Now I know what you are thinking, you know how to talk to an employee because they are obviously people, just like you. You are courteous, polite and clean, but I am here to tell you, not everyone is.
Being a retail worker, I can say there are some very nice helpful people out there, but there are also very rude people. Some shoppers believe the workers are there to only help them and clean up after them. As I wrote about in a previous post, if you would just clean up after yourself, it would make the employees job so much easier.
Now let’s talk about how to approach an employee. I will say you screaming “hey you” across the store to get my attention will not work. I will purposely ignore you until you are ready to approach me properly. We are people and should be addressed as so. If you are standing behind me and start talking to me, I will also not reply. You must get the proper attention of the employee by going within eye range and saying “excuse me” or “can you help me?”.
We are not afraid to talk back to you if you are rude. We are here working just trying to make money. We are not here to be your personal shopper because you are too lazy to even try to look by yourself. We have other responsibilities besides following you around for an hour helping you out. I have had my fair run ins with arguments involving customers. You cannot talk to me however you feel like talking to me. I work in a professional setting where you should talk the way I would have to talk to you. Yelling at me will result in you not getting your way and I will definitely not be lenient in helping you out or giving you discounts.
