It has become an expectation that a customer's needs will be met as soon as they're voiced. No matter what the request or how ridiculously impossible it may seem, employees are expected to do everything to make it happen right then and there. We've become so spoiled as a society that such behavior isn't censured. We no longer stop and think about others, so caught up in our own desires and the requirement that they be met immediately lest we grow impatient and lash out.
No one seems to consider that sometimes what is being asked of an employee is not even physically possible. Sometimes, when a customer asks the impossible of us, we can find a way to pull through and make it happen, though typically that kind of thing comes at great cost to us. And, of course, that cost is ignored as we are somehow expected to make the highest level of sacrifice for every single customer, every single day. Most of the time, however, what customers ask of us is truly beyond anyone's means.
In this I reference a customer who created a scene because we could not give him cash back on his purchases without a receipt. It's a fairly standard practice for companies that accept refunds without receipts that such refunds are provided in store credit only. Though not overwhelmingly successful, such practices typically are an attempt to discourage fraudulent returns. This gentleman refused to accept that we would not give him cash. We explained it verbally, showed him the return policy printed on the back of a receipt from a different transaction, and even pointed out where it was printed quite clearly on the counter. Still he refused to believe that we couldn't just enter some kind of override into our system to give him cash back.
The level of intransigence astonished me. Despite all evidence to the contrary, and despite everyone including the store manager telling him there was no override and that without a receipt we would only be able to provide store credit, he refused to believe us and insisted we give him cash. This, of course, led to him implying other stores had done so for him in the past. At that point, I had reached the limit of my patience, and informed him that if that were the case he should simply take his returns to those stores instead of mine as we would not be providing him with a cash refund unless he provided a valid receipt.
Whether his issue was valid or not, his repeated insistence that we somehow change what our company system allows showcased some of the worst kind of behavior: selfishness. I hate to use the word "entitled" because it has become something of a misnomer, but in this case I think it apt. We have come to think we are entitled to what we want when we want it, rather than consider that we must earn that level of consideration through no small effort on our own parts. Many have said with relish that they far prefer helping those who show gratitude and consideration for those serving them. I have to agree.
The squeaky wheel no longer gets the grease, as they saying goes. Instead it gets thrown out.
Don't be a squeaky wheel.