A woman comes up to me with her toddler and slams one of those children’s toy phones on the counter.

Mother: “This isn’t working!”

Me: “Did you put in the batteries provided, ma’am?”

Mother: “Yes, but it’s not sending any texts, and I can’t find the phone number!”

Me: “Ma’am… this is a toy phone. It can’t make real calls or texts.”

Mother: “That’s false advertising! Why are you selling fake phones?!”

Me: “It’s a toy phone for children, ma’am. It should be clear that it’s not a real phone.”

Mother: “Well, it wasn’t clear to me! I want a refund and an apology!”

Me: “I apologize that you thought a $3.99 bright yellow plastic phone with giant colorful number buttons and no screen was a real phone.”

Mother: “You’re trying to be funny, aren’t you?! I want to speak to your manager!”

My manager is called, and she thankfully deals with the mother and the refund. When it’s all done, my manager comes over to me. 

Manager: “The weirdest part for me is wondering what kind of phone conversation she was expecting to have with her toddler.”

Customer: “I need something really specific for a three-year-old.”

Me: “Okay, what are you looking for?”

Customer: “I don’t know.”

I am doing some stocking and I overhear a young girl (maybe five at most) deciding between two Lego sets. Her father is encouraging her to pick one.

Dad: “Your birthday money can only cover one of these, so you’ll have to choose.”

Girl: “But… I can’t pick!”

Dad: “Life is all about making hard decisions. You’ll soon learn that this isn’t one of them.”

Girl: “You mean life gets harder than picking a Lego?”

Dad: “Afraid so, munchkin.”

Girl: “I think I’d rather not have a life and just have more Legos.”

Amen, sister!

I work in a huge, famous toy store in London. I am assisting customers on the floor near our rather sizeable collection of puzzles.

Customer: “What are these?”

Me: “Those are puzzles.”

Customer: “Are they board games?”

Me: “No, they’re puzzles. You put the pieces together to build up the picture on the box.”

Customer: “I don’t understand.”

I pick up a box to demonstrate.

Me: “The picture on the front of this box has been split into a thousand pieces that connect together. You rebuild the picture by figuring out how the pieces come together. It can be very therapeutic.”

Customer: “So, it’s like sudoku?”

Me: “What? No, sir. Here, one of these boxes isn’t sealed. Let me show you.”

I open the box and show him the plastic bag inside containing all the pieces.

Customer: “So, it is like sudoku! You lied to me.”

Me: “Sir, sudoku is a Japanese number puzzle. This is just a picture puzzle.”

Customer: “Well, I call these sudokus.”

Me: “Do you want one, sir?”

Customer: “Oh, no, thanks. They’re way too difficult for me.”

Me: *Under my breath* “Shocking.”

I work in a toy shop. It was a busy Saturday, and I was one of two people behind the till. A woman entered the shop and came directly to the till checkouts and pointed at me.

Customer: “I want you to help me.”

This encounter automatically felt rude and patronising, but I still came out from behind the till smiling and politely asked her what she would like help with. The woman ignored my question and simply turned around and walked toward the Lego section. I followed her, but I could already tell this was going to be a difficult customer.

Once we arrived at the Lego section, she turned to me.

Customer: “Hold out your hands.”

Then, she proceeded to hand me the four most expensive Lego sets the shop sold. Then, without conversing, she walked straight back to the till checkouts while I followed, carrying her items.

As I was scanning the items through the till, I could feel her staring straight at me, but I could tell she was not someone who would have appreciated polite small talk, so I decided to just silently get on with it.

After I had scanned through her items, she refused a bag, which I thought was odd as these Lego sets were not small, and I could see that she didn’t have any bags on her.

Me: “Your total is £496, ma’am.”

Customer: “I’m not paying you until I’ve seen my receipt!”

I told her multiple times that this was not possible as the receipt would only come out of the machine once the payment had been processed — something she clearly did not want to hear.

After explaining multiple times the ins and outs of any sort of transaction, that the payment comes before the receipt, she eventually accepted defeat and paid for her items. However, as soon as the transaction was complete…

Customer: “I want these items sent to London by tomorrow.”

Me: *Very confused* “We don’t do such requests, ma’am. If you want to send these to London, you’ll have to do it on your own accords separately. Your other option is that you could order the same products online and have them delivered to London, but that’s all I can do to help.”

As you can imagine, she was most unhappy with my response and demanded an immediate refund. Once the refund was settled, I apologised for any inconvenience as she stormed out of the shop without saying another word.

I love customer service.