5 Ways You Suck at Customer Service Without Realizing It

5 "I Do My Job and Not One Iota More"

From a Customer Service Point of View:

It's been a long day. Every dumbass in the tri-state area has asked you every stupid fucking question you could possibly imagine, and many that you could not, even under the effects of the strongest of hallucinogens. "Where's the dog food? I don't know, sir -- have you tried looking in the pet aisle? Maybe under the 10-foot-wide sign that says 'DOG FOOD' on it? How about instead of asking me stupid fucking questions, you expend just enough energy to turn your useless skull 6 inches to the right and just glance in that direction?"

At least, that's what you would say if you were on your last day and you knew you weren't getting a recommendation anyway. Instead, you choke back the rage and say, "Pet section." The dipshit Dogfood Guy rolls his eyes at you and walks away in the wrong direction. You're pretty sure you hear him mumble the word "asshole" as he disappears around the corner. What the hell is his problem? He doesn't have a right to be pissed off. You barely said two words to the guy, and you answered his dumbass question.

Where You Went Wrong:

You didn't for one second put yourself in Dogfood's shoes. Because the odds are overwhelming that the customer considers asking you for directions an absolute last resort -- almost nobody enjoys A) interrupting somebody else on the job or B) admitting they got lost on a Snausage hunt. That's why right now he's thinking, "Pet aisle? No shit, where the fuck do you think I've been looking? The paint section? The point is, I'm not in this store very often, and all the aisles look the same to me, you arrogant prick." Then the next thing you know, he's shitting in the Arts and Crafts section.

So where you're thinking that you gave a completely correct, concise answer, he sees you as another young punk who wouldn't stop mopping for three seconds to be a little more helpful, because of an, "I do exactly what I'm paid to do and no more" attitude.

The thing is, that ridiculous Dogfood Guy (who, by the way, you're positive doesn't own a dog) isn't impossible to please. Yes, nightmare customers exist but usually all they want is a couple of seconds' worth of extra effort. Maybe something as simple as pointing at the pet section when you said it would have helped. Even giving a little extra detail gives the illusion that you actually give a shit, and he walks away happy: "Oh, sure. It's in the pet section about five aisles down on your left." It gives off much less of a "go fuck yourself" vibe, but you didn't think of it, because you felt like it was already a minor triumph to restrain yourself from actually verbalizing "go fuck yourself."

4 "Hope is a Lie -- Sorrow is My Only Companion"

From a Customer Service Point of View:

All jobs eventually start to feel monotonous. Repetition of any kind gets boring, even if that pattern is divided into week-long chunks. Even porn stars have to take a break every now and again to enjoy a few weeks of not fucking. So yes, maybe your voice has lost its life when you answer the phone. And maybe you leave your enthusiasm in the tip of a condom before you clock in for your shift. What the fuck do they expect out of you -- back flips? Fuck 'em; they pay you minimum wage. If they want more out of you, they can start paying you for it.

Where You Went Wrong:

First, I know that being cheerful and energetic is way, way harder for some people than for others. But people aren't expecting you to be an ambassador for humanity, they just don't want to walk away from your encounter feeling like they may have been the last straw that pushed you into clinical depression. It doesn't mean you have to be Flo from the Progressive commercials, but it also doesn't mean you have to go the other direction and be Wednesday Addams. Customers are perfectly fine with the needle set somewhere in the middle.

I used to supervise a couple of guys who, on the phone, sounded like they were about to commit suicide at any second. Slow, quiet, low-pitched, mumbly, slurred. When they were off the phone, they spoke as normally as any human you've ever met. But as soon as they put that receiver to their ear, it was as if someone were telling them that their parents had just died.

And it wasn't just a work thing. Both of those guys had partied with me before. Both had been wild and loud and funny ... but the second they had to call someone, they went immediately into goth mode. Maybe they subconsciously feel like they have to impress on the customer how hard their job is? But my kids do this, too. As do all of their friends. Is that a generational thing, or did I pick up some weirdly specific power to depress people only when they're on the telephone? And if it's the latter, how the hell can I use that for good or evil? I'll take either with a power that stupid.

But holy shit, is it taxing to talk to people like this. Just to throw out an example, we have two stores in my hometown that have two of the worst cashiers I've ever seen. Neither of them speak, even if you offer a polite, "Hello." I've never seen either of them smile. You'll never get a "thank you" or even a "fuck your mother" from them. They just ring up your shit, heads down, as emotionless as the potatoes they're bagging. It's unnerving, probably because if you spoke to a friend and they were acting like this, it'd mean their whole family had just died in some kind of farming accident and the sheer despair had left them numb. You'd feel awful for making them ring up a bunch of Hamburger Helper during such a trying time. It creeps me out so much that sometimes if I walk in to either establishment and see that they're the only cashiers working, I'll turn around and walk back out without buying anything at all, even if I desperately needed what I came for.

Look, I understand that no sane person goes there to socialize. I went there to buy 76 pounds of crabs and get that shit back home before they wake up and attack me. But again, it just takes the tiniest, bare minimum of acknowledgement to change the whole tone -- the briefest of eye contact, a simple greeting, a partial smile, if you can manage it. And please, don't come back with, "It's minimum wage, what do you expect?" Minimum wage isn't nothing -- when a minimum wage job opens up, 30 applications come in. If that's not worth a smile, it's at least worth making sure you're not dragging every customer down into your black ocean of unending anguish.

3 "How's My Day? Well, Funny You Should Ask ..."

From a Customer Service Point of View:

Every possible thing that could go wrong today has. One server called in sick. Another called in pregnant. The cooks have been getting the food wrong all damn night, resulting in your ass being chewed more than that time you stuck it in the piranha tank at Mall of America on a drunken dare. You had to cancel your date for tonight because you just got informed that you'll be pulling a double. And if that woman's little bastard son won't stop screaming, you're pretty sure you're going to end up in jail before that shift starts.

Your next table is a semi-regular. At least someone you recognize. When they ask how you're doing, you just let it all loose. Thank God someone finally asked.

Where You Went Wrong:

Unless that person is an actual full-on friend or family member, nobody in the world wants you to vomit your entire shitty day onto them. I've had this happen with total fucking strangers at a business, and it is painfully awkward because no matter how polite you attempt to be, you can never fully hide your "who gives a fuck" face.

It's the opposite of Chadlyn Apathy up there in the previous point. There is such a thing as being too personal, even in small talk. Four or five years ago, I took on a massive amount of overtime at my previous job so I could buy my kids some really nice Christmas gifts, because up until that point, I had never had that opportunity. I had to work a few 80-hour weeks at a strenuous physical labor job to do it, but we were able to buy about $1500 worth of toys and gadgets. I was pretty proud of myself. When we got to the checkout line, the girl behind the register started asking us straight-up, "I don't get how people can afford stuff like this. How do you do it? How much money do you make a year?"

She went on to tell us about how she wasn't sure how she was going to afford Christmas for her own kids, and then I sort of just blacked out.

I understand why some people do this. I've done it, myself. Hell, I've done everything on this list at one time or another. Part of it is comfort in your job. When you deal with the public long enough, you start to view the customer base as an entity. You attach a generic personality on them as a whole because it makes it easier to communicate with them. The other part is about connection. You know from personal experience that the better your connection with a customer, the less likely they are to complain or throw a goddamn temper tantrum over some meaningless fucking bullshit.

Unfortunately, the longer you stay in that position, the more comfortable and loose-lipped you become, until you're speaking with your customers on the same level you speak with your college buddies on Jello shot Wednesdays. What's hard to understand from your perspective, though, is that even though everyone really seems to love you and everyone is super polite to you, there is a very large majority of them who hate it when they look up to realize they're in your checkout lane. And as soon as they're out of earshot, they turn to their spouse and say, "What the fuck is wrong with that freak?"

2 "Can You Not See That I'm Busy?!"

From a Customer Service Point of View:

If you ever see another can of beans, you're going to track down the Jolly Green Giant and rip his asparagus dick off. You've been stocking canned goods for an hour, and every time you get close to finishing up the shelf, some old person hobbles by and picks one up right where you're obviously working. They can't just pick one off of the other shelves that clearly haven't been straightened up yet. No, they have to have that exact can of beans from that exact row, forcing you to replace it. Again.

Just as you're finally finishing up, you hear a steadily intensifying shuffle from behind you, accompanied by the faint smell of beef stew and potpourri. Fuck it, you'll be done in 20 seconds anyway, so you continue what you were doing. Fifteen seconds later, you hear frustrated sighs, followed by a hand jutting out in front of your face. It rudely grabs a can, almost beaning your cheek in the process, and then angrily shuffles away. What a fucking dick. They couldn't just wait 20 goddamn seconds?

Where You Went Wrong:

That customer has no idea how long you have left on your task. Or how long you've been at it, or even what your position is at the workplace. All they know is, "Need beans."

Not much will piss me off more when I'm shopping than a stocker who won't get the fuck out of the way. I'm not talking about minor little occurrences where you can easily just reach around them and say, "Pardon me." I'm talking about when you say that, they look you directly in the eyes to acknowledge that you're there, and continue to work. Because their boss said, "Stock this shit," and, by God, that's exactly what they're going to do. They'll be damned if they let annoying setbacks like customers get in their way.

It's actually kind of amazing how as a customer you can see a stocker as nothing more than an inhuman obstacle you have to overcome to get your precious beans, then you can put on the uniform and become a stocker hours later and see customers as nothing more than an unending flow of interference keeping you from doing your job. I guess the key is remembering that as the employee, it's actually your job to be invisible and out of the way, where the customer has no obligation whatsoever to make stocking easier for you.

After all, the store doesn't exist to keep the shit on the shelves, it exists to get it into the carts of customers -- so it's not so much learning to embrace each customer as the precious child of God that they are, but just recognizing that the customer's role is literally to fuck up your stack of cans. When customers ruin your schedule by buying things, the system is actually working perfectly.

1 "Would You Like to Buy Every Service We Offer?"

From a Customer Service Point of View:

You've helped your customer find everything they need. You tell them the price, and they hand you their card. Now for the sucky part. The part where your manager and the home office has forced you to push as many extra services as humanly possible. Your job depends on it because if you don't sell a certain amount of extras, your ass gets canned. Every new service you present to the customer makes him visibly angrier, but there's nothing you can do about it. You see that anger 30 times a day, but nothing you can say to your boss will prevent you from having to continue pissing off your customers. It's policy.

Where You Went Wrong:

You didn't do anything wrong. It's not your fault. It's the company's fault. I have no advice here -- if you run through the offers quickly, then it sounds like you're being terse and rushing them along. If you go slower and really try to sell them on the benefits, you're wasting their time. You can't roll your eyes and say, "I know this is annoying, just bear with me," because they'll fire your ass. There is no perfect way to do it, because what you're being asked to do is annoying as shit.

GameStop executives don't get to see first hand how many people get flat-out irate after they say for the fourth time, "No, I don't want the completely bullshit 'laser etch protection.'" They don't get to feel the wrath of the guy who's in a rush, stopping in on his lunch break to pick up a birthday gift for his brother ... only to be bombarded by a billion useless offers that he's never, ever going to use. All the executives see is the increase in profits that come from the people who are sick of the endless line of pushes and just give in to shut them up.

The last time I went to GameStop, I was asked to get a PowerUp card, followed by a subscription to some magazine, followed by an explanation of game exchanges, followed by etch protection and extended warranty offers, followed by an explanation of how their website works, followed by a request to take a survey about their store. No exaggeration.

Jesus Christ, I understand the concept of upselling, and I know it's a business. But there is a fucking limit to what I'm willing to tolerate when I'm shopping. Every time I shop at a Kohl's (a chain of clothing stores, if you don't have one) I'm bombarded with requests to get their "sink yourself into massive debt" cards, followed by, "Please stop by our website to take our survey and mark 'Very Satisfied.'" Go fuck yourself. Don't tell me what to mark on a survey that's asking me about my experience at your store. If that's how you're going to pitch it, then don't have a survey at all. Or just make "Very Satisfied" the only option. It just blows me away that a company would even have the balls to tell their customers what to mark on a form asking them for their honest feedback. It's like asking, "What can we do to make the store better (please answer 'nothing -- your store is perfect')?"

I'm sorry, I have to take a moment to calm down. My point to all of this is, I totally understand that there are plenty of customers who are clueless, offensive, overreacting pieces of shit (Adam Tod Brown covered that here much more eloquently than I ever could). But having the right attitude while working customer service can win you life's ultimate prize: the right to not have to work in customer service any more.

John is a columnist here at Cracked. You can also find him on Twitter and Facebook.