Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mystery shop so I take a shitload of bad customer service with a smile and write my report.

However, when it isn't a shop, I happily will both complain and give positive feedback.

Personally, I can tell the difference in stores that get mystery shopped and those that aren't.

This is very interesting to me. Do the store employees know that there is always a chance a mystery shopper is there? Where have you shopped?

I think employees know that there are shoppers out there and some stores clearly have shifts that get shopped and shifts that don't.

I've done most local grocery stores, although one seems to no longer get shopped and it is evident. Every cell phone/wireless store in the DMV. Parking garage. New car sales. Used car sales. It is a nice little side hustle.

This could be a crappy employee or someone having a bad day, or maybe had just been berated by another customer for something that was not her/his fault. One thing that sucks about retail is that everyone sees your bad day -- it's not like you can hide in your office and be grumpy alone. I used to work retail in college and enjoyed it but I knew there was an end date (I was not planning on being in retail forever) and also tried to give people the benefit of the doubt and not take things personally. Often, people would be assholes to me for no reason (e.g., why don't you sell jewelry!!?!?!?? what kind of clothing store is this -- while yelling -- something obviously I had no control over), and it was hard to buck up and put on a happy face immediately thereafter.

I am not saying that bad service is acceptable. It is not. But it might make YOU feel better if you give people the benefit of the doubt versus stewing or getting seriously pissed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here.
To update: The manager of the store has emailed me to get more feedback on what happened (he was very apologetic). He wants to ask more about what exactly happened since all I wrote in my report was that she was extremely rude and unhelpful. I am not sure whether to respond because in retrospect IDK whether it was that big of a deal or not. I don't want to seem irrational since I shop there every week. But I don't know if I should ignore the manager either. Does DCUM have any thoughts?

I think you should respond, I mean, you were so damn proud of yourself for doing this in the first place that I'm surprised you're not dying to follow through.

Agree.

Frankly after knowing what occurred I'd write back and say that you thought about it and that maybe you overreacted, or maybe the person was having a bad day. But that's just me. I don't want to ruin someone's livelihood because they didn't bow down at my feet and fall
Over themselves to leave their assigned section to help me.