Dear customer,
As a consumer as well as an employee I understand everybody has off days. Those days may be filled with annoyance, rushing around, and just the sheer feeling of not wanting to talk to anyone. I get that. When you work in retail or customer service you cannot have off days, if you do, do not expect to see too many people in your store for they do not like crabby employees. The worst thing as a customer is to feel like you’re bothering the people who work there. As an employee, you have to extend the identical courtesy to each person you come in contact with in order to be a valuable service to the company as well as for the customer.
We are trained to make your life, as a customer, easier by answering questions, providing you information about our products, and so on which requires, at times, a tremendous amount of patience. We take the time out of our day to entertain you, and have all of your needs met. With that being said, the same courtesy, that we as employees implement, you do not always return. Although having a “service with a smile,” attitude is the most important part of my job, it is not always the easiest. Sometimes, you take our services for granted as if we are robots who do the things you want and when you want. Unfortunately, while we are here to help and assist you, we are humans and we make all kinds of different mistakes.
I wish, you the customer, would look past all of the mistakes and realize that I’m trying. I am technically doing you a favor and all I am asking from you, is to say thank you. Thank you. Two words in which we have all been encouraged to use (hopefully) since a young age and have furthermore taken initiative to say as we get older. I’m not expecting a long and endless speech about how you think my services to you as a customer are well over the standards which you normally receive. I do not expect a gold star or for you to say something positive me to my supervisor. What I do expect, however, is just acknowledge I am there. I cannot tell you how many times a customer sees me bagging their groceries and they ignore me.
I work in retail because I like people. And although communicating with people, at times, may be difficult, it is the one’s that strike up a conversation with me that make my job worthwhile. In retrospect, I come into contact with more polite customers than rude ones. It’s about an 8:2 ratio of polite to impolite. Every shift I work, I come into contact with roughly 150 people and I talk with every one of them. While some of the conversations go well, others are like talking to a brick wall. Yes I understand you have places to be today, but while I am bagging the items you have purchased, it wouldn’t kill you to say hi. And please don’t forget to say thank you afterwards.
