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I was running the front end of the Store the other night when the customer service clerk paged me to take a phone call. This generally means one of three things; a customer lost their wallet/purse/ID/debit card/etc., a customer forgot one of their bags on their way out of the store, or an employee is calling in sick. This was none of those.
I stepped into the receptionist's office (I prefer to take calls there so I don't have any distractions) and take the call.
Me: This is Smapti speaking, how can I help you?
C: Hi, my name is Customer. I went shopping at your store yesterday and I bought a can of Pilsbury pizza crust, and I'm making dinner right now for someone who's just worked 12 1/2 hours, and I opened the can, and it didn't smell right, and I looked at the can, and it says it expired in August 2016.
Me:
I am aghast at this point, and rightly so; we have a very good QA team that works the shelves at night rotating product and checking for close-dated stuff, and it's pretty remarkable that something like that could have evaded them. I respond as apologetically as I can, and that's when the conversation takes a hard-right turn into WTF-Ville;
Me: Oh dear. I'm very sorry, ma'am. I don't know how we missed that. I'd be happy to offer you a refund or a replacement if you'd like.
C: How about you send someone over here with a new one, since I have to have dinner in the oven now?
Me: I'm afraid I can't do that, ma'am.
C: Oh. I guess you can't.
Me: Sorry.
(5 seconds silence)
C: Goodbye. (hangs up)
I hesitate to call the customer sucky here. Their complaint was reasonable, and it's one we definitely would have made right - as good as we are, we aren't perfect, and it's entirely possible that an expired can could have gotten left on the shelf.
Still, though. How could you ever think that sending a store employee to your house with a fresh can was a possible alternative? For one, we don't deliver. For two, bringing products to customers' homes isn't part of our employees' expected duties as covered by the contract between the company and the employee association (who are also the majority owners of the company, and one of the advantages of working for an employee-owned company is that the management has your back). We don't have the kind of insurance or licensing that would even allow our workers to make home deliveries in the first place. I don't know that you aren't some kind of axe murderer or Ocean's Eleven type who needs to kidnap a Store employee as some kind of elaborate ultra-con. And finally, I don't even have enough people working that I could spare one of them to make a road trip on your behalf and risk the lines backing up halfway down the center aisle just so you don't have to leave the house for your $1.68 can of dough.
I get that it sucks when you go to the store and you buy something that's no good, but there's only so far backwards that we can physically bend in order to remedy that.
I stepped into the receptionist's office (I prefer to take calls there so I don't have any distractions) and take the call.
Me: This is Smapti speaking, how can I help you?
C: Hi, my name is Customer. I went shopping at your store yesterday and I bought a can of Pilsbury pizza crust, and I'm making dinner right now for someone who's just worked 12 1/2 hours, and I opened the can, and it didn't smell right, and I looked at the can, and it says it expired in August 2016.
Me:
I am aghast at this point, and rightly so; we have a very good QA team that works the shelves at night rotating product and checking for close-dated stuff, and it's pretty remarkable that something like that could have evaded them. I respond as apologetically as I can, and that's when the conversation takes a hard-right turn into WTF-Ville;
Me: Oh dear. I'm very sorry, ma'am. I don't know how we missed that. I'd be happy to offer you a refund or a replacement if you'd like.
C: How about you send someone over here with a new one, since I have to have dinner in the oven now?
Me:
I'm afraid I can't do that, ma'am.C: Oh. I guess you can't.
Me: Sorry.
(5 seconds silence)
C: Goodbye. (hangs up)
I hesitate to call the customer sucky here. Their complaint was reasonable, and it's one we definitely would have made right - as good as we are, we aren't perfect, and it's entirely possible that an expired can could have gotten left on the shelf.
Still, though. How could you ever think that sending a store employee to your house with a fresh can was a possible alternative? For one, we don't deliver. For two, bringing products to customers' homes isn't part of our employees' expected duties as covered by the contract between the company and the employee association (who are also the majority owners of the company, and one of the advantages of working for an employee-owned company is that the management has your back). We don't have the kind of insurance or licensing that would even allow our workers to make home deliveries in the first place. I don't know that you aren't some kind of axe murderer or Ocean's Eleven type who needs to kidnap a Store employee as some kind of elaborate ultra-con. And finally, I don't even have enough people working that I could spare one of them to make a road trip on your behalf and risk the lines backing up halfway down the center aisle just so you don't have to leave the house for your $1.68 can of dough.
I get that it sucks when you go to the store and you buy something that's no good, but there's only so far backwards that we can physically bend in order to remedy that.
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