Lying to Customers

[Misty]

Have you ever lied to a customer for a less-than-good reason?

I've been guilty of lying out of pure laziness. The other day a customer at the yogurt shop where I work asked me if we had banana topping. We do have banana topping, but the bananas have to be cut fresh for each order (they don't keep well once they've been peeled). I was tired and cranky that day, and even though we had plenty of bananas in the back, I told her we were out.

Many years ago I worked at a Dunkin' Donuts on the AM shift. One day when we came in to open we discovered that the PM crew from the previous night had not cleaned the Coolatta machine like they were supposed to. That machine is a PITA to pull apart and clean and put back together, and none of us wanted to do it, so the whole day whenever a customer asked for a Coolatta, we told them the machine was broken.

Guess I'm never going to win Employee of the Month

[bhskittykatt]

When it's summer and we're close to full, if I get a shady feeling about a guest, I'll tell them we're sold out, even if I have a couple left.

Also, if a large family pulls up and I only have one single room left, I tell them we're sold out. I figure it's easier on both of us than trying to explain that I do have a room, it's just not big enough.

[Catwoman2965]

I have as well. Mainly if a customer is getting on my last nerve and I don't feel like going the extra mile to search ALL our stores for what they want. The way it works is we can search by state, or region, or district, but you have to do each one individually. If it shows any store has the item we can call, and have it sent to the customer (free shipping).

Some of them are so needy and annoying, that I'll do a couple then say "sorry, looks like its sold out" rather than spend the time doing a search for each area.

I also lied, with the complicity of a manager we had had this one customer come in multiple times, looking for something to wear to her daughter's wedding, which was going to be in India. She was of another nationality, and there was a bit of a language barrier. She would buy in the store, order online, etc. and come in and drive us nuts. It was 30-45 minutes or more for waht should have been a simple exchange and you could not get away from her. And NO ONE wanted to deal wiht her when she came in. So one time she had ordered something, as always, had it sent to our store. She called in to see if it had arrived, and it had, but I told the manager, please, please, please tell her NO as I was soooo not in the mood to deal wiht her that night. So she did.

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

Regretfully I have. You see at "gamestore" we are penalized if a customer cancels a presell. There have been times when a customer has wanted to cancel an order but wasn't sure which location of ours they did it at. They ask me to look it up and, I see it is in our system, but my presell numbers haven't been great, so I didn't want to take the hit.

I lied and told her it wasn't at our store.

I felt awful about it and haven't done it again since.

I know I'm not the only employee who has done it either. The environment is such that it's actually pretty common for this and other underhanded things to happen for employees to keep their numbers up. Another common tactic is to creatively avoid serving customers (two people are behind the counter, you see a customer coming up and immediately but casually move out on to the sales floor or go into the back to force your CW to ring them up).

[retailsweetie]

I've lied about what our registers can/cannot do. Customer wants me to try an expired coupon? Nope, computer won't recognize the code. Customer wants me to combine two coupons that aren't able to be combined? Nope, computer won't let us. I blame those kinds of lies on the computer, though, because it really shouldn't be able to do that.

I've also been known to tell a customer we don't have x item in the back when it's a size we don't carry much of (the 18s and 20s are sizes we get few of because by then most girls have moved on to stores aimed at an older demographic). While I can never be sure that we don't have the larger sizes in the back, I know we usually only get one or two of the big sizes and once we're out, we're out.

[simplyanother]

I try not to lie to people, but, typically--if anyone is going to get a less than truthful answer, it's going to be a phone call. "Do you have any x?" check usual places (and the gun)... "no"....

"can you hold x item?"

"We can't hold seasonal items" (which may or may not be true, hell if i know).

[Catwoman2965]

I've lied about what our registers can/cannot do. Customer wants me to try an expired coupon? Nope, computer won't recognize the code. Customer wants me to combine two coupons that aren't able to be combined? Nope, computer won't let us. I blame those kinds of lies on the computer, though, because it really shouldn't be able to do that.

.

Oh I've done that as well. If someone wants to return an item they got as a gift, and have a gift receipt, all we can do is give them a merch credit. In spite of the fact when you go to finalize the transaction, it CAN be put back on the giver's credit card and we have to override that to issue the credit. But that's a system glitch, as we are not allowed to do anything other than a credit.

I've also lied when customers try and return items past our 90 day policy. I can't do it anway, but I always add that the register won't LET me do it, when in fact, I could override it, if there is a valid reason, i.e. defectiver merchandise.

But my policy is, the less you say, the better off you are. Some of my CWs, not so much. Instant credit declined, I just say sorry, its telling me it can't approve at this time - CWs will go on and speculate as to WHY. We don't know, so you shouldn't try and tell them why. Customer makes 150K and is declined. That means NOTHING as they could have piss poor credit. We don't have gift boxes (before Christmas) Sorry, don't know if we'll get more in or not. CW's - well, we're getting another couple shipments this week, me might have some, you can certainly come back, yada, yada, yada. Just shut up already! The more you tell them, the more they expect what you tell them to be true!

[NateTheChops]

On and off. Sometimes I mask the truth behind a blanket answer, which isn't directly lying but it's not going above and beyond either. It depends on the situation.

[dalesys]

... Customer makes 150K and is declined...

And is spending at 300K.

[Zellie Crescent]

I have to lie sometimes when we're running short on something and have to wait until the next shipment. A perfect example of this is last weekend when we had only 2 boxes of tilapia, 1 box of flounder, and instead of being sent a 35 pound box of salmon we were sent a 10 pound box. Our top 3 sellers and we had to try to stretch them til Monday, so once we ran out of what we put in the case we had to say we were out until possibly Monday.

[simplyanother]

But my policy is, the less you say, the better off you are. Some of my CWs, not so much. Instant credit declined, I just say sorry, its telling me it can't approve at this time - CWs will go on and speculate as to WHY. We don't know, so you shouldn't try and tell them why. Customer makes 150K and is declined. That means NOTHING as they could have piss poor credit. We don't have gift boxes (before Christmas) Sorry, don't know if we'll get more in or not. CW's - well, we're getting another couple shipments this week, me might have some, you can certainly come back, yada, yada, yada. Just shut up already! The more you tell them, the more they expect what you tell them to be true!

Yep. At work, I'll look something up for a customer. The gun will say we have 1, or 2, or 30 or 500. If it's over 2, I'll say "we might have some, let me go see". If it's another store, I will check, and if it says they have some, I'll tell the customer they MIGHT have some, but I have to call to confirm.

I have coworkers will go...to the customer "the gun says we have 56!". Goes searching for it, finds either... 0 or like 2. "but the gun said we had 56!". the customer is pissed off, "but she said you had!!!"

I tell them, NEVER tell the customer what the gun says. Confirm it.


Or, they'll tell them "oh, it'll be here on Monday's truck!"

Bullshit. Correct answer "we don't know when it will come in"

heh