The source of the "I demand a discount"

[Midnight12]

Move where necessary
Sorry for the idiocy, been a bad day today


I believe I know the source or part of it. The SC's that demand a discount or will take their business elsewhere.
It was a few years back, the local news put up a clip from some guy that did seminars and/or published a book on how to get that extra discount and what to do.
Basically mention a discount and threaten to take your business elsewhere if they don't. At the time MOST stores did this because said stores didn't want to loose the customer's business...and the deal was that you go to lesser known stores....

well in this day and age people still TRY to do it, and most of the working class (us) have either:
gotten tired of it
are smart to the tricks
refuse to offer discount on the grounds of trouble or termination

and so on....well that whole thing to me was how to be a spoiled selfish brat to get what you want for cheap....and thats WRONG. it was basically telling society how to rip off hard workers by acting this way....

The downfall is that if said SC does this during busy time it can hurt your business because other SC's will blindly follow on the false grounds of they are being cheated....ugh

DO correct me if If my info is wrong, I cannot even remember where to go to site sources

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

A little discount hunting conversation I had.

sc - I demand a discount or I'm going to another store.

me - As is your right.

sc - Aren't you afraid of losing my business?

me - We made our quota already this month and it's only the 10th. I could care less.

sc - But what about all the sales I could bring to your store.

me - Lady if you're bitching about the price of a wireless mouse and keyboard combo that only costs $15 when Staples, Walmart, Target, Circuit City, Radio Shack and Best Buy has their cheapest unit for sale for $35 then I don't want your business as you're going to nickel and dime me to death.

sc - But...But...You have to sell to me. You can't refuse to sell to me...it's the law.

me - No I don't. The law says that I can refuse service to any one I choose. In this case I am perfectly willing to sell you this rather nice wireless keyboard and mouse combo for $15, $20 cheaper than anyone else you'll find anywhere in this town. That is the price and if you want it it is yours. At no point did I refuse to sell this keyboard to you.

sc - Yes you did. You said...

me - No I didn't! You said you would take your business elsewhere and I said that it was your right to do so and that I didn't care if you bought it here or left to find another store. The price is $15, there is no room for a discount, take it or leave the store.

The customer left at that point defeated. The defeat was greater when I came back from lunch and found out that the asshole came back to buy the set. I knew I was the cheapest on the keyboards since I got 30 of them for free as a promotional deal from my vendor (won some scrummy drawing they were having) and so I could use the normally $35 logitech wireless package as bait to get people into the store and still make the $15 markup I normally charged on them.

[AirHostess]

I demand a discount as I know the CEO of this airline!

[TNT]

Every time a "consumer advocate" columnist runs out of ideas, they do a column on "How to negotiate a lower cable price." This leads customers to assume that the following will happen:

Caller: Please lower my cable bill by a lot of dollars a month.
Us: Sure! We're thrilled to do that! All you had to do was ask.

The columnists assure people that if they don't get a lower price the first time around, just keep calling.

Which leads to the following more likely situation:

Caller: Please lower my cable bill by a lot of dollars a month.
Us: Um... no.
Caller: You're the sixth person I've talk to. Could you please connect me to the person who'll lower my bill?
Us: Um... I don't know who that person might be.
Caller: There's got to be someone.

For the record, I've been doing this for over a year, and I've lowered a person's bill three times. One of those times was $2 a month, and the other was $3.50 a month... and both customers had a bill that ran over $150 a month. The third time was a special set of circumstances, and I was able to sell my manager on giving my customer a huge discount for two months.

The thing is, if everybody got the discounts they wanted, they wouldn't be happy anyway. Service would suffer, innovation would slow down, customer service would get off-shored, etc., etc., etc.

[Dreamstalker]

TNT, I saw my mom's copy of AARP magazine (wasn't recent) that had an article on getting lower prices for just about anything. The title was "don't be bullied" or something like that and it made good use of "customer is always right/do you really want to lose my business". We both had a good laugh about the article when I pointed it out to her.

[tamezin]

My co-worker is an SC, he lives to complain, he always pulls the 'give me a discount or else'. He does this to every business he has transactions with everywhere from banks to restraunts. It drives me insane because he will make multitude phone calls from work and I can hear him torturing poor underpaid under appreciated phone people. We had a new restraunt open (rhymes with beddars), my family and I went, it was the worst dining experience of my life. I shared my experience with my co-workers. My SC co-worker immediately went out there so he could find a reason to complain. He got like $30.00 in gift certificates.

I honestly believe if you have a bonafide complaint you should take appropriate action. Businesses have to be able to protect themselves against entitlement junkies like my SC co-worker, otherwise they will never quit.

[Rapscallion]

I have a simple policy when it comes to haggling - if it's a fairly low amount, I don't care. We're talking up to about £15 or so. Up to about £50 and I'll start to look around. Buying a house - I become vicious.

Rawr.

Rapscallion

[Plaidman]

My company used to have a policy of not saying anything about shoplifters.

The idea was the little that shoplifters did buy would make up the difference of the stuff that they stoled.


Then they relized that most shoplifers steal 40+ worth of stuff, and might buy a .25 candy. If they find a quarter.



Or steal one a quarter.

[Bonnie Bitch]

My company has a website that offers $10 off the cost of the product if they order online. Granted, glitches do happen and the person calls in and gets the discount because they can't get onto the website.

Oh, dear Thor!!!!
We had something like that at XYZTV. New XYZ customers got a rebate for $100, which was applied to their bill over 10 months (basically, they got $10 off a month).
Most of the retail outlets that handled XYZ equipment, though, neglected to mention the discount/rebate, so we'd get calls from irate SC's who demanded their discounts.
And if the customer was halfway civil about it, I'd submit the form for their rebate for them AND make sure they were getting their other new customer promotions (free HBO for three months, free warranty on their remotes and receivers, etc)
BUT -- once the a$$hat started telling me what to do,when to do it, and what a <car horn noise> I was, then all bets were off.

My favorite part, though, was the little bitty condition about the rebate -- if the customer got their service disconnected within the first three months for non-payment, then they forfeited all their promotional credits AND had to pay their full bill, plus the reconnection fee, plus time without service, plus a month in advance.


Oh, and in case anyone's wondering -- XYZTV is really Dish Network. The reason I no longer work in my call center's Dish department is that Dish customers **invented** sucking. They will call the rep on the phone anything but "human," and then expect to be treated like royalty. And 98% of the time, the customer's issue boiled down to, "Pay your bill."
I'm much happier working for FU-Telephone, where the customers are human beings.

[Bonnie Bitch]

You totally jinxed yourself on that one. *grabs popcorn and waits for BB's FU-Telephone stories*

Careful, my dear -- karma's a bitch too.

<j/k>
<big hug and kiss noise>

[Bella_Vixen]

Rawr.

I giggled until I cried.

[greensinestro]

When I worked for Adelphia, employees were often written up or terminated if they "made up" their own promotion, or gave in to a customer's "I read about this promo" that did not exist.

If customers want to threaten you in this manner, let them. If my company is going to lose money every month because I gave in to a customer's demand for special treatment, then let them go elsewhere and pay $20 more, then decide they had it better and come on back.

A customer is not a customer if they pull crap like this every month. A customer that owns up to their bill each month and pays it like the rest of us do.....that's a customer!

[TNT]

The reason I no longer work in my call center's Dish department is that Dish customers **invented** sucking.

If they didn't invent it, they perfected it. My time as an outsourced Dish rep still gives me nightmares.

But then again, it was Dish. It was the only company I've ever worked for (even if it was outsourced) that I would never go back to under any conditions. It doesn't have a single saving grace.

[AFpheonix]

Caller: You're the sixth person I've talk to. Could you please connect me to the person who'll lower my bill?
Us: Um... I don't know who that person might be.
Caller: There's got to be someone.

Cue some creaky noises and a few grunts, and then reply "Ok sir, I've now lowered your bill to the floor. Was there anything else I could help you with?"

[Becks]

me - We made our quota already this month and it's only the 10th. I could care less.

Wow. You should be a cop.