Hello everyone 👋🏼
Have you ever been in a situation where you had to ask an aggressive customer to leave and tell them they are not welcome back?
How did you handle it?
I usually keep my composure but I lost it today, I guess I’m human after-all.
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Hello everyone 👋🏼
Have you ever been in a situation where you had to ask an aggressive customer to leave and tell them they are not welcome back?
How did you handle it?
I usually keep my composure but I lost it today, I guess I’m human after-all.
I've had a crazy guy who would keep saying he had money and he'd try to Apple pay with a T-mobile debit card that had $0 on it. He'd stop by every other day for almost the greater half of a month and we'd try to kindly brush him off and told him he can go to the bank across the street and get cash (he would always say he had thousands of dollars in the bank). Most days he'd come in and call T-Mobile while sitting on our seat for up to an hour at a time speaking very loud over other customers asking why he couldn't use the money on his card. He'd talk to agent and then fall asleep snoring on our chair halfway through and we'd shoo him out saying if he wanted to ask about his finances he should do so at home and not in our store and he'd get very very aggressive saying he won't leave and we could call the police for all he cared while shouting as loud as possible. We actually did call the police twice and he'd always leave right before the cops come in like he had a sixth sense.
One day he sat on our seat and then just up and took a dump and left liquid diarrhea on the seat and then said he had to go to the bank. After we discovered the mess a couple minutes later we documented everything and took pictures of evidence and the next day he came in, my boss and I threw a fit and tossed him out saying he deliberately shat on our seat and was here to harass us and he was banned from ever stepping foot in our store.
Haven't seen him since... thank god!
At my previous office, we had to "dismiss" patients now and then. Usually the manager or district manager would step in and take the burden off of the employees to do this. However, they weren't always around. We once had a person who clearly had a mental illness come in screaming profanities and wanted to use the bathroom. They were yelling curse words so loudly throughout the whole office. We told her she had to leave and she wouldn't. I thought we might have to call the cops but she eventually did leave. I never understood why people would just come in off the street to use our bathroom when there were multiple other businesses right next door with bathrooms they could use. Those were always the people that "dropped a bomb" so to speak in our bathrooms. We had another lady who was actually a patient, but would frequently come in when she did not have an appointment and sit down and eat a slice of pizza she bought from the pizzeria next door. Why would she not just eat it there? Then she would get some sort of digestive distress and stink up our bathroom. Once she clipped her toenails in our waiting area. WHY?!? Manager told her she could only come in if she had an appointment or needed us to help her with something eye or glasses related.
My current office - I wish we could kick people out but it seems like they'll let people do just about anything and get away with it. During the thick of the pandemic last year, a patient's son threw a tantrum about masks and picked up our comments & suggestions box and launched it across the front desk area, nearly hitting a receptionist and was screaming and pounding his fists on the counter. The doctor came out and acted like it was no big deal and asked him what WE had done wrong. He returned many times after that for his mother's surgical post-ops.
Personally, I feel that if a patient is making a scene and trying to assault your employees, they need to leave and not come back.
I have had to escort many patients out, being vulgar, cussing the doc, impossible to make them happy, etc. I have a background as a Correctional Officer on Texas Death Row so I am called upon in any situation like that. On the plus side, my employees feel safe with me here under any condition, it actually helps them to diffuse situations knowing I am close by to get involved if needed.
In a firm and unequivocal voice say this:
"I'm sorry but what's happening here is unacceptable and I am politely asking you to leave as I will not help you further. There will be no further discussion. Please leave now."
If they don't start to leave escalate up to your manager or call the police.
Always document what went on.
When I worked a block from the "Combat Zone" Billy Joel made famous I had many incidents literally giving some the bums rush. Only had to deck one bum harassing an elderly man in front of the office. :eek:
Liquor stores in the area kept these pints in the 24 count cardboard box stacked 4 high by the register:
http://www.bumwine.com/
Click on a name and read the descriptions for a laugh out loud description. :wink:
I had a patient come into the optical shop for a repair and kept taking his mask off. I kindly told him twice he had to keep it on here and then he refused to take it off. I told him it was time to go, his glasses were fixed and he couldn't stay in here without a mask. He yelled and screamed and cursed at me and told me I needed to die. He was a larger 6'4 guy and I am 5' woman. I work alone in my office and the OMD office is across the hall. I had to call security and he left before they got there. My OMD was supportive and dismissed him from our practice. A friend is an OMD upstairs from us in the same building. He had a patient shove him into a wall because he told him to put his mask on. He called security and they physically took him out of the building and he has been banned from the building per security. I don't care what you think about masks, we are in an outpatient building attached to a hospital. Everyone is required to wear them in this building. Don't yell at people and don't be disrespectful to the people who are just trying to help you. People have become so rude!
Oh my goodness. That's awful. I definitely started to get burnt out from getting yelled at about our mask policy. I didn't create COVID, and I don't make the policy decisions, so yelling at me does no good. I just work here. I honestly believe the past few years have taking a very negative toll on everyone's mental health, because people fly off the handle so easily these days.Quote:
Originally Posted by mervinek
I almost had to ask a patient to leave yesterday. I cross-posted this on the Opticians FB group, so sorry if it's a repeat for anyone. This patient is someone who sees our OMD and we have made glasses for him. He is a snowbird and bounces back and fourth between PA and Florida, and has been known to purchase glasses in Florida before. He came in yesterday complaining that his lenses keep falling out of his frames. I ask to see them and go in my little "office/lab" and look up his last order. The frame he handed me is not one we sell or have ever sold. The lenses were clearly not cut for that frame, as there was about 3mm of open space between the temporal bevel of the lens and the eyewire. They were Frankensteined together. Perhaps he broke an old pair and another optical sold him a cheap frame and stuck the lenses in, but the lenses were really too small, hence why they kept falling out. Checking all of his orders on file, nothing matched and his most recent order was in May. I sold him a brown double bar bridge frame with Varilux lenses. This Franken-pair was gunmetal, and the progressive watermark was not Essilor's. We 10000000% did not make these. I would never let someone walk out of my shop with lenses that flop out with the slighted breeze, either. He insisted we made them. Before I could even offer to put lens liner/tape around the lenses to help them stay in better, he started getting out of control. Screaming that we scammed him, that I was feeding him a line of bull****, that I jipped him, etc etc. He was swearing and cursing at me and threw the glasses at me. Knowing that maybe he might have dementia or simply forgot, I stayed calm and just kept saying, "I'm sorry, but we did not make these. I can't make you new lenses for free but I can try to make this fit better or I can sell you a new pair of lenses." He told me to wipe the smirk off my face (trust me, I wasn't smiling at all after being screamed at for about ten solid minutes.) He stormed off and started verbally assaulting the front desk ladies demanding to see our OMD so he could tell him how awful I am for scamming him. They arranged a time for him to talk to the doctor later that afternoon. I was shaking, I was so upset, but I NEVER got rude or snippy with him. However, I am not going to give someone who is that vicious free replacement lenses for a botched job we had no hand in.
An hour goes by... He saunters back in, tail between his legs. He found the last pair that we made and realized the Franken-pair were not his new glasses. He humbly apologized. No word on to where the Franken-pair came from. I love when patients actually apologize. I told him it's fine and not to worry about it.
I had one that his lens where 6 years old, and demanded a warranty redo, I informed him the warranty for his particular lens was only 2 years, so they where 4 years out of warranty, but I could give him a discount. He cussed me, my opticians, called us crooks. I apologized and told him that was all I could do for him. He finally accepted the discount and paid half. I seen him at the front desk a day later with an appt for the Doctor. The doctor brought him out and said we are going to do the lens at no charge and refund what he paid. The Doctor and I had some harsh words due to him allowing this guy to treat his employees like crap. When he picked up his new lens, I asked that he sign that I told him he had 1 year warranty. He stated "I am not signing that." I wrote in front of him with a witness he refused the lens warranty. He came in a week later after falling and scratching both lens. He then paid full price for new lens!
The entire world is short staffed, people need to be kind for those who showed up to work!