It often seems that good customer service is a lost art.

In this story from Reddit, the author tells of a time when they were told to prioritize speed over service, and how it came back to bite their manager.

Honestly, we love to hear it.

I Feel The Need… The Need For Speed!

Many years ago I worked on checkouts at a major supermarket.

I loved it, chat with customers, flirt with old ladies make them smile.

I used to get positive customer comment cards every 7-10 days which was highest rate in the whole store. Some customers used to queue at my checkout on purpose.

The author had a good rapport with their customers and seemed to enjoy chatting them up.

But the manager clearly valued speed over service.

One manager and I never really got on. She was a really miserable bitter old woman.

She gave me a severe telling off as I was scanning stuff too slow.

I asked if customers had complained. No complaints.

So, what’s the problem here?

I explained that I scanned at the speed for customer. She threatened me with a verbal warning if I didn’t get my scanning speed up.

I wasn’t slowest, but in bottom third for speed.

Normally I’d have said go on but I wanted to go on management training.

The author made the choice to comply to protect a future promotion, but still looked to have the last laugh.

So I decided malicious compliance and went as fast as I could for rest of shift and most of next shift.

So fast my hands and wrists ached… Three complaints that I was going too fast.

Told to go back to what I was doing before.

Maybe this manager should have gone by the mantra of “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Let’s see what the folks on Reddit think.

One commenter mentioned that in some places, they make it even easier to chat up a customer.

Another mentioned that in their experience, they can talk and be fast – and efficient, and certainly others share their skillset.

This commenter prefers a store that prefers a little more patience rather than trying to move customers like cattle.

And lastly, a commenter brought up a good point that customers want to see what they’re paying for each item, and speed can be detrimental to that.

Hopefully this manager learned a lesson!

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.