Wait, what? You really think that about me?
Mar. 15th, 2010 04:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serynLately I've been getting to know more people who do retail sales for small outlets. The universal result seems to be a huge dislike of customers who do not behave "correctly".
I can understand this complaint when it's one of those asshole customers who shouts and is overly demanding. Those people are behaving incorrectly. They are behaving immmorally and should be removing themselves from the premises in shame that needs no external prompting.
But this isn't about that.
It's bookstore owners who don't like it when customers say they love the selection will come back another time but do not buy something the first trip. It's yarn store owners who don't like when people talk about what they would make from that yarn if they could afford it. It's independent shoe stores, restaurants, nurseries, boutiques where there no one knows the quirks they expect.
When I go into a small store, they often have weird expectations. Like they holler out a greeting but get angry if I talk to them. Or the door will be propped open due to some maintenance failure on their part, already open when I approach! The shopkeep will shout that this isn't a barn and I should know better than to leave the door open. Or it's a shoe store where the clerk will say that adult women do not wear socks and to come back when I'm wearing proper hosiery.
Small stores have differing expectations between instances. For example, there's an Israeli restaurant near me where you are expected to order at the counter, you choose a table, wait for them to bring your food out to you, then go up to the counter to pay when you are finished. But they do not tell you any of this when you enter and we missed a movie because we couldn't get the server to bring our check. They were angry because we'd hogged a table for a really long time.
It's so awkward to go into these small stores that I've pretty much stopped doing it. I'm made to feel unwelcome, the prices are usually bad, the selection is minimal, and finally I just go home and order something online that suits my needs for half the price and zero hassle.
Oh, and after a dozen or so of the "customers all suck" kinds of posts to blogs and ljs, there will be a ranting post about how business is bad and people should know better than to order online if they ever want there to be personalized customer service.
I don't want personalized customer service if it means being insulted, aggravated, antagonized, and judged. Somehow I just don't miss that in my Amazon shopping experience.
I get that the blogs and ljs are their own personal space and most of their customers don't see their online incarnations. I understand that seeing their personal perspective is a privilege. But what they don't understand is that just knowing they hate their customers so much means I don't want to buy anything from them.
I can understand this complaint when it's one of those asshole customers who shouts and is overly demanding. Those people are behaving incorrectly. They are behaving immmorally and should be removing themselves from the premises in shame that needs no external prompting.
But this isn't about that.
It's bookstore owners who don't like it when customers say they love the selection will come back another time but do not buy something the first trip. It's yarn store owners who don't like when people talk about what they would make from that yarn if they could afford it. It's independent shoe stores, restaurants, nurseries, boutiques where there no one knows the quirks they expect.
When I go into a small store, they often have weird expectations. Like they holler out a greeting but get angry if I talk to them. Or the door will be propped open due to some maintenance failure on their part, already open when I approach! The shopkeep will shout that this isn't a barn and I should know better than to leave the door open. Or it's a shoe store where the clerk will say that adult women do not wear socks and to come back when I'm wearing proper hosiery.
Small stores have differing expectations between instances. For example, there's an Israeli restaurant near me where you are expected to order at the counter, you choose a table, wait for them to bring your food out to you, then go up to the counter to pay when you are finished. But they do not tell you any of this when you enter and we missed a movie because we couldn't get the server to bring our check. They were angry because we'd hogged a table for a really long time.
It's so awkward to go into these small stores that I've pretty much stopped doing it. I'm made to feel unwelcome, the prices are usually bad, the selection is minimal, and finally I just go home and order something online that suits my needs for half the price and zero hassle.
Oh, and after a dozen or so of the "customers all suck" kinds of posts to blogs and ljs, there will be a ranting post about how business is bad and people should know better than to order online if they ever want there to be personalized customer service.
I don't want personalized customer service if it means being insulted, aggravated, antagonized, and judged. Somehow I just don't miss that in my Amazon shopping experience.
I get that the blogs and ljs are their own personal space and most of their customers don't see their online incarnations. I understand that seeing their personal perspective is a privilege. But what they don't understand is that just knowing they hate their customers so much means I don't want to buy anything from them.
