My main problem with working for a mainstream/power hungry/chain cooperation

is that it’s all about “the customer is always right” In theory, that is good advice, but it can get out of hand. Often times this philosophy just enables people to be rude and absurd because they are under the mentality of “I am the customer, I am right and these stupid pee-ons have to do everything I say.” What they fail to understand is that we are people too. We understand it is our job to serve you. That’s why we’re getting paid. But we also deserve to be treated with respect. Many companies fail to have a customer code of conduct and quite frankly, they should. There should be a list in every store of what is expected from customers. Any customer who would not act accordingly would not be served. It’s a simple concept that makes sense, yet no one seems to use it.

Instead, many companies are left facilitating rudeness instead of discouraging it. My boss is such a big offender of this. Let’s get one thing straight, I love my boss. He is a really nice guy and he respects all of his employees and is generally awesome. His main flaw is that he’s too focused on customer service, to the point where he is just encouraging customer rudeness. For example, whenever a customer is furious because we made their drink wrong or whatever, yelling at the Baristas, throwing a temper tantrum, calling us all mean names, etc, my boss will give them a free drink coupon! Instead he should just say “Sir/mam, please do not treat my employees that way. I can help you fix whatever problem you are having, but only if you are calm and willing to work with us.” By just giving them a coupon for a free drink, he’s telling them it’s okay to be an asshole. He’s telling them if they come in and treat everyone like shit, they’ll get a free drink out of it. It’s rewarding of bad behavior. It’s like a kid in a toy store throwing temper tantrum because his parents won’t buy him something, so they buy him something just to shut him up. It teaches the kid if he wines and kicks and screams, he’ll get what he wants. It’s Psychology 101. 

I went into Einsteins the other day to get a bagel and saw a sign that said “we have the right to refuse to serve anyone on their cell phone.” I wanted to hug every employee in that store and thank them. Little things like this will make a big difference.

I have absolutely no problem giving a free drink coupon to a customer who comes in and says “Hey last time I was in, I ordered this and it was wrong. Is there anything you can do for me?” We make mistakes. We don’t mind fixing it. But if you come in screaming at me, calling me a stupid bitch, yelling “GIVE ME MY MONEY BACK! I’LL NEVER COME IN HERE AGAIN!” it’s unacceptable to just give you a free drink. If I ran my own shop and someone came in acting like that, I would tell them to either calm down and help us solve the problem together, or get out of my store. I wouldn’t mind losing that customer, because I wouldn’t want someone like that in my cafe anyway. I’m all for giving great customer service, but encouraging rudeness is not right and companies across the country would be wise to start implementing policies to eliminate this problem.