I had this disheveled-looking woman come through the self-checkout machines today. She looks at me and throws her hands-up. I am use to this reaction. People hate self-checkout machines. I offer to give her the personal checkout treatment. She makes the comment that “you guys sure don’t make it easy.”
I hear comments like that all day. Sighs, moans and arms flailing around. I use to try and get customers like her to elaborate. I wanted to be helpful and sympathetic. You know, make things right. I don’t anymore. Customers that drop little hints like that tend to be seriously passive-aggressive. They think you are arguing with them when you are only trying to understand why they are upset. They are mad about something but they are not going to tell you what will make them happy.
Telling people what I want them to do seems so obvious after working in retail. This thing is a load of crap so I want my money back. People really appreciate brevity. It seems counter-intuitive but do not sugar coat things. It is not rude to simply state the facts. The employee I dealt with was a total douche-nozzle and made me angry. I want to speak to a manager. Telling people what you want gets shit done.