Saturday Annoyances..

[Boochan]

Looks like our month run of no customer incidents has ended today.. a few irritations to report on, hardly anything big but still irritating.

Cell Phone Scammer
This SC came in in the morning, asked a few questions about a particular cell phone (Prepaid, in this country Prepaid handsets are widespread and we sell them rather than dealing with contracts, thankfully), and the network it was on. The questions were pretty much..
Is BoostMobile The same as Optus? (This should be presumed, our signage has it under the correct network, but its just slightly branded different, so it was justified)
Can I use Turbocharge (Bonus offer) with this handset on this brand? Answer was yes after my trainee colleague deliberated with me and my manager.

After confirming this a few time and grabbing her ID we gave her the handset. An hour later, a call comes through..
SC: Asks for salesgirl who sold it to her, she had left and I asked her the problem.
SC: Hi, bought this handset from you an hour ago. We bought it on the condition that it already came with Bonus Offer inside so we didn't have to buy the Prepaid Credit (minutes) as well, the girl told me it came with it
Me No, it specifically states on our phone board that the bonus is given when you buy credit with the phone, it doesn't specifcally come with any.
SC: (Getting more frustrated) No, the girl said that it comes with it AND SHE WENT OVER TO TWO OTHER GUYS AT THE COUNTER AND THEY SAID YES TOO.
She happens to be talking with one of those guys, and I remember that my colleague only asked us whether the network is the same, and whether it has the same offers, NOT whether it came with it.
Me: No, she talked with me and [managers name] about the handset and asked us the questions because she is a Trainee, she did not at any time ask if it came with free credit. I also was overhearing her chatting to the SC beforehand and she never asked about the exact terms, and it displays the terms of it clearly on our board next to the phone.
SC: No, you said that it came with the phone because thats the only reason why I bought it, she asked you many times and you both agreed with her that it came with it. Why are you telling lies to your customers to push sales [etc, etc, ignored]
Me: Look, shes a trainee, I know what I said.. Accusing me of lying to you isn't going to get this anywhere. I repeat again, she only asked about the offers and the network, not whether any credit came with the phone.
SC: This is fucking bullshit.. I work for [Company my Chain is a subsidiary of] (which was untrue, as she would have taken advantage of the discount scheme for members of [company] otherwise) and your ripping me off and lying.
Me: Look Mam, I can give you a refund on the product, thats all I can do.. As I said you were not told that the credit came with the phone, and all staff working today can be of witness to that.
SC: Well, thats not f--king good enough for me.

At this point I handed the phone to my manager because it was getting to that point where I would have said something I would have regretted, and only because her claim was one of the worst I'd heard for a while. I'm expecting she was trying to scam us out of giving her a $50 credit voucher (minutes) for the phone (which was only worth $79 to us, so its not like we cared if she returned it anyway) because the board clearly explained it, we clearly explained it and evened asked if she wanted to purchase the credit now with the phone. She didn't come in to the store later, which is the only reason I presume she is scamming and isn't just completely stupid.

TURN IT DOWN!!
We also got an awful lot of menopausal women today. We had the latest album of the Buena Vista Social Club playing (something my manager purchased in the morning, as we needed a bit of a fresh, upbeat sound) reasonably loud, but of a general volume. We had one menopausal, middle aged women loudly complain (at a volume twice that of the music) that we have ruined her shopping experience today because that music is "really too loud" and that its "rude" that we play music in the store that loud. She proceeded to continuously mutter comments about this as she was buying her battery. She shut up as soon as she realized that her complaints weren't going to make us turn our music down (which some customers actually liked and praised that we weren't playing the same techno or teeny bopper crap the other stores in the area play).

Not another "I went to your Competitors and found it cheaper
*sigh*
Another one of these today, involving a short telephone lead. Customer comes back in reasonably good spirits, and let us know he found another cable at [store] behind us for a much cheaper price, that he was surprised, etc. I said sure and refunded his money. He seemed to be a bit dissatisfied with this, as he either wanted me to
a) discount the cable heavily to keep him
b) Want me to make a comment about it/rant about it to him
c) Refuse the refund because he was telling the truth.

Seemed to be a bit disappointed that I didn't cause any conflict.
Otherwise, average Saturday.. down to two during the afternoon so that was a bit tough.. thankfully busy Saturdays are back after a period of where our weekends performed the same as our weekdays, which was quite a concern.

[csever01]

I used to work for a major mobile phone company here in the U.S. Every time I thought a customer couldn't possibly get any suckier, I was proven wrong.

I once had a guy that came in wanting to exchange his new phone for one with a network feature that our company did not have. He said he bought the phone thinking it had said feature, and he needed to exchange it for one that actually does have the feature.

After 20 minutes (LITERALLY) of trying to explain to him that we don't have that feature available for use anywhere in the entire company, he finally got mad and said that he'd like to just return the phone then.

OK, fine. It doesn't have the features you thought it might (even though you clearly did not ASK about it when you bought it), so a return is a legitimate way to clear up the problem, right?

Well, as with any place that deals with electronics, I opened up the box to make sure all of the items were still there and intact. The phone itself was inside. It was a clamshell-style flip phone, and there it was, broken completely in half with a shattered screen.

I explained that I couldn't refund his money, and I asked how it got damaged. He said he threw it on the ground and stomped on it because he was mad that it didn't have the aforementioned feature on it. So of course, he did the MATURE thing, which was to have a fit, break the phone in half, and then get mad at the company because we wouldn't accept a broken, unusable product as a return.

[iviles]

I explained that I couldn't refund his money, and I asked how it got damaged. He said he threw it on the ground and stomped on it because he was mad that it didn't have the aforementioned feature on it. So of course, he did the MATURE thing, which was to have a fit, break the phone in half, and then get mad at the company because we wouldn't accept a broken, unusable product as a return.

Wow thats just crazy! I tell you all you customer service reps have my complete respect. These are some real future Darwin award winners!