Tweet
Ok, this is a long one. Yesterday morning at about 11, I got a phone call from the tech support department of the cell carrier my store works with. This poor phone rep has been trying to help a very belligerent and combative woman troubleshoot her phone. Of course, the first thing she did was have the lady pop off the battery and tell her what color the liquid damage indicator was. It was red, indicating the phone had been water damaged. Apparently, the lady then insisted that the girl was lying, the dot was wrong, blah blah blah, because the phone had "never been anywhere near water." So the poor girl first tried to explain that it was conceivable that the extremely hot and humid weather we had been having could have caused condensation to form under the battery, which may have caused the damage. Basically, the rep is trying to give this awful woman a way to save face and say, "Yeah, that might have happened," because the inarguable fact is that this phone has been wet. Finally, the phone rep called my store in desperation, mainly I think because she needed a break from the woman's ugliness, and asked me if I could take a look at the phone and verify water damage. I told her that there was no real point in doing that, since if the LDI was red the phone had unequivocally been wet, but that if it would get this woman dealt with I would be glad to do so.
Now, fast forward to about 3:30 yesterday afternoon, when I have completely forgotten about the phone call. A car squeals into our parking lot, hits the curb in front of our store, and a woman comes flying out of the car into our store with a cat-butt face to end all cat-butt faces. She marches up to the counter, throws her phone across it towards me, and yells, "Are you dragonflygrrl?" I reply with my usual, "Yes, I am, what can I do for you," and she immediately begins to rant at me about how "they made her drive all the way across town so you can look at my **** phone and tell me what the **** is wrong with it."
[side note]: I hate it when SC's tell me they drove "all the way," across town. We live in a college town of maybe 80,000 people. It takes all of fifteen minutes to drive "all the way," across town.[/side note]
I try to remain calm, tell her to please moderate her language and calm down so that I can help her, and she snaps back with, "Can I finish?!" in the snippiest little tone of voice she can muster. I smile and say, "certainly, ma'am, but I have to ask you again to calm down and moderate your language or I will not be able to help you." She continues to talk, while I take her phone, pop off the battery, and find the ruby red LDI. When she finally winds down from her little tirade, I say, "Unfortunately, since your phone is water damaged, the warranty is voided. Your options are to purchase a new phone at retail price or to do an upgrade and contract extension to get a phone at a discount."
She goes ballistic. She denies the phone has ever even seen water, tells me that I am calling her a liar (no, chemistry is calling you a liar, ma'am), and that she has now wasted "half a day," driving, "all the way over here." I apologize for her loss of time but she wants to keep ranting.
Then she starts giving me the third degree about other ways the phone could have gotten fluid damaged other than getting in actual water. She asks me if hot weather could cause it, and I say probably not on its own, but excessively hot and humid weather definitely could contribute. She says, in the tone of someone who has just beaten Sherlock Holmes to solving the mystery novel, "But the girl on the phone said hot weather could cause it! So she was lying!" I tell her that no doubt what she meant was that the recent hot and humid weather could possibly be a factor. So then she decides to play Perry Mason, and says, "So you are saying that hot weather alone could not possibly have caused this damage?" I reply that I have never seen it happen, but since the rep in question is trained in technical support, and I am trained only in basic troubleshooting, I would assume she would know better than I. So then she comes out with, "So NOW you say you don't know if it could or not. Earlier you said it couldn't." And so on and so forth, until finally I just start again to tell her what her options are when she interrupts me to argue some more.
I say, "Ma'am, can I finish, please?" and she says, "Oh no, you are NOT going to get rude with ME!" I tell her that my intention is not to be rude, but to explain her options to her, which I can't do if she interrupts me. She fixes me with what she thinks is a very intimidating look and says, "So talk." I calmly outline her options again, stack her battery, battery door, and phone up neatly and push them across the counter to her. Then I tell her that if she has any other questions, I'd be happy to answer them, but otherwise I've done what I can do.
She finally seems to realize that whatever she hoped would happen isn't gonna, so she takes all her stuff, grabs a customer referral card, and writes my name on the back of it very ostentatiously. Then she fixes me with another of what she thinks are very withering glares, and stomps out the door with all the fake "dignity" of an SC.
After she is gone, I take a minute to get all that negativity out of my mindset, and then go back to my job. Eventually, I have practically forgotten her, although I have made a mental note to do impressions of her that evening for my fiance. (He works on a newspaper press, and gets a kick out of hearing about crazy customers he never has to deal with)
Later that afternoon, I take a phone call. Guess who, and she wants to speak to my manager. I give her to the sales manager, who just happens to be in our store picking things up, and he listens to her rant for about fifteen minutes. I wait for him to come talk to me for about half an hour, and when he doesn't I say, "So that woman wasn't calling to join my fan club, was she?" and he replies, "What a crazy ****! I'm just impressed you got her out of here without the cops getting called!" and that is the end of it.
Now. Fast forward to this morning at around 10. I am just getting a slow moment to sit down and goof around on the internet, when the crazy **** shows up again. She walks up the store, throws open the door so hard it hits the wall beside it, and stalks up to me with a self-satisfied gleam in her eye. I smile and say, "How can I help you today, ma'am?" and she says in the smuggest little voice ever, "I wanted you to know that I was the one that called your boss and got you in trouble. I bet next time you'll be a little more helpful, won't you?" I smiled at her puzzledly (is that a word?) and said, "Did you? He never said a word to me about it. That is strange, isn't it?" Oh my GODS, that was a good feeling. The look on her face when she realized how stupid we all thought she was was the most beautiful thing I've seen all week.
Now, fast forward to about 3:30 yesterday afternoon, when I have completely forgotten about the phone call. A car squeals into our parking lot, hits the curb in front of our store, and a woman comes flying out of the car into our store with a cat-butt face to end all cat-butt faces. She marches up to the counter, throws her phone across it towards me, and yells, "Are you dragonflygrrl?" I reply with my usual, "Yes, I am, what can I do for you," and she immediately begins to rant at me about how "they made her drive all the way across town so you can look at my **** phone and tell me what the **** is wrong with it."
[side note]: I hate it when SC's tell me they drove "all the way," across town. We live in a college town of maybe 80,000 people. It takes all of fifteen minutes to drive "all the way," across town.[/side note]
I try to remain calm, tell her to please moderate her language and calm down so that I can help her, and she snaps back with, "Can I finish?!" in the snippiest little tone of voice she can muster. I smile and say, "certainly, ma'am, but I have to ask you again to calm down and moderate your language or I will not be able to help you." She continues to talk, while I take her phone, pop off the battery, and find the ruby red LDI. When she finally winds down from her little tirade, I say, "Unfortunately, since your phone is water damaged, the warranty is voided. Your options are to purchase a new phone at retail price or to do an upgrade and contract extension to get a phone at a discount."
She goes ballistic. She denies the phone has ever even seen water, tells me that I am calling her a liar (no, chemistry is calling you a liar, ma'am), and that she has now wasted "half a day," driving, "all the way over here." I apologize for her loss of time but she wants to keep ranting.
Then she starts giving me the third degree about other ways the phone could have gotten fluid damaged other than getting in actual water. She asks me if hot weather could cause it, and I say probably not on its own, but excessively hot and humid weather definitely could contribute. She says, in the tone of someone who has just beaten Sherlock Holmes to solving the mystery novel, "But the girl on the phone said hot weather could cause it! So she was lying!" I tell her that no doubt what she meant was that the recent hot and humid weather could possibly be a factor. So then she decides to play Perry Mason, and says, "So you are saying that hot weather alone could not possibly have caused this damage?" I reply that I have never seen it happen, but since the rep in question is trained in technical support, and I am trained only in basic troubleshooting, I would assume she would know better than I. So then she comes out with, "So NOW you say you don't know if it could or not. Earlier you said it couldn't." And so on and so forth, until finally I just start again to tell her what her options are when she interrupts me to argue some more.
I say, "Ma'am, can I finish, please?" and she says, "Oh no, you are NOT going to get rude with ME!" I tell her that my intention is not to be rude, but to explain her options to her, which I can't do if she interrupts me. She fixes me with what she thinks is a very intimidating look and says, "So talk." I calmly outline her options again, stack her battery, battery door, and phone up neatly and push them across the counter to her. Then I tell her that if she has any other questions, I'd be happy to answer them, but otherwise I've done what I can do.
She finally seems to realize that whatever she hoped would happen isn't gonna, so she takes all her stuff, grabs a customer referral card, and writes my name on the back of it very ostentatiously. Then she fixes me with another of what she thinks are very withering glares, and stomps out the door with all the fake "dignity" of an SC.
After she is gone, I take a minute to get all that negativity out of my mindset, and then go back to my job. Eventually, I have practically forgotten her, although I have made a mental note to do impressions of her that evening for my fiance. (He works on a newspaper press, and gets a kick out of hearing about crazy customers he never has to deal with)Later that afternoon, I take a phone call. Guess who, and she wants to speak to my manager. I give her to the sales manager, who just happens to be in our store picking things up, and he listens to her rant for about fifteen minutes. I wait for him to come talk to me for about half an hour, and when he doesn't I say, "So that woman wasn't calling to join my fan club, was she?" and he replies, "What a crazy ****! I'm just impressed you got her out of here without the cops getting called!" and that is the end of it.
Now. Fast forward to this morning at around 10. I am just getting a slow moment to sit down and goof around on the internet, when the crazy **** shows up again. She walks up the store, throws open the door so hard it hits the wall beside it, and stalks up to me with a self-satisfied gleam in her eye. I smile and say, "How can I help you today, ma'am?" and she says in the smuggest little voice ever, "I wanted you to know that I was the one that called your boss and got you in trouble. I bet next time you'll be a little more helpful, won't you?" I smiled at her puzzledly (is that a word?) and said, "Did you? He never said a word to me about it. That is strange, isn't it?" Oh my GODS, that was a good feeling. The look on her face when she realized how stupid we all thought she was was the most beautiful thing I've seen all week.
Kudos to you and your manager for handling the whole thing so well.
Comment