#angry customer
Story from my supervisor and boss:
Major sale weekend, and there’s this woman arguing with my supervisor regarding a pair of ballet flats that seem to have a scuff mark on them. The shoes are already reduced from $195 down to $35, and the woman is desperately badgering my supervisor to give her an extra $5 off the sale price because the pair has a scuff on the one shoe.
Supervisor agrees to discount her the extra $5 on that pair, but now the customer decides she doesn’t want the scuffed pair. Those don’t look as nice. She wants an un-scuffed pair AND the extra $5 off that pair.
“Ma’am, there’s nothing wrong with this pair. I can’t give you $5 off this pair when it doesn’t have a defect.” This debate goes on for a minute or so when customer demands to see our manager.
Supervisor goes to get our manager and explains the situation - that this woman pretty much wants $5 off a pair of shoes just because. Manager agrees to come out and meet the woman and see what the fuss is about.
The customer immediately trots up to our manager and starts badgering her about how our supervisor won’t honor the discount she said would be applied to the pair of shoes. Manager abruptly cuts the woman off yelling, “Ma’am, my mother just died three weeks ago, and you’re making a big deal over $5?!”
Customer steps back, eyes wide, begins softly apologizing for our manager’s loss…
Manager continues, “You want $5 off the pair of shoes?! It matters THAT MUCH to you?! Fine, take your damn $5! I have bigger issues to deal with right now!” …and she just walks away leaving the customer standing there crying… like actually crying.
The customer slumps back over to the register, our supervisor having witnessed the entire event, and apologizes (face red with embarrassment) to our supervisor for our manager’s loss. Supervisor finishes the transaction with the customer being very quiet and humbly polite; customer gets her $5 off the pair of shoes.
Cornered in a nightmare by two figures that looked oddly like The Silence with bobbed haircuts. They were also wearing 1950s style dresses. Scene was somehow attached to a retail anxiety dream… they were not happy with the current quality of their bedding and were less happy that we wouldn’t give them their money back.
I kept pleading, “You must understand - those sheets are fifteen years old. You can’t really expect them to have stayed perfect for that long!”
