
Sliverbroom
Re: ABUSIVE CUSTOMERS
Some years ago when we were doing work for Currys it got so bad that I made up a letter indicating where/who the customer should contact if she had a problem. It went along the lines of – if its delivery contact here, if its performance go here. If its parts go here and if its us Im here. Handed it to the customer as soon as they had pointed me in the appliance direction and told me what was wrong. Worked everytime but I bet Currys got it in the ear 😈
Re: ABUSIVE CUSTOMERS
I don’t have too much trouble with abusive customers. This may just be because I’m large and mean. 😈
But I’ve had my second creepy male customer today. 😥 I can deal with threatening – I’ll just escape or thump them – whichever seems applicable. But I can’t handle shite like “You’ve got me under your hypnotic spell” “Your husband is so lucky.” “I’m gonna call you all the time now.” and then looked up to see the cheeky git was taking my picture while I sorted his machine out. 😯
Wtf? Who knew the allure of a large tattooed woman could be so strong???
Of course, I thought of plenty to say after I left – but while they’re being polite (if creepy) I find it hard to deal with. 🙁
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