A Blockbuster manager responded to reader Sarah’s refusal to sign up for Blockbuster’s rewards program by declaring: “Fucking customers, I’m tired of everyone not listening when they don’t even know what they’re talking about.” Sarah had politely declined to enroll in the program several times before the outburst.
She writes:
My boyfriend and I entered the store on 1848 Airport Rd., Suite K in Chapel Hill, NC at 9:30 PM on Saturday, August 25, to rent two movies. As I am a previous Online customer, but have never held a Blockbuster in-store rental account, I signed up at the customer service desk before checking out with a very polite woman. She started to explain the Rewards program, but upon my polite expression of disinterest, she offered me a brochure and said I could read it over and decide later if I’d like to enroll.After receiving my card, I went over to the rental desk and waited in line. An employee at the rental desk asked if we were ready, so we proceeded to check out. He asked if we had just registered, and we told him we had. He then began to tell us about the Rewards program, and I showed him the brochure we’d just been given and said we weren’t interested at the moment. He continued to tell us about it, and I told him expressly I was definitely not interested. He continued describing it, and I said, “No, really, it’s okay. I’m not interested. Thanks though.” He started to get visibly frustrated with us, and said that we didn’t understand, and then asked if we’d be renting another movie from Blockbuster in the next year, and how we could get a free movie every month, and I said one more time that I was really not interested. My boyfriend at this point felt like I was not being respected (which I wasn’t), and said, “I think she knows what she’s saying, she’s not interested.” At this point the employee said, “NO, you aren’t listening, why don’t you tell me what I’ve been talking about?” I was incredibly offended at this point, as I feel that the customer is entirely entitled to refuse voluntary programs. At this point, I asked to speak to a manager, and the man held up his employee ID badge to identify himself as the manager. I was amazed that any company would place such a rude individual into such a position, and asked him if he was seriously the manager. Finally, he muttered, “Fucking customers, I’m tired of everyone not listening when they don’t even know what they’re talking about.” This was absolutely absurd, as there were children in the store, directly behind us in line — not to mention that he had just cursed at a customer. He began to argue with my boyfriend, at which point I just asked for our merchandise so we could leave. He slammed the DVDs down on the counter, told us they were due Saturday, and was very visibly on edge.
This encounter has completely turned me off of all Blockbusters at this point, and I’m actually dreading even returning the DVDs I rented tonight. I seriously hope Blockbuster doesn’t intend this to be the normal experience for its customers, and I suggest you seriously consider this e-mail as fair warning of an out-of-control situation. I have heard of absolutely horrible customer service experiences at Blockbuster stores in the past, but I never really believed them until tonight.
I am so horrified by this experience, I am considering filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. Again, I’ve dealt with a lot of rude employees at various institutions, but I have never felt so disrespected and so upset as I am tonight.
Reasonable upsells are tolerable when delivered by polite employees, but no customer should be subjected to aggressive outbursts, especially not from managers. Beyond complaining to the Better Business Bureau, contact Blockbuster corporate at (214) 854-3000 and let them know their manager’s outrageous behavior cost them a customer.
(Photo: RocketRaccoon)
More From Consumerist
-
Dear Customers: Stop Making My Call-Center Employees Cry
-
Looks Like Blockbuster Won’t Get Its Bloody Revenge On Netflix After All
-
Bookstore Combats E-Books With One Thing Your Kindle Can’t Offer
-
Customer Service Rep: Consumers Need To Take More Responsibility For Their Problems
-
Attention, Costco Shoppers: Joan Rivers Handcuffed To A Shopping Cart Is Today's Special In Aisle 4
Blockbuster sucks, but I think the manager already beat me to that point.
Easy fix:
“What’s your name?” and “I would like the contact information for your district manager.” Done and done.
@Jason:
Well, technically he didn’t catch me walking down the street. I was walking out of a school building, leaving for home. Yeah, I could have been an ass and just walked away, but he was handing me a free redeye at the time and wasn’t a complete stranger (he was wearing a redeye t-shirt and had an ID).
But I get the joke.
I hope for your sake that your mother doesn’t look anything like me….
I worked at Hollywood Video for a little over 5 years while finishing up high school and going to college. So I have some experience with how their system worked, which is probably somewhat close to BBs. At Hollywood we weren’t forced to sell anything….supposedly. However, if you were bad at selling you would receive a poor review and get a smaller raise (which was so insubstantial even if you were the best it wasn’t worth the effort). Further more, at the corporate level, there were no rewards for employees who sold well, unless you consider not being yelled at by your manager a reward. For the manager, salary and bonuses were in fact linked to store performance.
For my entire tenure there our big sell was the bundle. If you rented 2 new releases (at 3.99 a pop) you could add 2 popcorns, a candy, and a soda for a 9.99 total. Not a bad deal. I didn’t make a habit of trying to sell people the bundle unless it helped them out. At the time if someone was buying a candy then 2 popcorns and a soda would only be 50 cents.
Every once in a while our manager would offer a prize to whoever sold the best which I won easily. It really had nothing to do with what we were selling, it was just the way we sold it. The people I worked with would offer it up as some kind of promotion with a huge sales pitch. People hate that. Its annoying. They tune out and want to punch you in the face to make it stop. The reason I won was I made it simple. If they walked up with there movies I would tell them what they could get for $2. They would do some quick math in their heads, realize it was a deal and take it.
This guy probably fell into the group that didn’t know how to make a sale and was frustrated at how badly he was doing compared to his peers. Which makes him a major asshat.
There is also a small chance he fell into a different group. I’m not sure what promotions BB runs or what was rented, but maybe this actually was a great deal they were passing up. I can’t tell you how many customers I had come up and refuse to spend less money. They would have 2 new releases ($3.99 x 2= 7.98) a candy ($1.50) and a soda ($.99 for a total of $10.47) and refuse the popcorn to save $.50. I would explain to them that they didn’t even have to take the popcorn I could just scan it and they would still turn it down (I would usually end up scanning it anyway and giving free bags to whatever customer wanted it). But thats just it. Some customers are dumb. So there is a small chance he fell into this category. Still, swearing at a customer is unacceptable, so if this is the case we’ll just call him a regular asshat.
The problem with a lot of these “voluntary rewards programs” is that they are voluntary for the customers but employees can lose their jobs if they don’t reach a certain quota. I used to work at a Borders, and I usually didn’t even give customers the option. I would just say, “here’s your new rewards card, have a great day.” Too many people were rude to the point of abruptly cutting me off or ignoring me completely when I tried to sell them on the benefits (which it actually was a good program that would save them money).
I literally saw people lose their jobs because they weren’t willing to pitch the program to unwilling customers. It sucks, but really consumers should be a little more understanding when they are having these things pitched to them. There are generally incentives to signing up. You can also save some poor retail slave the pain and frustration of sitting through another “Improve our Rewards Numbers” mandatory meeting.
Clearly this is the customer’s fault. She should have shown some respect because the guy is the manager you know. Respect his authority.
@allthatsevil: Won’t ask questions? Ha! From personal experience, when somebody calls and asks how to contact their district manager, they go ape shit. I once called an Express and asked for the store manager’s name and had to go through three different managers (it was a large Express) and they still kept harassing me with questions. I finally said fuck it and hung up.
Thanks to Consumerist, I’ve tried the whole call the CEO thing a few times, and it DEFINITELY works.
@vonskippy: As much as I love Netflix, there’s no online substitute for the brick-and-mortar when you decide you want to stay in and rent a movie.
–
Wait until Netflix irons out the kinks in their Watch Now feature and adds most of their catalog. You won’t have to drive to a video store and the online selection would be much greater than any local store could offer. IF the movie studios realize this is to their advantage.
I am currently a manager at blockbuster and have been for a year now. I didnt read the million comments so this may have been explained in one way or another already, but listen anyway! Everyday we are harassed by district and regional leaders that sit in an office expecting us to pull miracles out of our ass. Blockbuster screwed itself over with that online program, and expects us to make up the money selling rewards programs to everyone. Now that in itself is quite hard seeing as most of the people now have the online program that we were supposed to push, but thats no excuse apparantly. So yes our job being threatened all the time to sell things to save Blockbusters ass is annoying, but not as annoying as customers not giving us a minute to explain something. Just to give you a little insight, the rewards program is a one-time $9.95 upgrade price, that guarantees you a coupon for a free movie a month at the very least. Also, every monday through wednesday, you rent a movie, you get an old one free, and every 6th paid rental in a month is free. Now i’m no rocket scientist, but two movies is $9.01, and if your telling me that you can’t walk 3 of those monthly coupons in over the course of a year and more than pay off that fee, then fine, but knowing customers like I do, some people come up to the counter with a set of movies that would instantly get them 3 movies free, which would be cheaper to sign up for rewards than pay for all the movies. Needless to say, its very frustrating having customers not want to listen to these programs, we try to do people favors and they shove it back in our face. So next time you go to blockbuster, try listening for once maybe you’ll walk out happy like we try to make you!
@frank092186:
It does sound like an okay deal, but many times I refuse to get rewards programs from vendors because: I don’t have the money on hand (I’ll walk into a store with only enough cash to cover what I want, just so I don’t buy other stuff); I don’t have the time(welcome to the 21st century) or I don’t have the mental energy to think about the great deal- I just want what I came for and I rarely feel like spending more money that. I know that only makes it harder for the seller of the program, but that’s life.
Wait, isn’t this Rewards program free? Shit, lady…I’ll take your free DVD rental!
@Fairsfair: Novel revenge.
However, all the Blockbuster “your movie is overdue” calls come from a third-party company contracted to make them. When you call your local store, all they can do is call an automated line, plug in your phone number and hope for the best. They probably did that each and every time you called… a better idea would have been to kick the calls back to the corporate office!
@MystiMel: The behaviour is absolutely inexcusable, no question, I would like to confirm that the manager is almost certainly under a great deal of pressure to meet/exceed his goal during the big Rewards drive. The numbers are everything, and that can mean that if he isn’t on schedule to hit them by a certain point in the week that he is forced to work (salaried) on his day/s off, or that he has had to fire employees who weren’t making their individual goals and is now working some ungodly amount of hours/week to make up for being short-staffed, or something equally miserable.
Again, no excuse for the way he behaved, but there definitely can be a lot of pressure on a manager to meet goals set by people who work in an office (not a store) thousands of miles away.
@Scuba Steve: Sorry to say, but that’s not true, with maybe a handful of exceptions. Although people tend treat retail managers like we’re morons who couldn’t possibly get a professional job, many of us are in fact well educated, intelligent people who find something in retail that we could not find in our field. I am one such example–I left a very respectable job in my field to manage a store for $15,000/year more than I was making before. I am very knowledgeable about what I carry, I care about my staff and my customers, and I have little to no control over what corporate decides to do, although I take all the flack for it.
People choose (yes, choose!) to be retail managers for many different reasons that are right for them and/or their families and circumstances. Please have some consideration and respect–many of us work very hard and really take it to heart when we have a displeased customer. We’re not just someone who started as a part-timer in high school and never quit, making us the ‘oldest’ or most senior employee and therefore magically the manager.
I have a B.A. and enjoy being able to pay back my college loans and eat something other than ramen. Believe it or not, retail management is making that possible right now in a way working in my field couldn’t.
I’m sorry, but I’m a Blockbuster employee myself and no one, not even a manager, has the right to curse like that at a customer, especially with children around. That manager should have had enough respect and sense to take no for an answer. Furthermore, they shouldn’t be pushing something like that on someone when they’re clearly not interested. Yes, there is a quota to meet, but that doesn’t mean that you have to pressure a customer into the program. Besides, there’s a chance that someone else might be interested. Obviously this manager was way out of line.
Hello friends,
I was hired by Mark from the Airport Rd. store in Chapel Hill, North
Carolina. The same one that is mentioned here. When he hired me he
promised me 40 hours a week, working mostly day shifts and at most two
or three nights a week. He also promised that I would have the same
weekends as my fianceé and that he was able to do this with no problem
that there were more than enough open hours for me. I waited a month
before I started working there with him assuring me that after the
college students went back to school he could fulfill his promises. I
did not recieve that at all during my employment under him and a few
weeks later he was fired for cursing out a customer for not accepting
rewards. I was there. I don’t remember him cursing although I remember
the male saying “You need to quit making smart comments to my wife.”
and Mark responding “You want a smart comment”, smart comment, “That
was a smart comment”. I forget what he said but it was offensive and I
wanted to leave the area immediately but was stuck on a register. He
did raise his name tag and in a matter of fact manner stated he was the
manager.
Anyway. I have a fianceé who works 8:30am-5:30pm and I was scheduled
5-11:15pm shifts all week. I’ve been working strictly nights up to five
days a week with no regard to her hours or her days off. Seeing as I
still had not gotten what I was promoised Tuesday of this week I forced
my shift leader, Nick, to write down that I want to work mornings for
the other manager, John, who is supposed to make the schedule (he
doesn’t, Nick does, but it’s John’s job). Nick then informed me that
there were only two small shifts for CRS during the day. One of the
days, monday, was one I asked to keep free because my fianceé had that
day off. I couldn’t stand being lied to and pushed around by people who
didn’t care about my life therefore I went out and found a new job and
was hired two days later. I called in and quit my job on Friday. Nick
answered the phone the day I quit. I gave him the information including
my reasons for quitting he replied “Okay. Bye.”
It should
have stopped there, but Blockbuster doesn’t understand that “no” means
“no.” Today, Saturday, September 15, 2007 at 5:44pm EST I recieved a
private call. I do not answer private calls so I handed the phone to my
fianceé who answered the phone. She was yelled at and hung up on by
John a manager at the store. She then called back the store and Nick
picked up the phone. He told her that “Her ffffrickin boyfriend needs
to grow a pair of balls and call the store” among other things. So I
did, quite upset over what he said, and was hung up on by him, Shawn,
John and Melanie at different points upon calling back repeatedly. I
then, after being constantly hung up on for five minutes, waited five
more and called back. Melanie, who is a MOD (manager on duty), picked
up and I asked her for the corporate number. She hung up on me. Then I
called back and John, the other MOD, picked up I asked for the number
once again and he hung up on me. I then called back John again picked
up the phone and I told him I was going over their heads and calling
the Franklin St. store. I finally got the number from the Franklin St.
store after being on hold for ten minutes. I have every right to leave
that job whenever I want to, just as they have every right to fire me
at any time. They lied me into a job by falcifying the hours available
and so I quit.
Once I quit my job they have no right to call me, especially while
blocking their number at work. They do not have any right to be yelling
at my fianceé who has nothing to do with my job. They have no right to
curse, use vulgar language or insinuate such language, especially at a
woman. They have no right to hide the corporate number from me when I
have a problem, especially on the clock. If they can call me after I
quit I should be able to get in contact with corporate about it. Those
inflamitory comments were paid for by Blockbuster corporation. More
proof of how incompetent the management is there.
Blockbuster does not care about who they harass or fixing the
problem. Nick told me last week something along the lines of, not
exactly, “It would have been better if that girl only called corporate.
We could have moved Mark to another store and swept it all under the
rug.” I will never rent from blockbuster again. I made a huge mistake
working for them. I have never been employed by such a horrible
company. I never want to see that place again. I never want to see or
hear from those people again. I hope it’s done and over now. I didn’t
ask to be harassed. I didn’t start this, they did, and they need to
remember they brought this upon themselves.
Sincerely,
An Ex-Blockbuster employee.
The stores number is (919) 929-4177.
The district managers number is 1-800-940-2232 option 2 extention
1518. You get his voice mail and he has 24 hours to get back in touch
with you.
I called the store Sunday to arrange picking up my check and John
admitted to not giving the corporate number and that he called to see
if I would do a shift when I told them I quit the day before. It’s
Monday and I still haven’t heard back from the district manager.
Hello friends,
I was hired by Mark from the Airport Rd. store in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The same one that is mentioned here. When he hired me he promised me 40 hours a week, working mostly day shifts and at most two or three nights a week. He also promised that I would have the same weekends as my fianceé and that he was able to do this with no problem that there were more than enough open hours for me. I waited a month before I started working there with him assuring me that after the college students went back to school he could fulfill his promises. I did not recieve that at all during my employment under him and a few weeks later he was fired for cursing out a customer for not accepting rewards. I was there. I don’t remember him cursing although I remember the male saying “You need to quit making smart comments to my wife.” and Mark responding “You want a smart comment”, smart comment, “That was a smart comment”. I forget what he said but it was offensive and I wanted to leave the area immediately but was stuck on a register. He did raise his name tag and in a matter of fact manner stated he was the manager.
Anyway. I have a fianceé who works 8:30am-5:30pm and I was scheduled 5-11:15pm shifts all week. I’ve been working strictly nights up to five days a week with no regard to her hours or her days off. Seeing as I still had not gotten what I was promoised Tuesday of this week I forced my shift leader, Nick, to write down that I want to work mornings for the other manager, John, who is supposed to make the schedule (he doesn’t, Nick does, but it’s John’s job). Nick then informed me that there were only two small shifts for CRS during the day. One of the days, monday, was one I asked to keep free because my fianceé had that day off. I couldn’t stand being lied to and pushed around by people who didn’t care about my life therefore I went out and found a new job and was hired two days later. I called in and quit my job on Friday. Nick answered the phone the day I quit. I gave him the information including my reasons for quitting he replied “Okay. Bye.”
It should have stopped there, but Blockbuster doesn’t understand that “no” means “no.” Today, Saturday, September 15, 2007 at 5:44pm EST I recieved a private call. I do not answer private calls so I handed the phone to my fianceé who answered the phone. She was yelled at and hung up on by John a manager at the store. She then called back the store and Nick picked up the phone. He told her that “Her ffffrickin boyfriend needs to grow a pair of balls and call the store” among other things. So I did, quite upset over what he said, and was hung up on by him, Shawn, John and Melanie at different points upon calling back repeatedly. I then, after being constantly hung up on for five minutes, waited five more and called back. Melanie, who is a MOD (manager on duty), picked up and I asked her for the corporate number. She hung up on me. Then I called back and John, the other MOD, picked up I asked for the number once again and he hung up on me. I then called back John again picked up the phone and I told him I was going over their heads and calling the Franklin St. store. I finally got the number from the Franklin St. store after being on hold for ten minutes. I have every right to leave that job whenever I want to, just as they have every right to fire me at any time. They lied me into a job by falcifying the hours available and so I quit.
Once I quit my job they have no right to call me, especially while blocking their number at work. They do not have any right to be yelling at my fianceé who has nothing to do with my job. They have no right to curse, use vulgar language or insinuate such language, especially at a woman. They have no right to hide the corporate number from me when I have a problem, especially on the clock. If they can call me after I quit I should be able to get in contact with corporate about it. Those inflamitory comments were paid for by Blockbuster corporation. More proof of how incompetent the management is there.
Blockbuster does not care about who they harass or fixing the problem. Nick told me last week something along the lines of, not exactly, “It would have been better if that girl only called corporate. We could have moved Mark to another store and swept it all under the rug.” I will never rent from blockbuster again. I made a huge mistake working for them. I have never been employed by such a horrible company. I never want to see that place again. I never want to see or hear from those people again. I hope it’s done and over now. I didn’t ask to be harassed. I didn’t start this, they did, and they need to remember they brought this upon themselves.
Sincerely,
An Ex-Blockbuster employee.
The stores number is (919) 929-4177.
The district managers number is 1-800-940-2232 option 2 extention 1518. You get his voice mail and he has 24 hours to get back in touch with you.
I called the store Sunday to arrange picking up my check and John admitted to not giving the corporate number and that he called to see if I would do a shift when I told them I quit the day before. It’s Monday and I still haven’t heard back from the district manager.
I used to be a Blockbuster manager. I know this sounds bad, but believe me when I say that it’s the company that makes the employees of Blockbuster behave this way. They scream and shout at their managers to sell these programs up to a certain quota. When managers say that they just don’t have enough customers interested, their told to be insistent, that clearly they are not making their customers understand the programs (common programs sold by BBV are the Rewards, BB Online, and Movie/Game Passes, where you pay $30 to $50 per month for unlimited, one at a time rentals). Before I quit, though, I found a barcode that could give any account free rewards. I used it to give the benefits to all the customers I encountered without charging them anything, so they’d just get free rental coupons every month for free. Blockbuster is terrible with bookkeeping, and had no idea that there were no coupons to match those transactions. They even counted toward my quota, and I actually met and went over the quota for the first time in a year. That’s really impressive, as I know from the weekly conference calls that no store ever consistently met the quotas, because they always set them unrealistically high, which is why nationwide BB employees are so high strung. My best memories there were the months just before I left, when I didn’t care anymore, and literally gave away free rentals to most customers. It was nice to finally be able to make people happy, instead of having them leave angry. Of course, I never angered them in the same way as the story above, but the policies for exchanges and returns of defective merchandise alone were enough to make more than a few customers scream and curse at me in my time there.
Consider this: If a customer purchases any retail item from Blockbuster, and wishes to return it for any reason (even unopened!), the only action the employee is authorized to do is give them a store credit for the Blockbuster-determined “used” value for the item. And even that requires about five minutes worth of forms.