So I’ve been working in retail for a while and seen my share of odd and rude customers, but today I had my very first “Karen”, and he was american also. (I’m not, and I’m in Australia).
The store I work for doesn’t give their bags for free, we charge for them. This guy picked an online order and then threw up a tantrum and demanded to speak to a manager when I refused to give him a bag for free. Another team member (more experienced) just gave him the bag and he just left.
That does it I guess, but it’s giving in to rude demands what sustains this kind of behavior imo. I’m not trying to protect the interests of the corporate I work for- it’s just a stupid bag ffs, perhaps ask nicely? I’ve been called off both for giving away bags for free before as well as calling for the manager to deal with “minor issues”.
So I’m asking, in general, how do you deal with these types of customers?
Be extremely overtly kind and nice to them, apologies for every single thing and do it over and over again, don’t take there bait, most customers do it because there taking it out on someone they don’t know or they are privileged and it confuses a lot of them when you don’t get angry or mad at them.
Usually works for me. Not always though but confusing them with the opposite of what they expect is always entertaining for me though