Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Uh, lady, it's not our fault your 'client' is so vague ... (long)

Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Uh, lady, it's not our fault your 'client' is so vague ... (long)

    Had my first SC in my chocolate shop seasonal job, and hooboy, was she a doozy!

    She'd been sent out by a VERY aged person (don't know if it's a relative or what) to buy some chocolates. Very aged person specified "a big box." Now, we have "big boxes" that range from the $40s to nearly $100.

    SC: "Oh, I don't think she wants to spend THAT much."

    Okay, that's reasonable. Trouble is, apparently, very aged person did not really give much clarification about what she DID want.

    SC: "I kept trying to get her to give me more directions about HOW big, or HOW much to spend, and she just started to get annoyed."

    Me: "Um, would you like me to write down a list of sizes and prices and you can go back and ask her?"

    SC: "Oh no, I just want to buy something and be done with it."

    Well ... okay.

    So we get her settled with three small boxes, a bunch of chocolate Santas (presumably for the grandkids?) and one big box.

    And this is where it all went south.

    SC: "Oh well, if it's not right, I can always bring them back."

    Oops.

    Because this store DOES NOT DO refunds, exchanges, or returns. Not even on its (very few) non-food items.

    Me: "Um ... hang on a minute."

    I go over and grab the Assistant Manager and explain the situation, and ask if there is ANY way we can break this rule for her. He comes over -- kudos to him for doing so -- and says to her no, unfortunately, once the item leaves the store, it CANNOT come back.

    SC: *outraged* "WHAT! I can't believe this! This is stupid! [Very aged person] drops A LOT of money here!"

    AM: "Yes, and I do understand that, and I am sorry, but once the items leave the store, we cannot take them back."

    SC: *more along the same lines* -- and then ...

    AM: "I am very sorry, ma'am."

    SC: "WELL, YOU SHOULD BE!!"

    AM: *rather shocked* "Ma'am, this is not personal. [translation: "IT'S NOT MY FUCKING RULE!!"] I literally cannot break this rule. It's a company-wide rule; it applies at all our stores."

    It went on like this for some five minutes, with the SC continually implying that the AM was deliberately being unreasonable and obstructionist. Finally she grabbed her bags, huffed at me, "Well, thank you for YOUR help" and stomped out. AM went into the back room and vented at some incoming employees for a few minutes and then came back out.

    Now, I felt badly because it occurred to me, belatedly, that I probably should have warned her when she first started that WE DON'T DO RETURNS, EXCHANGES, OR REFUNDS, so -- again -- are you sure you want to complete this transaction today? I told AM I would do this in future under the same circumstances. He said "Well, then you'd have to say that to everybody," but I disagree, mostly because this woman made it very clear that she was VERY uncertain about what she was doing. My experience has been that the majority of people buying food as a gift have a Plan B if it's not what the recipient wants -- and when it comes to chocolates, the Plan B is usually "Well, hell, then I'll eat it!"

    AM also said he'd made it clear we could've refunded her right then and there, but I'm sure his repetition of "ONCE IT LEAVES THE STORE" didn't register. Perhaps we should've put it in plain English: "Ma'am, would you prefer to return the candies NOW? Because we can do it NOW."

    In any case, this is largely a case of could'a/should'a/would'a. I just seriously hope what she took home is what the very aged person wanted ... for both her sake and that of very aged person.
    Last edited by Pixelated; 12-13-2018, 01:12 AM.
    Customer service: More efficient than a Dementor's kiss
    ~ Mr Hero

  • #2
    The irony is that the recipient probably wasn't all that specific in what she wanted -- she just wanted a box of chocolates, "and not one of those little samplers, a big box".

    Comment


    • #3
      But

      There are lot of items you can not bring back. under-wear, bathing suits, custom clothes, lots of food item once the wrapping is open, and in this case food in boxes.

      How could they tell if a person openned the box and ran their hand across the food for example.

      When I worked at Arby's, if someone bought food back for exchange/refund the food went into the dumper not to resale.

      Comment


      • #4
        When I was a teenager (a few years ago...) there was a burger joint in Logan that was famous for "recycling" unused pickles, parsley & butter pats... now, then.
        I am not an a**hole. I am a hemorrhoid. I irritate a**holes!
        Procrastination: Forward planning to insure there is something to do tomorrow.
        Derails threads faster than a pocket nuke.

        Comment


        • #5
          [Very aged person] drops A LOT of money here!
          Uh-huh. So why doesn't she seem to know the first thing about the sizes of the items she likes to buy...?
          "For a musician, the SNES sound engine is like using Crayola Crayons. Nobuo Uematsu used Crayola Crayons to paint the Sistine Chapel." - Jeremy Jahns (re: "Dancing Mad")
          "The difference between an amateur and a master is that the master has failed way more times." - JoCat
          "Thinking is difficult, therefore let the herd pronounce judgment!" ~ Carl Jung
          "There's burning bridges, and then there's the lake just to fill it with gasoline." - Wiccy, reddit
          "Retail is a cruel master, and could very well be the most educational time of many people's lives, in its own twisted way." - me
          "Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down...tell you she's hurtin' 'fore she keens...makes her a home." - Capt. Malcolm Reynolds, "Serenity" (2005)
          Acts of Gord – Read it, Learn it, Love it!
          "Our psychic powers only work if the customer has a mind to read." - me

          Comment


          • #6
            Quoth Pixelated View Post
            My experience has been that the majority of people buying food as a gift have a Plan B if it's not what the recipient wants -- and when it comes to chocolates, the Plan B is usually "Well, hell, then I'll eat it!"
            Oh, heck yeah! And then next time, I'll just buy her/him some grocery store drek and buy these for me.


            Quoth EricKei View Post
            Uh-huh. So why doesn't she seem to know the first thing about the sizes of the items she likes to buy...?
            Jumps up and down, arm waving in the air!!! I know this answer!!!

            Young person doing an obligation visit.

            "What can I bring you, oh rich aunt that I don't really like but need to kiss up to so I can get money?"

            RA thinking "This person I don't know or really like but am related to is coming for an obligation visit. I don't have anything I really need/want right now, so it would be easiest to just sent them to my favorite chocolate place for a box of assorted chocolates. If I don't like them, I can give them to my neighbor.": Oh, thank you for asking, dear. Maybe a box of chocolate from favorite place, but please don't get one of those small 1-flavor boxes, I'd like an assortment."

            Comment


            • #7
              A customer in a restaurant near me once started to pull apart a dinner roll and found a note in it, telling her it had been served before.

              Comment


              • #8
                Quoth workerbee222 View Post
                A customer in a restaurant near me once started to pull apart a dinner roll and found a note in it, telling her it had been served before.
                Argh... That falls squarely under "that really shouldn't have worked...".

                I remember an Erma Bombeck column where she was tearing into an airline's "Continental Breakfast". Her line was that she carved an X into the bottom of the rock-hard roll and sent it back -- guess what she got on her flight back? Of course, Erma Bombeck was a humor columnist, so this should be given about the same credibility as a factoid from a Dave Barry column.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Bombeck also once said that there was really only ONE fruitcake in the world, and it has been making the rounds as a gift for a couple centuries

                  Re: the OP, I'm thinking it's 50/50 whether the older person didn't specify what they wanted ("the big box! You know!") because many years ago they only had two sizes and that's what she remembers; or, younger person didn't bother listening to what the older one actually said. The older I get, the more this seems likely to be what happened.
                  When you start at zero, everything's progress.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Quoth earl colby pottinger View Post
                    There are lot of items you can not bring back. under-wear, bathing suits, custom clothes, lots of food item once the wrapping is open, and in this case food in boxes.

                    How could they tell if a person openned the box and ran their hand across the food for example.

                    When I worked at Arby's, if someone bought food back for exchange/refund the food went into the dumper not to resale.
                    When I worked at the Now Defunct Tea Shop, customers could bring back teas ... and since it had been weighed into little bags, there was definitely no way of telling whether it had been contaminated. We would toss the returned tea and exchange it for something the customer preferred.

                    Quoth dalesys View Post
                    When I was a teenager (a few years ago...) there was a burger joint in Logan that was famous for "recycling" unused pickles, parsley & butter pats... now, then.
                    YUCK!!

                    Quoth EricKei View Post
                    Uh-huh. So why doesn't she seem to know the first thing about the sizes of the items she likes to buy...?
                    She's apparently in her 90s ... so I'm inclined to cut her a bit of slack. It may also be that it's one of those "I'll know it when I see it" situations ... she'll recognize the box by size and/or location on the shelf, but doesn't actually know how many pieces are in it (you'd think she'd have some idea of the cost, though ... "It's the $45 box" or something like that.) The actual customer said she had tried to press the older woman for more details and the older woman was just getting annoyed so I'm thinking perhaps some memory loss is at work here ...

                    Quoth Slave to the Phone View Post
                    *snip*

                    Young person doing an obligation visit.

                    *snip*
                    Welllll ... the customer was certainly not in her 90s ... but we're not talking a teenager or 20-something ... or even 30-something ... more like somebody in her 50s, would be my guess. So comparatively younger for sure ...
                    Customer service: More efficient than a Dementor's kiss
                    ~ Mr Hero

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      People change. My mother is in her middle 80's and lives out of state. We see each other 2 or 3 times a year and talk at least every week.

                      She was here for a visit last week and I made sure to buy her favorite tipple and fixings. Since the last time we saw each other, she stopped drinking Mudslides and started drinking a certain red wine that isn't available in the C-store here. I was rather disappointed that she didn't get what she wanted her first night here, but of course she wasn't a b**ch about it, she just drank water.

                      However, the next morning, we took her to our favorite breakfast grill. Unbeknownst to her, the grill was run by a farming family who sorted the food scraps into different bins depending on what animal they were feeding. The critters or the milk and eggs they produced were served up in the diner.

                      When Mom mentioned watching the waitress carefully taking out the bread before scraping the rest of the food into the pig bin, she said something about wondering what was happening to the bread.

                      The owner, who is just the sort of smart ass we get along with very well, told her that if she came back in a couple of days she would have it for breakfast. Horrified look on her face accompanied by loud laughter from us and the owner.

                      Once it was explained that the bread went to the chickens and cows while the other food went to the hogs, she was very laughing as well.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Quoth Slave to the Phone View Post
                        ... what was happening to the bread...
                        Bread pudding, of course!
                        I am not an a**hole. I am a hemorrhoid. I irritate a**holes!
                        Procrastination: Forward planning to insure there is something to do tomorrow.
                        Derails threads faster than a pocket nuke.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Quoth dalesys View Post
                          Bread pudding, of course!
                          French toast or summer pudding

                          Comment

                          Working...
                          X