My Least Favorite Customers

My least favorite customers are the ones who yell and complain, and ask for managers. The ones who act like you are incompetent because you are following something silly like a store policy or a federal law. The people who can't be real people, because they are too angry, too demanding, and too loud. I had one of those customers yesterday, and she yelled until a manager said to give her what she wanted. Then, when I didn't read her mind and give her the refund exactly how she wanted it, she ordered me to get the manager back again. A second manager even had to come over to help undo the previous transaction, because it was hard to concentrate with all of the yelling. What I learned is that in customer service these are the people you have to help, simply because you want them to leave. You want the screaming to stop. You want this person who doesn't remember that you are even human to get out of your face. You want the person to leave your store where you hope all of her displaced anger will cause her to spontaneously combust into a fire ball in the parking lot.

Check Inside the Box

If a customer service employee ever doubted the necessity of checking inside a box, he needs to read this. A couple was returning automobile speakers with a receipt within the store's time perameters and according to their specific rules for return. The customer service employee called a person from the auto department and asked if she was qualified to check the box for all contents. She was told to check for instructions and speakers. So, she opened the box, looked down in it, saw speakers with egg carton packing material guarding the edges of them. She didn't see any instruction booklets, but there in the empty space next to the speaker were pieces of celery! It was like the ends a person cuts off and doesn't eat. She said, "There is celery in here!"

"Excuse me?" the guy responded. The woman showed the customer the celery, and he explained that the box had been thrown in the garbage before they realized they would be returning them. The employee dumped out the pieces of celery into a trashcan and then asked if there were no instructions. The man said they'd have to go home to get them. So, the employee stickered the box appropriately and expected to see them later. But, they never returned.

Seriously?

Are you serious that you are returning a light bulb that your husband has been storing in your hen house and that the light bulb's cardboard casing is now covered in mud? Do you expect me to believe that this is the exact lightbulb you purchased that is on your receipt from a few days ago? Seriously? I knew I was young looking, but I didn't think people thought I was born yesterday!

What's that? You want to know if from what you picked up eavesdropping on other customers that it is true you can return things to our store without a receipt? I tell you the policy in detail, but I'm thinking in my head I'm not sure I would take back that muddy light bulb without a receipt.

Oh, those shoes you are returning were worn once and washed once, and then they started falling apart? How is it they have gravel embedded in the soles which are worn for at the very least twenty miles of walking? Oh, you no longer have the receipt for them or the tags? You want to cuss at my coworker and tell her to butt out of this exchange, because you know she already told you that you've used up your returns and exchanges unless you produce some receipts? Seriously?

Two Fer

You know how most full service grocery stores will say, "2 for $5," and they hope the customer will assume it would cost more than $2.50 for one? But then sometimes at a convenience store they will actually have a true discount for buying more than one thing?

Okay, so today I stopped by my corner convenience store for some milk. They had a sign that said "2 for $5". This referred to the gallon jugs of milk. Below that in tinier print it said, "single at the regular price." Okay, so I realize I probably only get the discount if I get two gallons. To check this, I look at the sticker on the shelf for the single price. To my surprise, it says "2.49". So, thinking I'm saving a penny, I only pick up one gallon, plus, I chose a bunch of overpriced snacks, but that's beside the point, right?

Then, when I checked out, the cashier didn't remind me to use my discount card from their sister full-service grocery store. Usually the cashiers at my corner convenience store do remind me. I'm not saying it's anybody's responsiblity but my own, I'm just saying it would have been nice if he had done this . I remind customers at my store about using discount cards and coupons. After I paid for the stuff, and my son and I are leaving, I look at my receipt and see I was charged $2.79 for the gallon of milk. I ask the guy about it, and he tells me I'd only get the discount if I bought 2 gallons of milk. So then I tell him the "regular price" was supposed to be $2.49 according to the shelf sticker. The guy helped the next customer, and then he goes back and sees what I'm saying is true. Then he says, "Oh, somebody must have screwed up." But, does he reimburse me the thirty cent difference? Of course not, because he's not all about customer service and pleasing the customer. I'm going to remember his face if he's ever in my store wanting a refund without a receipt or something like that! Just kidding! Kind of!

The Customer is Always...

A customer returned a microwave to a department store, saying there was a dent in it. Then, a week or so later, she returned to look for another one. She got an employee from the toy department to take a microwave off of the shelf and take it to customer service. It was there that she had three employees take out the microwave to examine it for any possible defects. It was there that the employees carefully removed the microwave and placed it on the counter. The store employees seemed pleased to see that the microwave looked pristine and brand new. However, the customer saw a dent in the top. Everyone else was angling his or her head trying to see what the woman saw. There was a tiny imperfection the size of a pinhead on the top of the microwave. That tiny little shallow dent that could hardly be seen with the human eye was enough to cause an enormous amount of fear in the woman. The customer explained she was afraid of getting radiation from a dented microwave. All three employees nodded, and nobody really said anything until someone clarified that she didn't want that microwave.

After the woman had walked off, the customer service employee said that the microwave could go back on the shelf after it was repacked and retaped, because there was nothing wrong with it. She commented how no man-made product is going to be completely perfect. About a half an hour later, the customer was back up to complain because the store employees had returned the microwave she'd rejected back to the shelves.

It was at this point that a manager pulled aside the customer service employee. She asked, "Do you know how to complete this sentence? The customer is always...?"

The employee answered, "...standing in line?"

Bloody Ham

Ham is something I gave up for religious purposes, long before I became a vegetarian. I became a vegetarian for a variety of reasons, including my son wanting me to do it, and for moral views. The only reason I mention this is that I was especially disgusted when a woman walked up and said she had a "bloody ham". Later in the day, I said to a coworker who was playing with a returned item, a fishing pole for pets, "How come you get the fun stuff and I get the bloody ham?"

Anyway, this woman, who has brought food back previously, did not have a receipt. So, I told her she needed to trade food for food. She griped about this, but then returned to my register. When I asked for her driver's license, she complained again with a few expletives. Plus, she told me she'd heard my employer, Dingo Stores, Inc. was going to go out of business. I laughed a little and said I wasn't worried. She kept griping as I continued the exchange, and she asked for her gallon milk in a plastic bag. So, I put her gallon milk in a bag with the other two small items that she got to replace the "bloody" ham. She then asked me if I couldn't afford to give her another bag for her milk. So, I gave her another bag, thinking she can spend her little bit of remaining time on Earth filling it with plastic bags, which kill animals, especially turtles, but not excluding farm animals like sweet little pigs named Wilbur who are turned into hams, which a woman will claim is bloody... and life as we know it will continue in the same fashion in a world where our oceans are filled with debris that is mostly (at least 60%) plastic.

Fishin' Poles

A father and son go to a sporting goods store and they buy two identical fishing poles together. They are charged $42 before tax. They were overcharged $16. One fishing pole rang up at the correct price, $13. What was the incorrect price of the other one? The correct answer is twenty-nine dollars. However, what the customer service employee did not understand at first is that they had been reimbursed the $16 before receiving two more fishing poles for the holidays. So, then, when they brought back those first two fishing poles, they were entitled to a refund of $26 before taxes. Phew! What a dream!

Serial Numbers Don't Match!

Somebody was returning a game console to Dingo on January 9, 2010 that he'd bought the previous day. He had a receipt for it. He said when he pulled it out of the box, it was missing a vital piece of the machine, the thing that contained the memory. He said he knew it was supposed to come with one, because he'd bought one for his wife as well. The Customer Service employee looked doubtful, but called someone from the Electronic Games Department to come look at it. The woman from the EGD asked if she should bring up another console. The CS employee answered yes, because the man wanted to exchange the defective console with one that was intact.

The woman from the EGD looked at the console and was asking what part was missing. The guy claimed that the console came out the box with that part of it missing. After examining the box and console, the EGD employee said that the serial numbers didn't match. So, then the CS employee typed in the serial number from the console and out printed the information that it had been sold on December 27, 2007 from TV Town, a company commonly known to have closed it's doors permanently. The EGD woman said the other employee should get management. The guy started to say that the box came off of shelf of Dingo with the TV Town console in it. The Dingo employee explained that as soon as those consoles come off of the truck from the factory, they are locked up, so what he was saying was impossible.

At this point, the guy's demeanor changed from accusatory and entitled to apologetic and fearful. He said, "I will just buy the other console, and I won't return this one from TV Town. You don't need to get a manager." In other words, the dog left Dingo with his tail between his legs.

Fifteen Hundred Dollars, Please

In the real story, it was one hundred dollars less, but I'm not sure how to spell that number at three o'clock in the morning, so I will just change it. Plus, it's best to try to disguise these stories to protect everyone's privacy. Okay, a woman was cashing her $1500 paycheck at a customer service counter somewhere. The agent thought she requested as many "ones" as possible. Thinking she was mad, the employee wondered how few he could get away with giving her. He almost verified this is what she'd requested. Verifying wouldn't have been a bad idea! Nevertheless, he didn't say anything, silently shaking his head. When the woman saw him counting out a bunch of ones, she said something. Apparently, she'd requested as many one hundreds as possible! The agent thought this was kind of funny, but the customer was bitingly critical and said she was in a hurry. After that was determined, the transaction was finished. However, then the woman wanted to purchase two money orders. The agent told the woman the total of the two money orders, but the customer said that was wrong, and renamed the amount about a thousand dollars off. When the employee explained that the computer calculated the total, and read it again, the woman apologized. Having previously bitten his tongue, the guy tried to lighten things by saying, "Oh, you've just been around me too long!"

Stuff Breaks

Okay, we all know how a child can break a toy immediately, and then he or she starts playing with the box. I guess the people who return decorations and trees after the holidays also figure they might as well return the toys that are already broken. I admit the tree and decorations thing kind of bothers me. That's like buying a dress, wearing it to a party, and then returning it to the store afterwards.

Back to breaking things. I broke something yesterday morning as soon as I clumsily took it out of the box. After determining I couldn't get the thing to operate properly, I removed the batteries and threw the thing away. However, that's not what I'm really wondering about things that get returned. Do I think that things are not made as well as they used to be? Of course I know this to be true, but what I wonder is did something fall apart on its own, or did someone intentionally break it because he or she thought there wouldn't be a refund on an item with nothing wrong with it? Personally, I'd rather see something being returned that could be resold, not something that is damaged goods. So, I almost want to tell people, don't rip your pants, don't drop things repeatedly on the floor, don't use a sledgehammer on something if you regret your purchase, just take stuff back fairly intact!

Threatening Customer

After the arrival of the new year, 2010, there was a guy who tried to return an electric razor he'd gotten for a gift, and an ink cartridge that he'd opened. Plus, he had paper without any red on it to prove the cartridge was defective. The employee called a manager over to explain about the ink cartridge, and gave store credit for the unopened electric razor.

When the manager arrived, the customer immediately went into his spiel, and so the manager didn't even hear at first that there was no receipt. When she looked at the package, she noted the ink cartridge expired December 2009. After the discovery by management regarding the absence of a receipt, she said it couldn't be done.

The other employee, now backed up by management, and having heard the date of the ink cartridge expiration, commented, "Without a receipt, we have no idea when you bought it."

This input obviously infuriated the man, who started turning red, and his face contorted as he spoke loudly and in a rather garbled, mouth-full-of-snuff fashion (one person called it yelling, but the other said he was about to yell),"Well, I'm just going to start storing all of my receipts at your house!" The first employee felt a little scared, but the manager was just worried the guy was going to blow up worse, so she very calmly apologized. The customers last words were that the ink cartridge might as well be thrown away.

That's the point I'd like to make here. An expired ink cartridge that is not working should be recycled, not taken to a store for a refund. Let's have some common sense here! Plus, why did he buy an ink cartridge that far ahead of time? I mean, the printer could break by the time he needed it, and it would need a different type of cartridge. He probably got a bargain on the ink cartridge somehwere, and not necessarily even where he threw a fit. He was seeing red, even if he wasn't printing it!

Post Purchase Dissonance

Yesterday, the first day of the year, I did not have to work, and I did go shopping! Now, today, like someone recovering from a hangover, I am recovering from my mad spending spree, and I have post purchase dissonance. In other words, I'm sorry I bought all of the stuff I bought. But will I take back the stuff? No. I will even keep the little speakers I bought for $7.50 that I might have broken immediately just by not understanding how they were put together and trying to adjust them. I still can't tell if they work or not, because the electronic device I was trying to attach to them was out of power.
At least I don't regret getting a little digital camera for $20. Ironically, last night when looking for a recharger for rechargeable batteries which I will eventually put in the camera, I found my last two digital cameras which I think might each be missing things.
Last night was one of those nights where I'm not sure if I slept or not. I think maybe I didn't sleep, though I stayed in bed some of the night and at least rested. So, this added to my feeling of a hangover and my clumsiness with the speakers.
One time when I was out of bed and definitely not sleeping, I set up the new camera. I took a picture of my oldest son, and saved it to the computer. Then, because I thought he didn't want me posting a picture of him without his shirt, I also used the photo software to color a black t-shirt on him. Then, whenever I tried to upload this picture on the internet, it wouldn't let me do it with my adjusted version, because of the format.
Okay, back to my post purchase dissonance, which is one way I can relate to my customers, even though I hate returning things myself. I bought some things from one of my favorite stores, which is in another state from where I live. The problem is not how much I bought, which was only 5 items, it was how much a spent, which was way too much. Actually, thinking about my hoarding disorder, buying even one of those 5 things was a bad idea. Plus, the other things I bought at three other stores didn't help my overall day of over-spending and over-buying.
Sitting here texting my significant other and simultaneously writing this, I've come up with a solution, which will not really help maginificently in the overall scheme of my hoarding problem, but it will help not add to it. I've decided for every item I bought yesterday, I will give away one item from my house. Afterall, one of my excuses was some of my clothing is very worn, so I bought five pieces of clothing, and then I bought electronics and posters and things from the other stores. So, like I said, I will pack up at least one item for each one I purchased yesterday to give to charity.