Would you fire an employee for calling a customer a Karen?

[Zuben]

They aren't being dealt with, is the thing. Customer service in the US is notorious for being a punching bag for entitled Boomers.

Seems like the term isn't working then and might as well die off.

[Gaidax]

Uh huh. And somehow you think the minimum wage workers who get victimized by these people are responsible for those policies, therefore abusing customer service workers is excusable?

Whatever you say, Karen.

The victimized staff has ways to deal with abuse that does not involve calling customers sexist derogatory terms. Which is the whole point.

I do not promote bending over and taking it - I promote not being a tit-for-tat moron, especially when you are not even asked to be AND are given a way out as customer facing employee.

If there is a problem, there is always a manager that can assist and in severe cases security/police. Tossing sexist terms at people, on the other hand - that's simply wrong on many levels.

[callipygoustp]

Even if the customer's name is Karen - you're fired!

[Elegiac]

The victimized staff has ways to deal with abuse

So yeah, you're admitting there is in fact a culture of abusing customer service workers and the claim that anyone getting called a Karen is a victim of evil anti-customer policies was in fact nonsense?

This really has "you're victimizing someone by calling them a racist because they were justifiably stressed when they said the N-word" energy, to be honest. They fucked around, they found out. That's really all there is to it.

[Gaidax]

So yeah, you're admitting there is in fact a culture of abusing customer service workers and the claim that anyone getting called a Karen is a victim of evil anti-customer policies was in fact nonsense?

This really has "You're victimizing someone by calling them a racist because they were justifiably stressed when they said the N-word" energy, to be honest.

Again, the bottom line - the correct way to deal with it is offered in corporate guidelines. Every front facing customer support agent at the very least is being trained to handle that correctly AND have tools at their disposal to cut that out in a way that is both professional and effective.

The incorrect (and idiotic) way to deal with it is tossing sexist crap remarks back at customers.

You seem to think abusing customers with sexist terms is an appropriate response to irritations, I think it's not.


And by the way - there is also a culture of bleeding customers dry for every last $$ saved with various bullshit policies. But hey, that's fine, they should just bend over and take it. You're such a cute corporate ghoul, you. Have a gold star.

[Stelio Kontos]

I got no issue calling an asshole out, regardless of if it's a middle-aged screaming white woman, a middle-aged screaming black woman, lippy teenagers, or anyone else.

Karens deserve to get called out no more or less than anyone else does.

And if the employee is in the wrong, or breached the rules, they should be fired as well. There's no one-and-done rule for everything. A lot of customers are wrong, or rude and demanding, and a lot of employees are not much better either.

Everyone's an asshole to someone somewhere. So kick out the rude customer and fire the rude employee.

[Edge-]

I don't need to

Oh boy, you'd really benefit from a few weeks/months working retail/customer service in the US. Because like, it's a genuinely eye-opening experience that I think everyone should have in their lives. Puts how you treat store employees into perspective.

[Gaidax]

Oh boy, you'd really benefit from a few weeks/months working retail/customer service in the US. Because like, it's a genuinely eye-opening experience that I think everyone should have in their lives. Puts how you treat store employees into perspective.

It's ok I worked for 2 years in cable company customer support as my first adult job, 9 hour shifts on the phone. If you think it was some pleasant experience, I can assure you - it was not.

The thing is - VERY often, customers were indeed right and having a bit of basic empathy to understand that helps too. The shit some of them went through would blow everyone's lid.

And the cases when things went out of hand - I could always demand from customer to seize that behavior and end conversation if that did not happen. The only thing I could not do is abuse them back, because that would just be pointless idiotic act.

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My favorite cases were when customers were charged service fees over supposedly "no malfunction" found at site on service calls, despite it being plain fucking obvious in the trace that there was in fact a clear infrastructure issue going on.

Customers with absolutely dogshit infrastructure having issues having technician sent to their homes that did not do shit because at the moment they arrived their dogshit line worked for those 10 minutes they were there. So effectively no solution AND -$20 USD for service call - nice.

Damn those "Karens" calling back demanding to talk with the manager to fix their obviously faulty connection and not charge them for useless service call with a guy doing nothing to help.

I remember doing some "manager calls" (because in reality when you ask to talk to the manager, you just talk to "senior" agent, aka 20 years old kid instead of usual 18-19 with a few more buttons to push on screen) - there was a guy who had that crap going on for half a year and where he lived he had no other infrastructure options.

The person was literally abused by the corporation which decided to simply not improve his situation because $$. Company just kept sending technicians to his home, well aware it really was not a solution without actual infrastructure work done. Somehow he was not a paragon of happiness, but guess what - you use that "empathy" thing and see a bit past his "Karen" outburst, because he was legitimately griefed by the company with no way out.

And he was far from single case.

So yeah, I say what I say, exactly because I have experience with this kind of shit and I am completely on customers' side because WAY more often than not behind so-called "Karens", as you sexistly put, you have stories of literal abuse for $$.

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Heck, reminds me of "Have You Tried Turning It Off and On Again?" meme. We legit were telling customers to do that, despite often seeing there was a genuine issue in trace. Why? Because when you restart a flapping router you clear the overloaded recovery buffer, processes and it might affect TX/RX thresholds to give it another several hours or a day of being able to operate with shitty infrastructure before it inevitably fucks up again.

Company encouraged to "resolve" issue during the call, so they won't have to send free technician to actually fix the issue. Damn them "Karens" who were onto this act after 3rd time or so and demanded to cut the crap.

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Or get this, company offered a new and amazing service (back then in early 2000s) - Video-On-Demand. Except most of receivers were simply effectively incapable of running it, it sort of ran, got stuck and the amazing solution we offered for customers was just... yep "Have You Tried Turning It Off and On Again?". despite being full aware that the real solution was to install a newer receiver model cut for the job. But nope - that would cost $$$ for the company and was not offered, despite customers figuring that one out seeing spanking new receivers at friends' houses fly through VOD like a dream.

So these "Karens" demanded the same and we denied them, unless a particular customer was threatening to cut the line and use competing infrastructure - then miraculously there was a solution.


Holy shit, SO MUCH CORPORATE CRAP - literal customer abuse on industrial scale in name of extra $$ for them execs. But sure thing, boss, it's the customers who are at fault here.

So don't tell me what I experienced and what not - I know this piece of shit rotten system inside out and I don't wonder how can it be that customers see enemy in corporations, because it fucking absolutely IS the case. I'm more shocked and saddened some choose to push the blame back on the actual customer.

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As a side note, from experience - it's absolutely worth it being assertive customer and demanding to talk to the manager every time you are not getting what you really are supposed to get.

It's how this whole corporate bullshit setup works - the usual goodie-two-shoes customers get the bare minimum through 1st line agents, who have only so few options open to assist. These options increase (sometimes considerably) when you actually get to talk to "manager", even if that's actually a fake manager as in 2nd line agent posing as one.

The options available for decent support open up even more when you demand to talk to actual manger (there is no 3rd line, that moment you actually get to low ranking team lead) - at that point you actually get good solutions that require company to invest a bit to retain customer.

It's really a standard support scheme aimed at cost cutting, because most people are not aware or get broken/give up easily. So yes, being assertive customer is the key - there is nothing to be ashamed of.

So yes, that's how you get "Karens" - because that actually is setup to work that way in hopes of cutting costs on the meek sheep majority, while some more assertive and experience people figure out the scheme and work through it to get what they should actually be getting.

[kail]

It depends heavily on the situation. If the employee is just insulting any customer that he/she finds annoying, said employee is a bad representation of the business.

If the customer is being an unreasonable pain in the ass, I would support the employee and do whatever possible to get the customer out.

[LilSaihah]

If a staff member's in a confrontation with a customer and calls them a Karen? That'd be unacceptable, that'd be them escalating the confrontation.
Talking privately with me or other staff? It's practical shorthand, I suppose.

[RCA]

snip

And after you think anything about me,...wow I agree with you on this one. Personally that word meant something different than it did now 10 years ago. And quite frankly agree with what you posted here, aka it's a shitty excuse to label anyone. Just leveling honest explanations to out any tied sides.

[Pony Soldier]

No. If this employee was one of your best employees why would you fire him/her for saying a name? A good boss would at least give the employee a second chance by warning him/her to not say it again and maybe issue an apology to the person next time he/she is in to make the company/store look good.

The problem with today's society is that it deals too much with absolutes. It's either you obey like a good little sheep or you're a terrible person. You're red or you're blue. Black or white. There is no purple and no gray. It's this "all or nothing" mentality that make today's world such a shitty place to live in anymore. Like, seriously, firing a person you've had for years and has had many employee of the months for saying one little name because it hurts people's sensitive feewings. Gimme a break.

[Collegeguy]

The employee should probably get a raise for having to deal with a Karen.

[kamuimac]

Instantly

He is in work and he represent company he works for.

I would also probably try to sue him for possible damages he may have caused to our company by purporsedly behaving this way .

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Oh boy, you'd really benefit from a few weeks/months working retail/customer service in the US. Because like, it's a genuinely eye-opening experience that I think everyone should have in their lives. Puts how you treat store employees into perspective.

Any job experience is good experience . . but in this case i would also send such person to dig ditches preferably in autumn / winter for a week so that he can appreciate that he is working in warm indoors clean enviroment.

this doesnt change the fact that when in work everyone should behave proffesionaly

if someone wants to show off his believes he can always start his own business .

then he will only dmg his own brand in this case.

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Someone's never worked retail/food service.

Working in these industries is like looking through a magnifying glass on the worst traits of humanity. Daily.

luckily in few years all of this kind of employees will be replaced by automatization and online-shopping - giving them plenty oportunities to find their luck somewhere else while customers dont have to deal with unproffesional retail/food ervice workers.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Not a second thought. Fired.

[Felya]

Even if the customer's name is Karen - you're fired!

Thank you for finally answering a question I asked... now I’m just pissed they are not called Steve, instead of Karen... Steve... *shakes fist*

[Shadowferal]

I like "care bear" instead.

[Rozz]

If a customer was being cruel or insulting, no? That's the least offensive thing they could've called them.

But if it's out of slight annoyance that leads to escalation or the employee is the instigator? Yes. It's less the name, more the behavior that invites conflict. They could be calling someone 'Honey/Hun' and if they're trying to start fights they get the boot.

I think more people should be banned from more places. There are enough consumers to make up for those too degenerate to function with other people.

[downnola]

The more important question is should people get away with berating and abusing retail workers? I say no, those people should be refused service and be told to shop else where. Nothing pisses me off more than adults behaving like children.

[Themius]

Depends on the customer.

If it's a store and we're talking about an abusive Karen that bullies my employee? Probably not.

If it's a big customer who brings me lots of money? Bye dude, they can be Karens as much as they want

Capitalism!!! You can abuse my workers as much as you want to, just pay me! You giving that employee a "cut" of the profits? If not, the fuck should they put up with that shit for?

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Instantly

He is in work and he represent company he works for.

I would also probably try to sue him for possible damages he may have caused to our company by purporsedly behaving this way .

"I like my people like I like my robots."