In the spirit of Jennifer's terrific thread on Things Not to Say to a Barista, I'd like to turn the eye of judgment back on ourselves, and discuss things that we should never have said to our customers.

This happened to me three years ago, while I was working at the 'Bux. It haunts me to this day:

 

The Worst Thing I've Ever Said

 

Good grief. I'm lucky my pants weren't sued off. So what have you all said to customers that you immediately (or not-so-immediately) regretted?

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I was having a funny day and was just doing office-y things in the back when I came out to the front to grab a coffee and dropped a cup, I jokingly (and loudly) said "Oh F--k my life!" and didn't see the woman waiting for a drink by the bar.... Whoops, immediately apologized and ran to the back to laugh it off.

Ok -I have to share this here - Even though we are on the POS side of it - customer service is customer service:

One of my sales reps a year or so ago.  He was leaving a message for someone that was looking at our POS and ended the call with:  Love you - Bye.  We have never stopped razzing him about that.  The customer never returned a call either :(

The first incidence I thought of (out of many) was actually of my co-worker rather my slip up:

 

Me: (speaking to a regular who came to the bar) "Hey man, how goes it?"

 

Customer: "Hi, good, you?"

 

Me: "Doin well...your usual?" (He nods)

 

Co-worker: "Oh his drink is on me! He got into his masters program today!"

 

Me: "Oh dude, hey, congrats!" (He nods thank you)

 

Co-worker: "So yeah, just consider it like a celebatory drink."

 

(Pause)

 

Me: (Turning to the customer) "You're celibate?"

 

Customer: "What...wait...what? No."

 

Me: "I dunno dude, she's claiming that you're celibate...don't ya just hate rumors?"

 

Co-worker: "No no no I meant uh...um cele-BRA-tory!!"

 

(Pause)

 

Me: (Turning to customer again) "You wear bras dude?"

 

 All in all we figured out what was being said and it was funny...but I kept telling him after this that the powers of celibacy were what kept him coming back.

 

 

Haha, great video, you're a funny guy Nathanael.

 

Happy Holidays & Christmas Cheers,

Chase.

haha great video Nathanial. I appreciate the flip side to my discussion.

 

It's a great reminder to watch what we say and to phrase things more carefully.

 

Mine are more along the lines of watching how I phrase things. Besides that, I remember saying "eww" out loud on accident to a customers order or rolling my eyes when someone ordered a bux drink.

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