“This place has really gone down hill…”

I am a customer service TM who has worked at my store for 4 years, which in terms of the age of the store (~20 years) is not that long, but in comparison to the majority of the other people in the store, I’ve been there a while. I was hired immediately after Amazon began implementing changes at the store level, specifically using Prime accounts to access discounts in the store.

Ever since I’ve started, with increasing frequency, I’ve had interactions with customers at the register or elsewhere that follow along the lines of the title: “This place has really gone downhill…”

I’ve tried a couple different responses, from sympathy to agreement. I’ve asked for specifics, “what part of your experience was less satisfying, etc.” I understand that most people just want to complain, they don’t necessarily want to be helped (I stopped asking people if they found everything they were looking for in early 2020)

I am just curious how others respond to this negativity. It doesn’t usually affect me that much, but especially recently, with how understaffed we are, and the lack of support from leadership, it’s been discouraging.

It’s fine that they feel that way, but i don’t feel like it’s reasonable for them to look around, seeing four cashiers running a 20k hour, each scanning and bagging all the groceries while making sure the customers gets their Amazon discount while explaining how to access it. Maybe it’s just time to bail?

Edit: broke up the wall of text