#customer service sucks
“Nobody can find them anywhere,” this customer explains, “It’s like nobody makes them anymore. Those wonderful cool, crisp percale sheets. They’re just so cold when you first get into bed, and crisssp. Those wonderful 50/50 blends… and they never wrinkle. You just can’t find them anymore.”
“Well, we do sell percale sheets. They are 100% cotton though; we don’t sell any cotton polyester blend sheets, and the nature of percale weaves is that they will wrinkle.”
“Noo, I don’t want sheets that wrinkle.”
“The only sheets we sell that don’t wrinkle are the cotton sateen sheets.”
“Oh, I hate sateen. They’re too soft and they’re warm. Why doesn’t anybody make those wonderful crisp cool percales anymore? There’s SO MANY people looking for them. You wouldn’t believe it, but there’s a whole [web]page full of people looking for real percale sheeting! A whole PAGE!”
I’m honestly picturing this woman looking online and finding only one website where old ladies are talking about the percale sheets their mothers used and how they can’t find those types of sheets anywhere.
“We do have customers who prefer percales because they’re cooler and crisper than the sateen weaves. Most of our customers seem satisfied with our Italian percales or organic cotton percale sheets. However, they do wrinkle.”
“But I don’t want them to wrinkle!”
“Well, this is what we sell. Our only wrinkle free sheet is the cotton sateen, which is why that sheeting line is our most popular bedding collection. The only way to get a wrinkle free percale is to purchase a cotton/poly blend, and we only sell all cotton sheeting. That’s what our customer want. They’ve become very wary of synthetic fibers and chemicals, so the majority of our customers demand all natural fiber blends for our fabrics. This is why we carry the selection we carry.”
“But I want those cool crisp percales. I’m one of your customers.”
“Then I recommend you look into our Italian percales. It’s the closest in texture to the sheets (she brought in pillowcases of the sheets she’s trying to replace) you’re looking for.”
“I bet everything here is made in China, too.”
“Actually, we have percales that are made in Italy (I just fucking told you this… we don’t call it “Italian Percale” for shits and giggles), our organic percale is made in Portugal, we carried sheets made in France and Pakistan, etc…”
“Ooo, where are your French percales?”
“We don’t have any right now. We’ve carried them in the past - usually only in patterned styles.” I show her the style we currently have that’s made in Pakistan that is a near exact comparison between it and the French style.
“So, this one is made in France?”
“No, this one is made in Pakistan. It’s unchanged from how the original French sheeting in this pattern feels. Whenever I have customers looking for a classic, crisp percale, they usually prefer this texture.” She feels the fabric, hums, hahs, and finally agrees that she likes it.
“Where are your sheets like this?”
“We only have this pair of pillowcases. It’s a current item in our catalog, and since we’re an outlet we usually won’t get these new patterns unless they’re returned from catalog orders or discontinued.”
“Where are the regular sheets from France?”
“By regular do you mean solid colors?”
She looks at me like I’m stupid… so I continue, “We don’t carry the French fabric in solids. We only occasionally have it with seasonal patterns. If you want a solid color, I recommend the Italian percale. It’s the closest in texture to these pillowcases.” I show her a discontinued brown pillowcase in the Italian percale pointing out, “We’re no longer producing this color, so we’ve marked it down for clearance. It’s $29 from $79.”
“Do you have that in any other colors?”
“Yes, but those other colors are still current and therefore full price at $79.”
“Well, I can see why that color is marked down. It’s awful.” Beggars can’t be choosers, woman. She goes on complaining, “Oh, why don’t they make those wonderful percales anymore? It’s not like nobody wants them. There’s a whole page of people looking for them! Even on facebook - people keep saying they have to go to yard sales to find those perfect percale sheets. Imagine it - YARD SALES!”
I finally get her over to the register. She’s decided to get the percale pillowcase from Pakistan, but she’s still grumbling about the price and how she’s worried these aren’t going to be the most wonderful pillowcases ever… “If you’re unhappy with them,” I reassure her, “just hang onto your receipt, and you’ll have thirty days to return the pillowcases and get your money back.” She purchases the pillowcases, and keeps mumbling her way out the door how nobody makes wonderful percales sheets anymore that are cool, crisp, and never wrinkle…
Picked up a phone call yesterday from a customer who claims she was sent the wrong items. I pull up her receipt and state, “It seems we sent you a pair of standard/queen and two pairs of king size pillowcases in our Hummingbird Percale pattern.”
“Yes, you did. I wanted the embroidered hummingbird pillowcases. You sent me the wrong items! How am I supposed to go about returning these? You didn’t send me a return label, which should have been sent with the order.”
“Ma'am, we don’t send out return labels from the outlet store. If you look at the bottom of your receipt you’ll find our return address. Just pack up the pillowcases in the original packaging if you still have it, and mail the return to the address on the bottom of the receipt through whichever mailing venue is most convenient for you.”
I already knew what the issue with her order was. We had several customers call the same day as she looking to buy the same product. All those customers gave us the item numbers for the printed hummingbird pillowcases instead of the embroidered style number, which we didn’t have stock of anyway. Catalog customer service didn’t have stock of either, so they sent the customers to us based on the incorrect item numbers they saw we had stock of. Most of the customers we explained the situation to declined purchasing the printed pillowcases before even finalizing their orders.
“But because you sent me the wrong items,” the woman yelled at me, “I shouldn’t HAVE to pay to ship it back to you. You should be refunding my original purchase total with original shipping charge AND I shouldn’t have to pay for the return shipping. I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO PAY…”
“Ma'am…”
“I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO PAY…” she was exhausting herself.
“Excuse me, Ma'am.”
“I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO PAY FOR THE RETURN SHIPPING. You charged me THIRTEEN DOLLARS for shipping. YOU SHOULD REFUND ME FOR EVERYTHI-”
“EXCUSE ME, MA'AM. If you’ll listen to me for a moment…”
(She paused in mid scream.)
“We’ll send you a call tag for the package.”
“What does THAT mean?!” she inquires breathlessly.
“That means I’ll request a return label for FedEx to pick up your return directly from your house. All you have to do is pack up the pillowcases and leave them at your door tomorrow when FedEx makes their first pick up attempt. They’ll make three attempts to pick up the package, and we’ll refund your purchase and original shipping when we receive the return.”
The woman suddenly becomes pleasant and sighs happily through the phone, “Oh. Okay, so I can just stick them back in the original envelope they came in and put them at my door?”
“Yes. FedEx will make three attempts to pick up the package. They’ll make their first attempt tomorrow.”
“Okay. Thank you… you have a nice weekend.”
My supervisor looks at me after hearing my side of the conversation and says, “Did you research what happened with that order? You know we shouldn’t give out call tags to people.”
…because what I need right now is my supervisor getting on my case about technicalities…
“I know we’re not supposed to. I tried to get her to just return the package, but she was screaming at me. What else could I do? She wasn’t listening to anything I was saying. She was just screaming at me the entire time.” I picked through our folder of phone order paper files and found the woman’s original order. The associate who took her order had the printed design’s item number listed, so it was a mistake on the customer’s side in giving us the incorrect number for the item she wanted. I knew this is what happened. There was still nothing I could do other than what I did to make the woman stop yelling at me.
I’d also just had an in store customer debate with me over our policy on checking IDs for unsigned credit cards. I’d asked to confirm her mailing address after entering her order (to log it in her customer profile history), and when I asked to see her driver’s license upon noticing her card was unsigned she became all defensive as if I were trying to suggest I was questioning her identity. “Do you want to see my PASSPORT, too?!”
I looked at her shocked, “This is just standard proceedure-”
“OH NO… IT IS NOT! I just…”
“This is just standard store policy, Ma'am. If a card is unsigned, we are required to ask for identification.”
She looks at me with a mix of anger and confusion. “The card is unsigned?”
“Yes,” I show her the back of the card bearing no signature.“
"Oh, I know why that is. I recently made a purchase in England and my bank made me get a new card… blah blah blah” and she trudges off with her package in mid thought.
Seriously, how did I end up with all the grumpy customers in one day?
