Customer @ Work *RANT*

[font= "Arial Unicode MS"]Okay... I am at work right now and I'm here in the back ordering a WRENCH on the company computer, and simultaneously complaining to my buddies on TCS...
We had a lady come in about twenty minutes ago, and she wanted a Craftsman brand wrench. 7/8 of an inch. (I work at a feed/western wear store that also supplies plumbing and utility parts, kind of a ranch store.) We are out of that size in that paticular brand so I suggested she purchase a Ridgid wrench, also a popular brand, and we had the correct size. This woman got all up-in-arms about it and demanded that she see our manager. Ann comes out to see what the issue is, and I explain the situation. She too, offers another brand of the wrench, and this lady gets terribly angry. She ends up yelling at us and carrying on that she needs this wrench today otherwise her water bill will be rather impressive, and that calling a plumber would cost her too much money, and she simply comes to a store to buy a wrench, and we are simply too unreliable as we don't even have a wrench. She claims that we are running a trashy business that isn't presitgious enough to properly stock our departments correctly. Anne and I sit and listen to her for 5 minutes, apologize politely and say that we are just currently out of that brand and size, but we would be happy to order her one as we are ordering some tools anyway. She huffs, says we might as well order one since we are indeed out, but she will take her business across the street. She then storms out of the building.
Is it truly our fault that she wanted a 7/8 Craftsman wrench, and by coincidence we were out? Businesses run out of supplies, it's part o life, people buy things, we order more, we just didn't happen to have her massively important wrench on hand.
Crap. I need the store's ID #. Gotta git. Thanks for listening to my random and somewhat un-important rant. But, I mean, c'mon...


IT'S A WRENCH PEOPLE!

[/font]

Nothing like an angry customer to throw a wrench into your workday.

Sorry...I just couldn't help myself...

Sounds like she's off her meds, lol...

Sounds like some one peed in her Cornflakes this morning...I wonder if she has a cat of if 8-Bit was involved?

Good grief, she's getting too worked up over the water bill. She should've been like, "Alright, if you guys don't have it, then I'll go to another store." than being all worked up like that.

Wow! What a bad attitude! If it was me, I would have just accepted the suggestion. She probably has some form of OCD and wants all of her tools to have the same name.

I hope your day improves.

She probably has some form of OCD and wants all of her tools to have the same name

Click to expand...

LoL I was thinking the same thing!

That's pretty ridiculous. I hate people like that and over the years my patience for people like that has dwindled. Everytime someone yells at me when I'm in a customer service position and I know they're wrong, I end up telling them just why they're wrong and why they shouldn't be yelling at me like that.

It sounds to me like she was sent to get a wrench, was told to get a specific brand, and doesn't know enough about wrenches to realize that one good quality wrench is pretty much the same as another. And I'm not being sexist when I say this, because it'd be like me telling J to go pick up a certain brand of ink cartridge for our printer -- even though the salespeople would likely tell him that a generic version of that cartridge would be okie-dokie, he'd be hung up on getting that specific brand because that's what I told him to get and he doesn't trust his own judgment on the matter.

Of course, J probably wouldn't freak out at the poor salesperson, yell at the manager and then storm out of the place. Because, y'know, that solves everything ...

[font= "Arial Unicode MS"]Thanks everybody... I feel a little better. I just don't understand people, at all, natta. I wish I could just transform into a cat, wander onto some kind hearted person's door, and be waited on hand and foot for the rest of my life.
Mirinae--- that's probably the truth, but that honestly gives her no reason to react that way. Your right, I mean, that just totally fixed the whole situation, eh? [/font]

Originally Posted by Mirinae

It sounds to me like she was sent to get a wrench, was told to get a specific brand, and doesn't know enough about wrenches to realize that one good quality wrench is pretty much the same as another. And I'm not being sexist when I say this, because it'd be like me telling J to go pick up a certain brand of ink cartridge for our printer -- even though the salespeople would likely tell him that a generic version of that cartridge would be okie-dokie, he'd be hung up on getting that specific brand because that's what I told him to get and he doesn't trust his own judgment on the matter.

Of course, J probably wouldn't freak out at the poor salesperson, yell at the manager and then storm out of the place.

Because, y'know, that solves everything ...

Click to expand...

I 100% agree with this. I take your business is in a remote area too? Otherwise you could have suggested Sears or Kmart or someplace else that sold craftsman

It's stories like these that make me glad I don't deal with the public anymore I agree that she might have just been REALLY clueless about wrenches, although it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that a 7/8" wrench is a 7/8" wrench and brand name is just that.

I used to worry that when customers I had complained about the company that unless I could win them back, I'd lose them. But I realized that 1) This person is still going to be pissy no matter what I say and if that's the case then 2) I don't want them as a customer anyway.

I know, this isn't exactly my "dream job" but August marks 1 year being on my own, and you take what you can get, right? It's pretty good for the most part, because we mostly work with the "ranchy" people. I don't have to deal with the ditzy ladies who are looking for Brighton sunglasses while their husbands are buying couplings and hose clamps- I get to deal with the husbands. And they're usually very understanding and nice. But this lady... Ugh! And she decided to go down a few blocks to Ace Hardware but was very... grumpy, if you will, about it. But what's done is done, this is Earth, and it is occupied by people, and these are the consequences of living on this planet. That's okay... the good people you meet make up for the bad, if you put your mind in the right place.

Well she won't find a craftsman wrench there either!!! She must be aware of the brand very much!! BTW we have lots of craftsman wrenches and other such tools but if this was an emergency any ole wrench would work and perhaps she didn't know that!