A blog post

What a Cashier at a Local Grocery Store Taught Me About Sticking to My Values

Posted on the 09 June, 2008 at 8:47 pm Written by in Mindset

I went to the grocery store today to pick up a few things for dinner. I was quite happy to find a cashier who was waiting for something to do as it meant not waiting in line. I unloaded my shopping cart, she scanned my items, pretty uneventful.

Until an older woman approached us.

She came from outside the store and walked right up the cashier who was checking out my groceries. The older woman said to the cashier:

“Can I get a cash back?”

If you’re unfamiliar with this term, it has to do with your debit card. In Canada, we can pay for items at the cash register using the very same debit card for an ATM. The money is withdrawn directly from your bank account.

On top of that, you can “withdraw” additional money from your bank account in addition to the cost of items on your bill at the point of sale.

So, if my grocery bill is $23.56, I can do a cash back for $20. That means, my total bill will be $43.46. I pay for the bill and I get $20 to put in my pocket.

The cashier told the woman that she had to wait as she was already checking me out. The older woman then said she was there first (which wasn’t true), then changed her story to say we both approached the cashier at the same time (also not true).

The cashier repeated that the woman had to wait. At that point, the older woman went to stand behind me in line, saying:

“I can’t believe I have to wait. You’re clueless.”

I looked at the cashier, she looked at me. About 3 seconds passed by. But then, the cashier said something that astounded me. As she continued checking out my items, she said:

“Since you believe I’m clueless, I can’t help you. You’re being rude to me and I can’t accept that. Please see another cashier.”

The woman was NOT happy to hear that and went on to argue with the cashier. As I was swiping my debit card to pay for my purchase, the cashier called her manager, who promptly came over to diffuse the situation.

Before leaving, I complimented the cashier on being confident enough to tell the customer that she had to see someone else for treating her so rudely.

Here’s a young lady (the cashier) who works for a national grocery chain refusing to help a customer because she was being rude. She works for someone else, yet her values taught her that if someone is rude to her, she should refuse the business.

As an entrepreneur, I come across alot of people. About 99% of the people I encounter are enjoyable to work with. The other 1% treat me as if I were something slimy that just crawled from under a rock.

Now, I’m not talking about that person who wants to ask questions before buying. Or, who wants to print and digest a sales page before pulling out their credit card. I’m not even referring to those who tell me I need to pronounce podcast with a “T” at the end.

No, I’m talking about those individuals who:

  • Tell me that I lack integrity because my affiliate system awarded their referral to another person. When I dug deeper, I found out that the person cleared his cache in his browser every evening and clicked on another person’s affiliate code the next day.
  • Don’t tell my team that the address where we shipped their goods changed in the previous 2 weeks, then tell me and my team that we have lousy customer service.
  • Scold my team for not being available on weekends to answer their very urgent help desk ticket on Saturday when my help desk clearly states our hours of operation.
  • Email my team and tells us to “F**k you,” when we can’t refund their money in one of our membership programs after their credit card has been charged, even though we tell them 10 ways this side of Sunday that once the credit card is charged, there are no refunds.
  • Tell me that I can’t possibly be a podcasting expert because I refuse to spend an hour on the phone FOR FREE to answer questions that could easily be found in my $30 book.

And I could go on.

At the end of the day, we all have choices. You can choose to continue to be a doormat just to make money. Or, you can do as that cashier did and decide that you will no longer put up with bad behaviour from prospects or customers.

It’s your choice. What do you choose?

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  • http://sellinggeek.com Tim Sullivan

    Amen, Leesa! I have found throughout my business career that the more rude the customer, the less profitable they are — they demand more, require more resources to serve, insist on ever increasing discounts and concessions, and will never be a reference for new business. Why put up with them?

    I recently “fired” a customer. The conversation was delightful:
    Me: “Mr. Customer, I want to thank you for your past business with us, but I’ve recently analyzed the amount of expense that we have incurred to serve your needs at the terms that you required, and we have discovered that we are not making a fair profit for the value we have delivered. Therefore, effective with the end of this contract, we are choosing not to pursue any additional business with your firm. If you’d like some references for other organizations that might be able to serve your needs, I’ll be happy to give you some suggestions.”
    Fired Client: “Huh? What? What do you mean?”
    Me: “I’m sorry, but we can’t afford to continue to serve you.”
    Fired Client: “Well, it’s your fault for agreeing to these terms!”
    Me: “Yes, you’re right, that was our mistake.”
    Fired Client: “So, you will keep working with us?”
    Me: “No. At the end of this contract, we will respectfully withdraw.”
    Fired Client: “What happened to ‘the customer is always right’?”
    Me: “Mr. Customer, this is about doing the right thing for our business. It won’t help you if we go out of business, and we can’t help you if we continue to operate as we have been. I’m afraid we have to let you go.”
    Fired Client: “I can’t believe you are leaving me.”

    He begged me to stay on, and even offered to pay higher prices. But I explained that the only way we’d stay is if we charged him for every hour of after-hours phone support, out-of-pocket costs for unusual demands, and incremental services, which we had been delivering for free. I also explained that his abusive behavior made it impossible to give him good service — my existing staff didn’t feel that they were able to satisfy him. So, I’d have to hire new personnel, train them, and we’d have to charge him for that, too. That was the end of that. It was a pleasure to dump this loser.

  • http://www.AppliedProsperity.com Dave Charbonneau, C.E.R.

    Leesa, this was a fun post. People are funny to me; it’s the concept that their perceptions are the only and correct points of view.

    One of my past mentors (we’ll call him “R”) was in a meeting with an investor who was seeking to push R’s pace. The investor asked something like, “Are we going to get something done here, or what?” R picked up a Magic 8 Ball – you know, the toy that you shake and look in the little window to get a myriad of answers; he picked this up and shook it and said, “I dunno. Let’s see what the 8 Ball has to say about it. Oh, hmm… says Not Likely.”

    The meeting was over.

    I’ve never been real great at being an employee, mainly because of the personalities involved who seek to use fear in place of self-confidence. One of the reasons I enjoy being an entrepreneur is because I can choose whom I work with.

    In any transaction, as long as we have two or more people moving toward similar ends, business is easy. When one or more seeks to impose their will upon another, tyranny and oppression enters in. Free trade gives us great freedoms; competition allows us to attract both the best strategic alliances as well as the best customers.

    So goes the saying, “Mean people suck.”

    I will add, “Nice people Rock!”

    Thanks, Leesa.

  • http://www.wahmtalkradio.com Kelly

    I think I may have ran into that same client who fussed about not being given free telephone consulting time ;)

    This person called me on Christmas Eve Day and said she had the quickest question – which I didn’t mind at all. But it turned into five questions and I finally had to cut her off and gently directed her to my one on one coaching services.

    She said ‘You mean you charge people to answer questions? That’s a terrible way to do business!’

    Good grief.