Jan Quintrall: Finally, bullies told to take their business elsewhere

Poor employee! Most of us waiting our turn in line at the car rental counter wanted to come to his rescue, but frankly, this customer and her verbal stabs had us intimidated, too. What made things worse was that the problems the customer was having getting the car she wanted were of her own doing. She hadn’t made reservations, and they could not get the nine-seat passenger van she wanted. Suddenly, her problem became everybody else’s problem, because she was not going to move “until you get me what I want.”

Is it my imagination, or are there more and more individuals like this sabotaging the marketplace these days?

Several months ago, I was at the vet’s office with my cat. A woman was at the counter bullying the staff into allowing her to using someone else’s credit card to pay her substantial bill. The more the staff pushed back, the louder she got.

You know the feeling in a small room when someone is playing bully. Does uncomfortable come to mind? Anyway, she went on ranting about how she uses other people’s credit cards all the time; that they were being unreasonable; and that she owned a store in the mall and allows people to use credit cards bearing different names every day.

She said that “all” stores employed this practice, and that it never posed her a problem.

Well, that was quite enough for me, since, given my profession, I find it difficult to sit by and witness these kinds of things. I approached the counter, and began speaking to her in a near whisper about identity theft, credit card fraud and her culpability if she continued allowing people to use others’ credit cards in her business.

She left in a huff after the staff let her know that another person’s credit card wouldn’t be accepted for her next visit. The front desk folks thanked me for stepping in. I don’t know if she ever returned, but, you know, what the heck was she thinking?

The Better Business Bureau has seen an increase in business people telling us they will not answer complaints, will not respond to any requests from us in any manner, and in simple terms, we can go jump in a lake. Nice.

This leaves the BBB in the position of telling these specific businesses’ customers (who are frustrated enough to call us for help), that the company they are having problems with have informed us they will not seek resolution through our channels.

Non-accredited businesses don’t have to respond to our complaints if they don’t want to because our complaint process is voluntary. But why in the world would you, as a business, choose to send that kind of message to your potential and current clients?

So, what does the BBB do with such cases? When businesses take that kind of stance, that information is included in their reliability report available at www.bbb.org.

My point here is that bullying occurs on both sides of the fence, and comes from both consumers as well as businesses. In my eyes, a business refusing to address complaints brought to its attention by the BBB is just one more form of bullying. Yes, business people bully customers too, but not on the same scale as customers at businesses.

Along with the increase of businesses refusing to respond to BBB complaints, we are seeing an even larger number of businesses telling the bullying customer to take their money elsewhere.

Businesses are calling asking the BBB to intervene to tell their bullying client(s) that they have no intention of furthering their relationship with them.

The BBB applauds this action, which is similar to dealing with children used to getting their own way — you must set limits and take control. If you don’t, the bully remains in the driver’s seat, making everyone miserable. And if you give in to their obnoxious demands, you are simply teaching them that being a bully works!

Some quick tips for dealing with bullies:

“ Remain neutral so as not to allow them to suck you into a hurricane of emotion

“ Get them away from the rest of your customers, as they love an audience

“ Stick to your values and policies

“ The louder they get, come closer to whispering

“ Ask for help if you need it

“ Don’t cave in just to get rid of them

“ You can end a relationship with an unreasonable customer

Civility is declining in so many areas of our culture, yet while we cannot change the world, we can at least work hard at maintaining standards of decency and trust in our workplaces and businesses.

We set standards for so many other things, why not standards for treatment or behavior? What a concept.