"Important" Customer

[purplecat41877]

Yesterday, a customer came up to the service desk wanting to cash a couple of winning tickets. One of the checkers called for a store card and when I started going over to her the customer stopped me and told me to take care of him first. Because of that, the other service desk employee told the checker to key in a number which we're no longer allowed to do. The customer was telling me how to work the lottery machine even though I'm perfectly capable of running the lottery machine. I was so glad when he left. My coworker at the service desk also thought that customer was annoying.

[Spiffy McMoron]

The customer was telling me how to work the lottery machine even though I'm perfectly capable of running the lottery machine.

Argh! I hate it when people are like that.

Fun little story here: During high school, I used to work with a woman who had a daughter around my age. Mom (who told me the story) worked with me at an A&W, daughter worked across the street at a KFC. Daughter then quit the KFC to do somethign else-I don't remember what.

Backstory completed, Mom and Daughter went into the KFC after Daughter quit to eat. It was a new cashier at the till, and was a little nervous. So M & D ordered their food, and the cashier punched it in-but she couldn't figure out how to combo the meals. So Daughter, thinking that she was all mighty, told the cashier how to punch it in properly, and said that she could do this in her sleep. So the cashier did what Daughter told her to...and ended up locking up the whole system for a half an hour!

The Manager On Duty was none too pleased apparently...

[AirHostess]

urgh that's like having ex cabin crew travelling as passengers on an airplane.
"In MY day dear we served the coffee like THIS" and try and show you how to do your job...

[Kogarashi]

I must admit, I've done something similar, but only at Wal-Mart and only when trying to help the cashiers (who all seem to be clueless as to how to do this) to run our price comparisons. Because apparently no one else comes to the only Supercenter within 45 min. drive of the area and matches prices from another store. So they stand there holding the ad my hubby and I bring in, trying to figure out just how to override the price on a bag of apples or a jug of juice.

So I usually end up telling them, "Hey, just press the 'Price Override' key, then ring up the item like normal and enter the new price."

Or when they stand there trying to figure out how to key in 3/$1, wnen there's a handy key for doing just that right next to the number pad.

[Dips]

urgh that's like having ex cabin crew travelling as passengers on an airplane.
"In MY day dear we served the coffee like THIS" and try and show you how to do your job...

There best response to that is to ignore the implied message, which is "You're doing it wrong" and pretend they are just sharing random bits of information with you to make conversation. Then you can respond like so:

"Oh? That's interesting."

And then you continue doing it the way YOU were trained, all the while with a bright smile on your face.

Patronizing people really HATE that.

[purplecat41877]

Yesterday, the customer came in and apologized for the way he acted when he was in last. I did his lottery and everything went smoothly.

[bean]

Believe it or not, I'm kind of relieved when I'm keying in an order and they know the system better than I do. I was never properly trained on the "new" system that Papa John's switched to a couple of years ago, and very rarely answer phones (I can't hear well out of my right ear

Apparently the GM of another store lives in our delivery area - first time I talked to him on the phone I recognized his name, but it was obvious I was struggling with the computer, he said "Hey isn't this Bean from A.'s old store? Okay, here's how you do it" and walked me through it. I thanked him.

Of course, if it was a regular customer, I would have been pissy.

[AirHostess]

There best response to that is to ignore the implied message, which is "You're doing it wrong" and pretend they are just sharing random bits of information with you to make conversation. Then you can respond like so:

"Oh? That's interesting."

And then you continue doing it the way YOU were trained, all the while with a bright smile on your face.

Patronizing people really HATE that.

I love that, I will try that in future thanks!

[AFpheonix]

I'll admit, I kind of did that the other day when I was at another W. The cashier was all atwitter because the Pin pad was having issues, so I handed her my card, on the assumption that she'd run it as credit. No, she kept trying to hit the debit key and kept telling me to input my pin, so I humored her and did so, and as I knew would happen, the register would beep at her. I told her several times, "Just run it as a credit card." I guess she didn't hear me, she was flustered. When she tried to hand me my card back, I repeated again, Run it as a credit. Suprise, it went fine.
I think the damn pin pad needed to be rebooted, but there was someone behind me, so I didn't have time to walk her through restarting it. Ah well, maybe she'll just do the credit thing from now on.

[pbmods]

"Oh? That's interesting."

And then you continue doing it the way YOU were trained, all the while with a bright smile on your face.

Hm. I like that better. I would always say, "Trust me, you don't want my boss' job." But that tended to cause more unpleasant conversations than it would stop.