Have customers got worse?

[SuperNat]

I would just like to say that I will be flying interstate next week and I plan on being as courteous as I always am to the airline crew I don't understand the mentality of some entitled passengers. Why be mean and rude for.. it's not going to get you anywhere..

[Hyena Dandy]

Its two things. One, obviously, the recession. And thanks to that, people are stressed out a lot. And they get irritable. And because they're irritable, they behave badly.

But the other part is the media. Thanks to the recession, everyone wants to save money. And the media's capitalizing on that. Unfortunately this means they're constantly making things about "How to get stuff from (store) for less!"

Which in the end comes down to "Be an asshole, and they'll cut the prices to make you go away."

[seigus]

This theory is proven by when I do something basic like saying please, thank you, and leaving a decent tip and get a response of, "omg!! You're sooo awesome!! WOW!"
I get confused cuz it was common courtesy and this poor abused csr is almost in tears of joy about it.

I am the same way - careful to always be grateful and to not be a PITA. It amazes people, whereas I just think it's common courtesy. I guess they don't see much of that.

[Peppergirl]

As a travel agent who works off-hours in an emergency call center, I have definitely noticed a trend for the worse.

Alot of it, (at least here in the US) is how badly travelers are being treated nowadays by the airlines and how awful TSA can be in certain cities.

Many of the customers are taking their frustrations out on the person answering the phone (me), which is (as we all know) the worst possible thing you can do if you want the agent to go the extra mile. As one of the posters said above, I will treat everyone politely and with respect, but I don't get paid enough to be screamed and cursed at, particularly over issues that I have little control over.

Bright side: Alot of my 'road-warrior' travelers, i.e - the ones that travel 50 weeks out of the year, have begun to realize that by being nicer to the agent, we will go the extra mile to help you. If you're going to scream and act the fool toward me, you're going to get the minimum of service required in order for me to keep my job.

Maybe its not fair, and maybe I should go the extra mile for EVERYONE in this economy since jobs are scarce, but I've been doing this WAY too long to take alot of shit off anyone.

[cinema guy]

Apparently more customers are complaining: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8163758.stm