How do you deal with customers in retail that yell at you?

[Pharmavixen]

It is the society we live in today. People are not responsible any more. People always want to blame someone else because it coudn't possible be thier fault. People have lost all sense of social grace and manners. It as if our whole society has forgotten how to act in public. Being a rude abrasive a-hole is the new norm. People think they need to act that way to get what they want. We are a fast food society now. Everyone wants it there way right away or they are going to start yelling.

I wouldn't say that's necessarily true; in my experience, most customers are reasonable, and some new pharmacists need to get communication skills and learn more effective strategies for dealing with problems. But pharmacists are more likely to get exposed to the nasty folks because we see the "quick fix" people, folks who want to just take pills to cure all the problems in their lives. We don't see so much of the folks like my dad, for instance, who puts up with symptoms for years (if not decades) before finally saying something to his doctor.

Maybe we need to give out gift cards to the nice customers instead of the nasty ones, rewarding good behaviour instead of bad. As it stands, the customer service ethos in large chain stores supports bad behaviour.

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[loo]

Maybe we need to give out gift cards to the nice customers instead of the nasty ones, rewarding good behaviour instead of bad. As it stands, the customer service ethos in large chain stores supports bad behaviour.

This is a cool idea...but...until that day comes...tell the rude, uncivil jerks to go someplace else. Management can go *insert adjective of choice here* themselves.

 

[rph3664]

My experience was that that sick people rarely caused problems. It was the healthy people on maintenance meds who caused the most trouble, and of course addicts.

 

[PharmDstudent]

I just repeat what I've already said. I'll repeat myself 3 times if I have to. It tends to make people look and feel really stupid. Hell, if the circumstance won't change, then what I do and say won't change.

 

[PharmDstudent]

Ex: Me -"I can not fill your prescription because it wasn't dated." Them - "I saw my doctor yesterday." Me - "Mam, I can not fill your prescription. It does not have a date on it." Them - "I just told you. I saw my doctor yesterday." Me - "Your prescription does not have a date written on it. I can not fill it without the date on it." Them - "Ok. Give me the prescription back."

 

[Sparda29]

Ex: Me -"I can not fill your prescription because it wasn't dated." Them - "I saw my doctor yesterday." Me - "Mam, I can not fill your prescription. It does not have a date on it." Them - "I just told you. I saw my doctor yesterday." Me - "Your prescription does not have a date written on it. I can not fill it without the date on it." Them - "Ok. Give me the prescription back."

I don't get how doctors forget to put the date in.

 

[jyso]

Honestly if they are pissing you off them just yell back at them.

The other day a woman starts yelling at me and asked me why there is tax on dog food?! (Honestly Im a pharmacist, I dont give a bleep about tax on dog food or what they tax out there in the aisles).

So I asked her are you planning on eating the dog food. And she replied
"of course not."

So I told her "then guess what, it's TAXED!" I said some other stuff.. but ya sometimes you just have to take things with a grain of salt. It's retail, you are going to get all sorts of patients and people walking through your door.

Honestly when you leave work, as hard as if may be sometimes... you just have to leave all of your problems that you dealt with behind at work and not bring it with you when you go home.

 

[R2pharmD2]

Honestly if they are pissing you off them just yell back at them.

This is terrible advice. Not only is that going to escalate the situation more often than not, it's going to make you look like an idiot too. I like the "repeat the same answer" strategy and "kill em with kindness" seems to work more often than not. Whatever strategy you use, the main thing to remember is keep your cool. It's not worth getting upset over.

 

[Neebs9]

I remember an incident, which involved a female co-worker of mine, and she was helping a patient. I was easedropping on the conversation, and I previously was helping her with the problem with his medication prior (insurance claim/refill too soon) when the patient went off, and straight called her a "bi*ch," for not giving him his medication, and that the refill was not too soon. I had to intervened and tell him: "hey, you don't need to call her a bi*tch, and please, don't speak to her like that, when the problem of your medication was not caused by her." He goes off and tells me why don't you mind your f'in business, which I didn't, but I will leave it at that.

My co-worker wasn't the type to argue back, but be like an "omg, did he just call me that." As a male, I don't tolerate that language towards women, so I felt that I had to defend her.

I didn't really get in trouble at the time, but the pharmacist on-duty told me that if something like that happens to call him next time.

Patients can be really nasty.

 

[ucrx]

I remember an incident, which involved a female co-worker of mine, and she was helping a patient. I was easedropping on the conversation, and I previously was helping her with the problem with his medication prior (insurance claim/refill too soon) when the patient went off, and straight called her a "bi*ch," for not giving him his medication, and that the refill was not too soon. I had to intervened and tell him: "hey, you don't need to call her a bi*tch, and please, don't speak to her like that, when the problem of your medication was not caused by her." He goes off and tells me why don't you mind your f'in business, which I didn't, but I will leave it at that.

Where I used to work, our pharmacists would always say that we did not tolerate offensive language in our store and if they continued to swear they would have to leave and either come back later or take their prescriptions elsewhere.

 

[RealistRPh]

Left CVS 6 months ago.

Ah, doesn't it feel good! I left too. My health was WAY more important than their lack of support for their pharmacists!

 

[Sparda29]

Ah, doesn't it feel good! I left too. My health was WAY more important than their lack of support for their pharmacists!

There were times while I was working there that I was on the verge of a hypertensive crisis. Working at a LTC facility now, on medical leave right now (finally got the ACL reconstruction done), trying to walk without crutches/orthopedic brace now, so I expect I'll be back to work in 2 weeks.

The thing with me and retail. I like to just set up camp at the drop-off counter and not move from there for the whole day asides from doing doctor calls and compounding when those scripts came our way. I hated the pick-up counter with a passion.