I am not your mother

[Lace Neil Singer]

Another petrol coupon SC. I decided to give each SC their own topic, cuz detailing the first SC took so much space and I wanted to give full justice to each one. XD

I was working the late shift with Summer, who's a bit younger than me but good company. For some reason, the combination of Summer and I seems to attract far too many SCs. O_o First there was this SC, then there was another.

SC had a coupon which ran out that day, and he forgot to use it. He came back in after going back to his car waving the coupon and saying that he forgot to use it so could we put it thru? Summer replied that we couldn't, cuz we can't put a money off coupon thru the till after the transaction. Cue fireworks.

SC didn't like that and started yelling abuse at Summer. He was screaming that she should have reminded him to use his coupon and calling her names. She got very upset and walked away from her till and out the back. I took over and told SC that we were not allowed to take a money off coupon after a transaction, and we didn't have any managers working that night. He told me to call over a store manager. I explained that while I could do this, it would take a long time and it would be far easier if he just went over the road to Customer Services himself and asked for the manager on duty. He agreed to this and left.

Summer didn't come back straight away; she told me after that she was crying and after that, calming herself down. I didn't expect her to do so cuz I've been in that situation myself before. Anyway, the first customer I served said, "What a scumbag." All the customers in the considerable queue said that if SC complained, they'd back us up cuz Summer and I were nothing but civil to SC and he was the one being abusive and bullying Summer. They left their mobile numbers and names as I processed each one and not a single one had a good thing to say about SC.

After the queue was dealt with, Summer came back. She was still a bit upset but said she was fine after I asked if she was alright. I went out back to call Customer Services to give them a heads up, and to tell them that SC had been rude and nasty towards Summer, in case he complained. A few hours later, I called them again and guess what? After all that almighty fuss he made, he never went over there.

It's not our job to remind customers to use their coupons; if they forget, it's their own tough luck. And in any case, being a nasty bully isn't going to do anything but make them look like the bad guy. In this situation, we had about ten or so people who were on our side and SC had no-one on his.

[Evannah]

I'm so sorry that Summer got a mouthful of abuse, but it's good that the other customers stuck up for her, even though she wasn't there to hear them. I've had to run off before too to have a cry. Customers can be so vile. Yet if someone was horrible to them, they wouldn't like it. The customers who turn to abuse and aggression are nothing but bullies.

I'm shaking my head at the "you should have reminded me!" comment. We are NOT responsible for that. YOU are. Did he also want Summer to remind him to buy the cat food for his neighbour (not that you'd sell it where you are lol) or the milk for his daughter's cereal in the morning?

[Firecrackers Not Included]

Down at the Station, we are able to give back coupon money by means of doing a cash Pay-out. This is done whether they paid cash OR card (or at the pump!) in order to preserve custy happiness. We make a point to inform them the correct procedure while paying them "for future reference". I hate it. I make it seem more like I'm doing them a favor (because I AM), in hopes of actually correcting them. Usually, these Pay-outs are less than a dollar so someone who used a card (and probably always likes to) now has to take coins as the payment. That part makes me happy and probably helps them "learn".

One Saturday morning in my first 15 groggy minutes, a guy did this to me after paying at a pump. It was no strain for me to act completely naturally annoyed about it at that time. Especially when he went into it with "So and so (MyCompanyOTHER) store does it all the time". I started to make motions initiating the Pay-out and asked, "Ok, next time can we not do this?"

I wish whole heartedly I could explain the musical tone of his voice in text: Imagine the first word "You're" starting low and raising up in the middle and coming back down again. It is also the most stretched out word in the sentence. The second word "mad" is high again and is the punch of the sentence....

"Yo-u-'re Mad at me!!!"
"I can do the refund for y-"
"No! You're mad at me! That's not right!"

And he left without the Pay-out. I just wasn't interested in assisting him in his style of shopping to 'win him back'.

Coupons are just horrible things. Company-made money. They bring out weird, dirty, selfish and rude kinds of people.

Sorry for the hurt Summer, sadly, I know it's only helping you become the battle-hardened customer service warrior like Lace and you two can soon take on anything that comes your way!

[Jay 2K Winger]

I've had Sucktomers get angry about coupons before, back in my days in retail hell. The argument would sometimes go into the whole notion of "why do I need to cut out these coupons/mail in this rebate? why can't they just take the money off the top?"

I replied quite simply, and sympathetically, "Because they don't want to lose the money. They know that plenty of people won't jump through all the hoops to get the discount or rebate, and thus they don't have to pay out that money."

Which would get a grumbling acknowledgment that I had a good point, and it would at least stop their griping at me.

Which is what I wanted in the first place.

[Lace Neil Singer]

These petrol coupons are the bane of my existance. They produce more SCs than anything else we do, and it's so stupid cuz it's not that difficult to use them. I hate especially the SCs like in this topic, who think that we're their mother and have to remind them to use their coupon. If you forget, then that's your tough luck; you'll remember next time.

Also, managers won't give them their money back when it's customer error. I normally send these SCs manager-wards tho, cuz managers are paid more than I am so they can deal with the SCs. XD