The Customer is Not Always Right

1. Staxeon
   January 7th, 2009 at 7:11 pm

   Ahhh, reminds me of the tech support call I took from an elderly woman who insisted she wanted spam. Apparently she heard the term on the news and got confused. I tried to correct her but nope, none of that.

   I hope she got all the spam she wanted.

2. Johnny Cat
   January 7th, 2009 at 7:24 pm

   Reminiscent of "Where's the Any key?"

3. esu
   January 7th, 2009 at 7:36 pm

   pretty sure a large part of those posts are made up

4. Staxeon
   January 7th, 2009 at 8:00 pm

   I dunno, people get all worked up and frustrated on the phone. I've asked people for their username, don't know it, so I ask for their email address (since the first part IS the username), don't know it, so I ask them to spell their last name to look up their account..."I don't know it."

   Happened to me at least twice.

5. Jill Harness
   January 7th, 2009 at 8:06 pm

   I worked a similar job on a website and we had someone calling us with the same problem -she couldn't log in.

   After ten minutes we figured out she never signed up and was just typing her email and her email's password.

6. ECA
   January 7th, 2009 at 8:45 pm

   ESU,

   I did 8 years on the floor, in retail.
   I can NOW say, that I have seen ALMOST everything.
   Rules: REVISED.
   1, the customer is always right.
   2, REFER TO #1, ONLY IF he KNOWS WHAT THE @#$@%# he is talking about.
   3, dont argue with the customer, let them go home and FIND OUT YOU WERE RIGHT.

7. ECA
   January 7th, 2009 at 8:47 pm

   PS,
   ESU..
   I wont mention the lady that FOUND she was on her period, WHILE WEARING A white pant suit, and RUNNING into the store looking for hygiene products..

8. Moi
   January 7th, 2009 at 8:47 pm

   @ esu

   You must be one of THOSE customer.

9. Stacy
   January 7th, 2009 at 8:55 pm

   ESU, I would agree with you if I hadn't worked retail for so long. There are truly some horrible people out there.

10. Ali S.
    January 7th, 2009 at 10:23 pm

    Egads. I work part time in a retail/service business and let me just say sometimes the clients can be a bit...out there.

11. Tanya
    January 7th, 2009 at 10:30 pm

    I work in retail and for the most part the majority (like 99%) of customers are civilized, quite nice and a pleasure to serve. It's the one percent that are truly mad, crazy and should not be allowed to breed (or exist for that matter).

12. Courageous Grace
    January 7th, 2009 at 10:42 pm

    LOL my mother used to work in the fitting room at Walmart, which also happens to be the incoming call center as well. She came home with the funniest stories such as:

    "What's the number to 1-800-WAL-MART?"

    "Can you tell me what time (name of movie) is playing?"

    "Can you run over to the KMart across the highway and tell me how much **** is?"

    "Do you have the traffic report?"

    And of course the mother of one of the managers would call every day just to talk. She was suffering from dementia and was apparently very lonely.

13. Frau
    January 7th, 2009 at 10:55 pm

    I will never work in retail again.EVER.
    There were many nice customers. But the stupid and mean ones have lodged themselves in my memory.
    My favorite all time idiot - standing in front of the door, right next to the OPEN sign asking "Are you open?"

    to quote Clerks
    Randal: This job would be great if it wasn't for the fxxxn' customers.

    Dante: Which ones?

    Randal: All of them!

14. just a guy
    January 7th, 2009 at 11:25 pm

    I seriouslt doubt they are made up. Paraphrased from memory, perhaps. But certianly real. If you've worked with customers, it would be obvious.

    I have a ton, I should probably sign up for that blog, but heres a sample:

    Customer: Can you tell me my credit card payment amount this month.
    (note, I did not work for a credit card company, and reminded the customer of who she was calling. She didn't care and so I decided to try to calculate it).

    Me: Do you know your interest rate?

    Customer: No.

    Me: What about your total balance?

    Customer: No.

    Me: D.. Do you have a general guess for either one?

    Customer: No.

    Me: Um...

15. SparkS
    January 7th, 2009 at 11:30 pm

    Courageous Grace "LOL my mother used to work in the fitting room at Walmart, which also happens to be the incoming call center as well."

    Hmmmm, must be one HUGE fitting room or a very SMALL call center. How weird to have strangers undressing in your work place.

    Speaking of idiots.

    Tanya "It’s the one percent that are truly mad, crazy and should not be allowed to breed (or exist for that matter)."

    Amen! One person in particular comes to mind.

16. Christophe
    January 7th, 2009 at 11:56 pm

    OMG! Those customers were in my store yesterday!

    Working in retail opens the gates to Heavens, I'm sure.

17. The El Bee En
    January 8th, 2009 at 12:31 am

    I think it all balances out: it use to be that "Customer Service" meant providing SERVICE to the CUSTOMER. Now a days, I'm not so sure: there are rude and brain dead people on both sides of the counter, and both ends of the telephone. Not all...but some!

18. Courageous Grace
    January 8th, 2009 at 12:46 am

    SparkS:

    ??? Have you ever been to a Walmart before?

    Oh, to add to the interesting calls she's gotten, there used to be a manager at her store named Michael Hunt. Callers got a bit muddled when she would transfer them to him. Mr. Hunt thought it was hilarious.

19. Staxeon
    January 8th, 2009 at 12:50 am

    SparkS:
    The incoming calls for every Wal-Mart store go to the ladies fitting room booth (men don't try on clothes as much as women).

    If you're willing to brave a stroll through the women's underwear section take a look at the phone in there, its a massive switchboard phone to transfer calls to all the other departments.

20. Nathan Miller
    January 8th, 2009 at 1:18 am

    Hilarious.

    @ The El Bee En - For an interesting perspective on "customer service," check out George Carlin. NSFW, but very amusing.

21. ECA
    January 8th, 2009 at 1:33 am

    yOU CAN TELL THOSE THAT HAVE WORKED REATIAL...
    AND the OLD reatil customer service, were PERSONS that knew their departments and what you NEEDED..
    NOW days, hardware people cant tell you the diff between a screw/nail/toggle bolt/Anchor bolt/Phillips/Straight/robertson/ self tapping/metal/sheet rock.. except what is marked on the package.
    Iv had persons that SWORE that latex paint STAY'd on there Concrete basement floor.

    Iv had a few Customers that LEFT STINK TRAILS threw the store...that NEVEr moved, and you could track the customer.

    Iv had complaints because I called a person Mam..I asked what I should call her, SIR, LADY, DUCKS..I finally started calling them ALL "young lady", no MATTE the age.

    Who has EVER cleaned up UNDER a Paint mixer..After 2-3 years of exploding Cans?? 2" of SOLID PAINT..and the boss gives you 2 hours to get it clean.. It took 6 hours AND A sledge AND wood chisel..

22. xchmp
    January 8th, 2009 at 3:58 am

    Tech support stories like this always strike me as kind of pathetic. I get the need for people in retail to let off steam about rude or just plain inconvenient customers. If you're in retail, your job is to sell stuff and those kinds of customers take up more of your resources and prevent you from doing your actual job.

    But if you're in tech support the people you're supposed to be spending your time on are the people who have problems with the service you're supporting. And these people are, by definition, not as able with technology as you (whether in terms of knowledge or access). Making fun of these people shows a contempt for the customer that reflects much more poorly on the teller of the story than its subject.

    Anyhow, the real problem in that story isn't the dumb customer. The real problem is this: "I look up her password and use it on the site to make sure it
    works." The website, whatever it is, is evidently storing people's passwords in such a way that its employees can see (and use) them. That's a truly awful idea and a security breach waiting to happen. That isn't the support person's fault, but it's a much better target of derision than the customer - unlike customers, the people who designed the website are supposed to know what they're doing.

23. red
    January 8th, 2009 at 7:34 am

    "the customer is always right" isn't an axiom you are supposed to take literally. All it means is that the customer always receives the benefit of the doubt and your utmost politeness. No matter how wrong they might be, it's the service rep's job to prove the customer is correct until it is obvious to both that they are in fact not.

24. Jessica
    January 8th, 2009 at 9:23 am

    ECA, I'm guessing your a Depot employee? I did paint dept myself for 2 1/2 years, and I couldn't believe the stuff i heard. "What side of the wooden stick do I use?" has to be up there in my favorites, though. I always loved explaining roller nap size, synthetic vs natural bristles, why this painters tape was better than that one, and watch them walk away with the cheapest stuff still. There's a reason its cheep people Then again, I did inventory for the department as well, and our employees may have been worse than the customers when it comes to putting stuff back where it goes

25. Gail Pink
    January 8th, 2009 at 9:38 am

    The thing about the case sensitive password reminds me of a time I asked someone to log on to my AOL account for me to get something out of my email. I told that person "My password is saved," Meaning it had been saved by me on the account login screen so you could just hit "connect." So this person says "Your password doesn't work." I say, that's weird, because my password is saved. And she goes, "Yeah, I typed in 'saved' and it doesn't work.' Moron.

26. Ashley
    January 8th, 2009 at 11:18 am

    This website made my brain hurt after a few pages.

27. Lauren
    January 8th, 2009 at 1:49 pm

    The example here sounds to me like a prime example, not of a stupid customer, but of a customer's confusion indicating a usability problem. Don't blame the user!

28. Jaxx
    January 8th, 2009 at 2:29 pm

    I find this one to just be funny. Yes it does point out a usability issue and the fact that the support person could just look up their password. I'm guessing it's some low security fire walled message board.

    Look up vinegar boy on that website, a true classic.

29. Geoff
    January 8th, 2009 at 3:54 pm

    Two of my friends at work have pcs and both picked up a trojan virus of this site while browsing it. Im pretty sure they both clicked on an ad. Just a warning to you all out there.

30. Staxeon
    January 8th, 2009 at 9:59 pm

    xchmp: Its not so much having a contempt for the customers calling in, its an exasperation of how extremely dim-witted some people can be. "Lowest common denominator" is a term I would use repeatedly when explaining my tech support job to people. Its a high stress job with relatively low pay, sharing these stories with other techs is one of the few outlets you get.

    Its not so much the people who aren't tech saavy, its the people who are either completely unwilling to impliment the advice that they are calling in for, or the people who are utterly ignorant. Ignorant as in having to explain left versus right, how to spell their own username (the one they picked themselves), why electronics and fluids don't mix, etc.

31. esu
    January 9th, 2009 at 2:35 am

    @moi

    then i would believe everything i read on the internets, so why would i doubt the credibility of any of those stories?

    yes, i used the term internets

32. Alex
    January 11th, 2009 at 11:39 am

    I got another report that something in the website gave a reader a computer virus. I've delinked the link now. You've been warned.

33. Darkwish
    January 11th, 2009 at 2:37 pm

    Check out http://www.customerssuck.com, it's a great little forum.

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