Is the customer really always right? What they said/what you wish could say...

[Gemme]

Originally Posted by dark_crystal

My customers (library "patrons" technically) believe that there should be no rules in the library because they pay our salaries (with taxes.)

When informing a gentleman that he needed to vacate the Teen room because school was getting out and we don't allow adults in that room after 2:30 pm, my favorite librarian was told "i have owned my home for twenty years and paid enough in property taxes to be allowed to sit wherever I want"

Actually city services are supported by sales tax

His "companion" then told my favorite librarian, who is POC, "you wouldn't have said nothing if i wasn't white"

She went downstairs to complain to another manager, who confirmed that said librarian was enforcing the policy as required of her. She called that manager a tramp.

The next day she called me on the phone to demand an apology from the librarian and demand to hear how i intended to solve my library's racism problem.

She said "you know there's a real racism problem in this country, except it's not like THEY say, it's what THEY do to us."

I told her that if our posted signs regarding Teen room adult hours were not visible enough I would make bigger ones, but if she ever abused my staff again she would be banned from the building.

She told me to be prepared to see my face on the front page of the paper and to be fired by the mayor because she was going to make sure everyone in town knows that I am a racist.

Good on you!

Originally Posted by Orema

There is reason to expect more. We don't need to have history nor a connection for me to expect common decency from another human being. This customer was unnecessarily rude and shocking. Good on Besame for calling her on it by asking why. Hopefully, Besame's question will cause this customer to think twice before asking someone else what to do if they die (or get fired, or any other tragic event).

The woman expressed concern that Besame wouldn't be there to help her in the future. That sounds like anxiety to me. I'm sure most of us knows at least one person with high anxiety or an anxiety driven condition. True, the way she asked presented a distinct lack of tact but that's not criminal.

Again, there was no previous relationship with Besame so it's understandable that she would be concerned that Besame wouldn't be there if she had problems in the future. Many businesses have a lot of turnover or maybe the customer recently lost someone or maybe she has a fixation on death. No matter what the situation was, she didn't know Besame from Adam, so there was no previous interactions that would comfort her.

I get customers all the time that feel more comfortable dealing with the person that completed their rental or that they contacted first, regardless of that person's designation within the company. I don't take offense to that as I feel that way myself; it's human nature to want to continue to work with whomever you've previously had contact and/or rapport.

For the record, you would probably be pretty put out with some of the conversations up here in the Northeast if that offended you. People are VERY blunt and short here. It was a bit of an adjustment period for me, even though I've lived in the North before, because I'm very much a Southerner and the Northeast has its own flair. I got used to it, though, and learned to work with it and to find ways to add in my own charm when I can.

People are going to be themselves, warts and all. I'd rather a customer speak what they are really thinking and feeling to me, even if it's a bit rude or tactless, than to give me the condenscending social politeness that I've experienced previously, mostly in the South.