I do believe politeness and manners have gone down but it also goes both ways. i did customer servive for both a grocery store and waitressing and honestly only about 5%-10% were even nice to me or wanted to talk and im very social and love to see how people are doing and when waitressing people are very rude to again a few are nice but many are not. i no longer work as a waitress but please remember if they did give good service and were polite to you as well actually tip them decent they only get 2.17 an hour and alot of people really dont tip anymore.

the issue of poor service and rudeness at most businesses starts with your upbringing, not your generation. Parents that let their children run amok and allow them to communicate with them disrespectfully are raising the next apathetic cashier or socially unpleasant customer service rep. I may be a child of the eighties, but i still had to address my parents as "sir" and "ma'am" (yes sir, no ma'am) and i was held accountable for MY actions and words, no matter the circumstances. being a friend to your child is not the same as being a parent. Teach them to respect your authority early on and you'll instill a sense of respect for all people later. Thanks mom and dad, for not making me one of the many with the false sense of entitlement and complete lack of social skills.

I work in a retail environment and let me assure you, while I agree that the service may leave something to be desired, customers are exponentially more rude than employees. Trust me, watch somebody working on their first day on the job and see how friendly they are. Return a few weeks later and watch the same employee. Big difference right? You know what the reason is? Customers. Anybody that disagrees has obviously has never had to deal with the public.
And believe me, most of the general public are unbelievably stupis, not just customer service workers. I've seen on many occasions customers asking for directions to a store that they are standing directly in front of (sometimes directions to a store that they are in!)

i agree completely. i cannot believe the generation of rude young (and some old) people who work with the public. going to the supermarket (dept store etc) one would expect to be greeted with a hello, be thanked for bagging your own purchases and thanked or wished a good day. now they cashiers barely make eye contact, or grunt a hello, or as i recently experienced at a target store carried on a conversation with her neighboring cashier while reading a soap opera digest. i didnt get so much as a hello. i am all for multi tasking but in the positive sense. i understand these arent the greatest jobs but in this time of high unemployment you would think these people would be happy to have one and do their best to keep it. lord knows when i was a teen if we werent polite etc we were spoken to(and that wasnt that long ago). and please dont even get me started on the stupid phone messages you get when calling a lrge co. (press 1 for english blah blah)

Seriously, no problem = you're welcome. Stop being ridiculous, you say thank you out of respect for the fact that you've asked this person to stop whatever they were doing to assist you. They tell you no/not a problem, or no sweat or whatever they may say to that effect, to assure you that that there was no inconvenience to them, to express their willingness to help you. Kind of like saying, "no thanks needed" while still acknowledging your gratitude. Stop being a tool because they won't say "you're welcome".

I can agree, but I have worked in customer service for more than ten years now. The most recent at Macy's. People can be realy "Snooty" to the help. And I quite enjoy being of help, but when you push the limit of my human boundaries, your asking for trouble. Once I've had enough, that's it. Now I gotta get "Ghetto", and then the customer wants to play the victom and try hard to get me fired. It's hard to come back from high levels of Pisstiviy, but it is a must, because the next customer may be as sweet as apple pie. But don't disrespect the Help, just because your feeling supirior. We are there to help, and your nasty attitude is to much to take for $8.50 and hour with no benifits. I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who know what I'm talking about. Common Courtesy should be on this list of 25 things vanishing from America.

f*** you... you idiot! I say that all the time and I never get any complaints ... if you're really concerned with people not saying "Your Welcome", then you really need to get a life. Who do you think you are? Saying "no problem" is in no way in a million years being rude. If you were my customer and complained I could care less... I wouldn't want a customer that spoiled and rotten. No one needs your business. I can't believe you have the audacity to post this. You have probably never been in customer service.

You are right! Customer service? Retail is not trained for that. I am over 50 and work for a major retail chain ( had to have a job somewhere to pay the bills), but even tho they talk all about customer service, if you spend more than 3 minutes on the sales floor with them they will want to know what all did they buy and did they buy any up sell items. If you say no, then your verbally brow beaten. how do we change it? like you said, buy only american made products and only buy from those stores that REALLY teach and practice real honest to God customer sevice and realize you are human, and avoid those that don't. And as for press one for english... thats my language of my country, how about press one to learn english so that you can continue this phone call.

Soooo, just because the economy sucks, and i should be glad to even have a job, does not mean I have hung up my human side and become a working robot with no feelings. I am just as human as I was when I was unemployed.

If I am already going out of my way to provide excellent C.S. and the customer is not satisfied with my performance for what ever reason, they get ugly. They take this "the customer is always right" to a whole new level. A Customer Service agent or representative does not have the power to over step the policies and guidlines of the company. And i try not to tell a customer, "oh, we can't do that", instead I say "Well, what we can do is...". But some people are just mean. And in the hood I grew up in, mean people get slapped.

I simply don't help them. I'll even go as far as to try to find someone who can better serve the needs of an angry customer. But the nasty ones will try to push your every button until you get as pissed as pissed can get, then they turn victom, and try to get you fired, because" the customer is always right".

It is not right to bring your attitude to me and I'm going out of my way to make you happy. Yes it is my job, but my job doesn't pay me well enough to solve the financial issues I am facing in this economy, and as you see here, don't to many people in this feild go the extra mile to be of good service. when I do, and it is not appreciated- I try to walk away from it, to save the customer the type of tongue lashing that only a "Ghetto Gurl" like me can provide. But they continue to drag me to the breaking point, and then once the point is broken, they become the victom. Why not try to understand that we as Americans are going through a tough periode.

until it gets better, we should try to be more empathetic, show a little compassion, and common courtesy, it goes a long way, and the rewards of "RAOK" is a good feeling that lasts all day.

Oh yeah, in case you'd like to know "ROAK" is an acronym meaning: "Random acts of kindness".

Wait.. what? You can't be serious. You're too frikin lazy to pump your own damn gas, push a few buttons, and push a product over a scanner. Wow... that's an all time low. How do you feel about yourself? You should think about changing your attitude and get with the times... companies are cutting back staff. Don't you know that? Watch the news sometime. And if you ever complained like this again to a real person one-on-one they would look at you like you were ridiculous and not care because there are plenty of people who know what they are doing and aren't as lazy as you are.

Harold--

It's called customer service. In a shrinking economy where I can get just about everything I need by ordering from the internet, a store's employees better make me feel welcome.

You're right, some customers are downright abusive. I'm not one of them. I expect to be treated with a modicum of respect and pleasantry if you want my business.

well said!!

simple solution, dont like your job get a new one!! not all customers are rude but they are the reason you HAVE A JOB. so regardless if you want to keep it suck it up and be polite to the few rude ones. if you dontike dealing with the public get a job where you can be as antisocial as youwant. if people are paying for a service or goods they dont need to pay for a bad attitude from some rude arrogant underachiever with an overwhelming sense of entitlement