Corporate Tactics

The retail chain I worked for was permanently closing. As a result, we slashed our prices significantly, gift cards were disabled, and we no longer honored returns/exchanges.

Understandably, we had MANY customers who were very disgruntled by this quick turn of events. Seeing as we had no means of adequately fielding customer complaints, we passed the buck by giving them the phone number to our corporate headquarters.

We gave out that number to many customers over the weeks, with several other stores following suit. The situation got so bad that Corporate finally decided to address the issue. One day, Corporate sent out an email to every single store manager regarding customer complaints.

So, what was ultimately Corporate’s answer? They wanted the stores to stop giving out their number to customers. My manager held an impromptu staff meeting to tell us this. When I asked him if he wanted me to stop giving the Corporate number to our customers, he said, “Nope, they’re the ones who threw us under the bus, we don’t owe them anything.”