Act of God? Bad customer service.

[mattm04]

Living in New England means strange weather. From 60, to thunder, then hail, to wind, then freezing cold followed by snow. Today was the wind. Gusts up to 60 nearby and 20-30 sustained at times. As a result of said winds taking down a tree, we lost power.

Power goes out, store gets pitch black, generator fires up and 15-20 seconds we have emergency lighting/power. Customers continue to shop any non perishable dept. Good deal? Right?

Nope. About 5 minutes into the outage, I am guarding the end of of our frozen food aisle with a CW to keep customers out and the doors shut. At that point we we still allowing them to shop the open refrigerator cases, but the plastic was staged and ready to go up at the 10 minute mark.

SC: *try to get down the frozen aisle by us*
CW: I'm sorry ma'am, but the frozen food area is closed due to a power outage.
SC: Noooooo, it's still open. You have power, the lights are still on. *points to ceiling*

At my store alternating rows of lights have fixtures on the generator. Something like this:
Row 1: Gen/Gen/Gen/off/off/off/off/off/off/Gen/Gen/Gen/off/off/off
Row 2: all off
Row 3: off/off/off/Gen/Gen/Gen/off/off/off/off/off/off/Gen/Gen/Gen

Clearly most of the lights are off in a abnormal fashion.

M: Those lights are running off our emergency generator. It only powers emergency lights, phones, alarms and some registers, no freezers (and a few scattered outlets and some HVAC stuff). We have to keep the doors closed so they product doesn't go bad.
SC: Really. Is that why you shut the lights off on me earlier.
M: we didn't. We lost power that why all the lights went off for a few seconds while the generator turned on.
SC: No. It was bad customer service.
CW: I'm sorry if you feel that way, but we have no control of the weather.
SC: I see how you treat you customers. I'm going to <competitor across the street>
M: *i had looked outside earlier and could see that they had no power also based on the lack of working traffic lights on their side of the street and we know their power is fed from the same lines as our plaza to the transformers next to their building* Well i head from some customers that they lost power also and were not letting any one in.
SC: well, we will see about that!

About 15 minutes later I am helping with the finishing touches on the plastic on the refrigerated cases and telling people that the caution tape across the frozen aisle meas stay out when the SC returns. The SC want's their cart back, which had been picked apart for perishable product and dumped into the appropriate areas to be restocked.

When told this by a CW they blamed us for the tree falling down and wanted a gift card for compensation. A manger nearby told them to go pound sand and they stormed off.

[Kristev]

Go pound sand? That's not good enough to tell those entitled . . . I want a compensatory gift card!

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Bet your company brings back the "customer service specialist" for some "retraining."

[Midnight_Angel]

Power outage? How DARE you?

At least, you should have some sort of giant hamster wheel for those occasions, where those good-for-nothing employees can run in to create some electricity, so the pwecious customers are not inconvenienced in their shopping...

[TonyDonuts]

My store has a huge backup generator. Powers the whole site, gas pumps, heat, AC, car wash, coolers, freezers, tills, lights, everything, for up to 8 hours.

Unfortunately, the generator's old and suffered from a series of parts failures. Early this winter an ice storm wiped out power for about 15-20,000 customers.

We were without power for almost 12 hours.

We spent a lot of time that day explaining to Joe and Jane Average Consumer the vital role Reddy Kilowatt, our Electric Pal, plays in the convenience store industry.

One woman could not believe, simply could not believe that there was no way for her to get gas. Or rather, she could not believe that we were, obviously, refusing to help her.

I finally told her that without electricity, the little man who lives in the pump and pumps your gas couldn't see what he was doing.

She figured out that I was making fun of her, and snapped, "I don't have time for this, I need -"

And I interrupted her (Quel horreur! The peasant's talking back to my own august self!), "And yet you've got time to stand in the parking lot of a gas station arguing with me. I have no electricity! I have no electricity! I can't pump your gas without it! Do you want me to get a garden hose, stuff one end in the storage tank and SUCK the gas out for you? Because that's the only way you're getting gas here! I am running of different ways of saying this: Until we have electricity back we CANNOT, not will not, CANNOT pump gas for ANYBODY! We aren't doing this 'on purpose' because we're big meanieheads who want to make you feel bad! Everything within a mile of this place is WITHOUT POWER! If you want gas you're going to have to go a mile and a half to get it. Do you get that?"

She started arguing with me again. And I cut her off.

"You know, a normal person, in a hurry and everything, when confronted with a gas station without power, would just go somewhere else this one time. A normal person wouldn't spend ten or fifteen minutes throwing a fit, and DEMANDING SOMETHING she can't have."

And she got back in her Suburban Assault Vehicle and left.

Repeat that conversation a dozen times or so. And something similar in every store I've ever worked in when Reddy Kilowatt, or Electric Pal, has abandoned us.

We had people who drove in, spotted the whole "no lights, closed signs" situation and figured out, from the clues provided, that we were closed for the day and went elsewhere. It's those clusters of Mommy's Special Boys and Daddy's Precious Princesses who really made the day complete.

[Nurian]

Oh, come on! Your manager should at least give the SC's choices: they can either pound sand or eat S!

[XCashier]

And I interrupted her (Quel horreur! The peasant's talking back to my own august self!), "And yet you've got time to stand in the parking lot of a gas station arguing with me. I have no electricity! I have no electricity! I can't pump your gas without it! Do you want me to get a garden hose, stuff one end in the storage tank and SUCK the gas out for you? Because that's the only way you're getting gas here! I am running of different ways of saying this: Until we have electricity back we CANNOT, not will not, CANNOT pump gas for ANYBODY! We aren't doing this 'on purpose' because we're big meanieheads who want to make you feel bad! Everything within a mile of this place is WITHOUT POWER! If you want gas you're going to have to go a mile and a half to get it. Do you get that?"

"This generator is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If we hadn't nailed it to the floor, it'd be pushing up the daisies! It's metabolic processes are now history! It's off the twig! It's kicked the bucket, it's shuffled off this mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-GENERATOR!!"

Really, the whole exchange had the makings of a Monty Python skit.

Amazing how thick-skulled some people can be, innit?

[JustaCashier]

Do you want me to get a garden hose, stuff one end in the storage tank and SUCK the gas out for you?

Don't give the bitch any ideas!



Mike

[chainedbarista]

nah, she can just suck it herself.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

nah, she can just suck it herself.

Or, she can hook up one end of the hose to the gas tank in her car and the other end to her mouth and start pumping . . .obviously she's got enough gas there to stand around arguing and throwing a bitchfit, so she might as well use the verbal gas she's creating in a constructive manner.

[Mike Taylor]

Several years ago, I worked for the dollar store with the yellow and black logo. I can remember a day when were getting slammed by the trailing edge of a hurricane and people were STILL trying to shop with us! The lights were flashing on and off erratically, winds were blowing the rain sideways... and Granny needed to come in and buy her pack of chewing gum.

It amazes me how people DON'T get that a raging storm is NOT the time to go out and shop!

[MoonCat]

Is that why you shut the lights off on me earlier.

This, right here, is the perfect illustration of how incredibly self-centered these people are.

[lineswine]

nah, she can just suck it herself.

As in "Go suck yourself!", or something that sounds like it?

[Kristev]

I once told an annoying person to go hurricane themselves once. But to be fair, I was playing "Magic, the gathering" and won, and they were mad at me because I beat them with a hurricane card.

[Argabarga]

Dear Sir,

I woke up this morning to find 4 inches of snow outside my window, a short time later, it began to sleet as well, making it too dangerous for me to travel to your store and shop.

If this is how you treat your customers, then I will never come there again! How can you do such a thing to me since I shop there all the time?!