Legal Guidelines For Walking Away Or Asking A Customer To Leave Your Store?
Our previous manager would give customers 1 warning if they raised their voice or used profanity before asking them to leave the store. The current manager is a bit of a pushover and usually lets angry customers have their way (he allows refunds w/o receipt, gives refunds for open items, etc.). A few customers have discovered this and pretty much take advantage of things. We have a loyalty program so when we pull up the customer’s accounts we see warnings from previous visits. The rest of the employees are not allowed to make exceptions for customers like our manager does. The customers do not understand this and many think raising their voices or saying nasty things to some of the 18 yr old girls that work with me is how to get their way. We have a guy that cusses at least one employee out a week and another guy that says the manager told him he never has to wait in line. Am I, as a regular employee not a manager, allowed to walk away from a situation where I am being verbally abused?
Tags: Asking, Away, Customer, guidelines, Leave, Legal, Store, Walking
There is not a actual legal guide. You could get a security guard to stand by the door, put up bullet proof glass. You can ask a customer to leave as long as it is not race, handicap, creed or nationality related. You might need to treat the customer better because why would your store attract people who simply figured out to be nasty to buy things. Maybe you are reflecting the attitude that you receive.
….man that is pretty bogus…I’m sure your boss has a boss…you might consider telling your boss’ boss what you said here…I would think this is information they would like to have….it sounds like the new manager is not doing his job very well if he is allowing all of this…..good luck!
Just my opinion, not legal advice, but so long as you are not working for a governmental agency, a business has the right to refuse service to people so long as it is not based on discriminatory reasons (race). Certain businesses that cater to what are legally less suspect classes (age, gender) can rightfully refuse to service people on those grounds (i.e., a women’s only health spa). You could refuse to help the nasty customer, or ask him to leave and, if he doesn’t comply, call the police and have him removed.
But that’s only one part of your question. The other part is whether as a part of your employment, your employer expects you to handle such situations with diplomacy and accept the abuse. If it’s a required part of your job to deal with it, then my hunch is you have to deal with it or risk losing your job. It sounds more than reasonable that you should be able to request of the manager that the two of you discuss the conflicting message going out to these customers that it is okay to abuse the employers. Discuss it with the manager first in confidence, then suggest he hold a staff meeting to let everybody know what the policy is. If more than one of you feel the same way, you can approach the manager together as there is power in numbers. But use some common sense before deciding to use the mutiny approach or going over the manager’s head.
If the manager is not receptive, I’m sure several letters from good customers to the manager and or his boss simply stating that they have observed the abuse by a few nasty people of the employees has become so unbearable to witness that they are considering taking their business elsewhere will get somebody’s attention.
Best of luck.
es you have every right to walk away!!!! Simply tell your manager that you feel threatend by this person. Perhaps at this point it is also time to go over your managers head and speak to their manager aboutt hi problem as well.
To start with, I wouldn’t call him a pushover exactly. One of the core tenets of management is to keep the customers happy; that is how you get repeat customers that keep your business profitable. That is the whole “the customer is always right” idea.
If I were in your situation, I would think about pointing out to this manager that repeat returns for money without receipt should be seen as a red flag. If its once in a while, by all means you should give the money without a receipt. But if this is happening extensively with a single customer that he returns without receipts and only for money, then that is a red flag.
You might point out to the manager that if he keeps letting this happen, it will lead to loss for the store. And that looks bad for him more than anyone else.
As far as the cursing. That is a tough one. You are within your rights to walk away from the customer. The store decides policy on asking them to leave, and that means the manager is the one who decides if he should ask them to leave or not.
But it would be good experience for you if you could find ways to calm the customer down instead of walking away. If you could peacefully end it without losing the customer and other managers see that, it could go far to getting you a promotion or a raise.
You could offer them an exchange. If it just happens that this one time or maybe second time they forgot their receipt, go ahead and give the refund (with all necessary approvals from management if there are any). Show you want to make the customer happy, and the store’s management should take notice.
However, you would have a good case for a lawsuit if he continually allows the customers to curse you and the other employees out. Or you could simply give a two week notice and quit; provide that as the reason if you’d like. If you do provide that as the reason, you probably couldn’t be hired there again. But it would point out the problem to upper management above him. And the two week notice will help in making sure they give you a good reference if a future interview chooses to ask anything of them.
lackeyman…
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