Beyond Belief: Out of Stock

[AmericanZero8503]

If the world did in fact come to an end when a store was briefly out of stock on something, none of us would be alive right now.

:shuddering: What a thought.

Anyhoo, why do people act like that? If something's out of stock, come back at a later time...get a rain check...go to another store...shop online. Losers.

Like today our picture delievery was late. HEAVEN FORBID. This lady just couldn't understand that her pictures weren't in, and I didn't know when they'd be in.

CS:"But they told me today"
ME:"Well I don't know when they're coming in"
CS:"But they said 2:30"
ME:"Sorry the delivery is running late"
CS:"My pictures aren't here"

Do CS's actually listen or does their hearing go out at, "NO"?

Here is a message for THEY, stop making me look bad. I'm assuming THEY is the store manager at EVERYWHERE ELSE.

[AFpheonix]

Jack, perhaps you haven't heard of the TARDIS pants from someone else's stupid shoplifter?
And I swear that some of these soccer moms have Purses or Holding, judging by the amount of crap that they have to dig out just to get a freaking insurance card

Right now we're having a terrible time getting sudafed in. Warehouse is only carrying the 30mg strength and a claritin-D generic now, and have neither in stock. Our other supplier is not shipping anything to us for whatever reason. (I can get allegra-D and Zyrtec D from them, but not Claritin D. WTF?) So oh, the whining and gnashing of teeth since July 1st when sudafed products went prescription only....
Heaven forbid that they just get a script for the 30mg sudafed for now and take it in tandem with whatever other product combo that they want, or use the phenylephrine version, or take a trip up to Vancouver. Jeebus.

[gundam40]

Make sure the laptops are "sold out" next week when that business lady comes back

[pbmods]

Give the customer control back.

Customers get upset at a hard 'no' because they are frustrated because they have just lost control of the situation. It's a pretty difficult place to be when you planned your day (sometimes planning around what you would do with what you bought at that particular store), got ready and drove to the location to do business.

Then you get there, and the item isn't there, *and there's nothing you can do about it!*

That's a hard truth to swallow because now you have to reschedule your entire day, plus you already have more work to do tomorrow (or whenever). Your plans (and more!) just completely fell apart right there because that guy with the name tag said, 'no'.

Easiest way to calm down an upset customer? "Well, Ma'am, we don't have any here right now, but what I can do for you is call our other location and see if they have any. Then they can either hold one for you, or we can have them ship one to our store so you can pick it up at your convenience. Which would you like us to do, Ma'am?"

Guaranteed, this will calm her down, hopefully enough to be able to think rationally again.

[JuniorMintz]

"Because the guy with the nametag says no?"

As if "nametag" people are somehow inferior to the rest of the world? It's ok to be told no by a guy in a suit, but not the guy with the Circuit City shirt and nametag?

I think we've all been in the service industry long enough to know how to handle situations like this. In fact, 95% of the time a simple "I'm sorry, we're out but we'll have more tomorrow" (which, by the way, *is* a helpful thing to say) works fine, assuming you're talking to a normal person.

Unfortunately, we do not often write about normal people on "Customers Suck".

If being out of a certain laptop is something that is so inconvenient that you now are forced to reschedule your *entire* day (damn that lazy NameTag Guy!), then you should accept responsibility for your own lack of planning and quit blaming the guy behind the counter who isn't allowed to defend himself properly until he punches out.

Because really, who wants to buy a 17 inch laptop that was pulled out of NameTag Guy's ass, anyway?

[Tria]

For us RPG junkies, the Bag of Holding is one of the most massively useful ideas anyone ever had. Too bad they don't exist in real life!

Ever open it up and leave it on the floor in a doorway while waiting for a baddie to come through? *Whistles innocently* Just like a cartoon hole.

[Jack T. Chance]

Jack, perhaps you haven't heard of the TARDIS pants from someone else's stupid shoplifter?
And I swear that some of these soccer moms have Purses or Holding, judging by the amount of crap that they have to dig out just to get a freaking insurance card

TARDIS PANTS? Now THAT'S a riot!!!

And I hear ya with the Purses of Holding. I used to have customers like that a long time ago when I worked at a movie theater during high school. I'd go to clean an auditorium after a show and be like "How in dog's name did they sneak in 2 humongous bags of microwave popcorn, already popped?!?"

Right now we're having a terrible time getting sudafed in. Warehouse is only carrying the 30mg strength and a claritin-D generic now, and have neither in stock. Our other supplier is not shipping anything to us for whatever reason. (I can get allegra-D and Zyrtec D from them, but not Claritin D. WTF?) So oh, the whining and gnashing of teeth since July 1st when sudafed products went prescription only....
Heaven forbid that they just get a script for the 30mg sudafed for now and take it in tandem with whatever other product combo that they want, or use the phenylephrine version, or take a trip up to Vancouver. Jeebus.
Today 01:58 AM

I'm getting sick of all this crap with the Sudafed products. It's causing me a lot of inconvenience anytime I need to get some Claritin D to fight off my hay fever.

Ever open it up and leave it on the floor in a doorway while waiting for a baddie to come through? *Whistles innocently* Just like a cartoon hole.

LOL!!!

Actually, I play D&D via the fantastic computer game Neverwinter Nights, but the programmers don't seem to have thought of that one.

They also forgot to program in the good ol' Portable Hole item, which is EXACTLY like a cartoon hole! ;-)

[Gurndigarn]

Customers get upset at a hard 'no' because they are frustrated because they have just lost control of the situation. It's a pretty difficult place to be when you planned your day (sometimes planning around what you would do with what you bought at that particular store), got ready and drove to the location to do business.

Then you get there, and the item isn't there, *and there's nothing you can do about it!*

That's a hard truth to swallow because now you have to reschedule your entire day

Ah, yes. The "How can I have sex without any dice?" syndrome.

[Jester]

What is amusing about this whole thread to me is, when you work in a restaurant/bar like I do, they always have the same response.

"Why don't you go down to the supermarket and buy steak/ketchup/diet coke/whatever it is that you are out of that I want to badly?"

And they never seem to get the fact that this joke was not funny the first time OR the thousand times I've heard it since.

One old guy was almost amusing in his denial.

OG: "What kind of soup do you have?"
ME: "Today we have The One Soup We Had That Day."
OG: "No vegetable soup?"
ME: "No. Today we only have The One Soup We Had That Day. No vegetable soup, I'm afraid."
OG: "Don't you have any in a can in the back you can open up and heat up for me?"
ME: "Um, no sir. We ONLY have The One Soup We Had That Day. I know for a fact that they have no cans of vegetable soup in the kitchen today." I knew this because (a) I work there, (b) I know what is going on in my kitchen, and (c) I am not an idiot.
OG: "Well, I really don't like The One Soup We Had That Day. Are you sure there are no cans of anything else back there, like maybe vegetable soup?"
Me: "Quite sure, sir."

To his credit, he was polite about the whole thing, but REALLY....if I say we are out of it, we are out of it. And I am not going to jog down to the local mart to buy something for you just because you had your heart set on it. And the kitchen is not hiding stuff from you. And we can't just whip stuff up out of the blue.

Vent....complete.

[Mighty Girl]

Either you have them, or you don't.

Either I'm slow, or something is amiss, but didn't you answer this at the very beginning of your conversation? Tell the wench she left her hearing aid at home and you'll go fetch some flash cards....

And crying b/c a laptop is out of stock??
I'd hate to see her response to a real catastrophe.

[Enjis]

For gosh sake! Most sales people work either on commission, or have sales goals to make! Don't the customers think if we had an item we'd be VERY happy to sell it to them??

Why in the nine hells whould I say I was out of something if I wasn't??
Believe me, I look long and hard for any item my guests want...and offer to look on the computer at other locations, just in case. I WANT to sell more items!!

"Are you sure you're out?"
Yes, darn it, I'm sure! I WANT to sell you this item...but I don't have any....no one does!!"
Sheesh!!

[Reyneth]

Right, because you woke up that morning and said, "I think that if anybody comes in wanting a 17" laptop, I'll tell them WE DON'T HAVE ANY! HAHAHAHAHAHA! Perfect!"

I dunno, I always assume that people have just had a bad day before they came across me. But still: check your attitude at the door, people!

I KNOW! Because it is just so much easier and much more fun to argue with the customer that we don't have something rather than selling it to them in 3 minutes and bringing all that money into the store, making our managers happy! sheesh.

[Seanette]

Ever open it up and leave it on the floor in a doorway while waiting for a baddie to come through? *Whistles innocently* Just like a cartoon hole.

*GREAT* idea, and I think I'll borrow it sometime, if that's OK with you.

I remember one time, with DH as DM and a friend of ours and I each running two characters (friend had the magic-user and fighter, I had the cleric and rogue). We'd encountered a pirate colony of 41 we needed to get out of the way. Magic-user had flight capacity, so we loaded the rest of the party into our Bag of Holding, then the magic-user flew around dumping fireballs and such to thin out the opposition (Web and Burning Hands was a fun combo we came up with in that one, too).

That was nearly as good as the vampire situation where magic-user turned himself into a water elemental and started raining on the vampire, then cleric threw Bless Water on him.

[stormtreader]

Actually, I play D&D via the fantastic computer game Neverwinter Nights

Totally off topic, but this is a truely awesome game
OK, nothing to see here now, move along

[HawaiianShirts]

Easiest way to calm down an upset customer? "Well, Ma'am, we don't have any here right now, but what I can do for you is call our other location and see if they have any. Then they can either hold one for you, or we can have them ship one to our store so you can pick it up at your convenience. Which would you like us to do, Ma'am?"

Sometimes that works. Most of the time, though, when I try that, I get two whines:
"But I need it NOW! I can't wait for you to transfer it here or ship it to me."
-or-
"But those other stores are too far away!" (Granted, a 40-minute freeway drive to either the north store or the south store can be a long drive, but if you REALLY want it...)

She hasn't come back for her laptop yet, by the way. Or, if she did, I missed her. In any case, those 17"-ers came in right on time.