Her Argument Is Far From Seamless

(I work in a fairly high-end ladies fashion concession in a department store. My manager and I are standing, waiting to greet customers. A middle aged woman storms up to us, trailing her husband behind her. She brings a dress over to us, which to me looks to be a size too small for her.)

Customer: “I’ve just tried this dress on, and it has a big rip in the seam. I have decided to buy it so you will need to find me another.”

Me: “I’m so sorry about that, Madam. I’m afraid we only carry one of every size. There are a couple of options. We can see if we can order one in for you, which will arrive in our next delivery; we can ring another store to see if they have one available for you; or you can order it yourself on the website, if you would rather it was delivered to your house.”

Customer: “Order one in for me. I want you to guarantee it will arrive tomorrow.”

Me: “I’m very sorry, but I can’t promise you that. It will most likely take a few days, depending on when our delivery is due.”

Customer: “This is ridiculous. This is all your fault for not checking your products correctly.”

Me: *even though I suspect the rip occurred in the fitting room* “Again, I’m very sorry that this one slipped through our net. I suspect the fault occurred after our initial checks. I’ll take this one off the shop floor and report the fault to the manufacturers.”

(I go to take the dress from her, but she snatches it back.)

Customer: “What’s the best price you can give this to me for?”

Me: “We can only take 10% off, and the item will be non-refundable.”

Customer: “It’ll cost more than that to fix it. Take the cost of fixing it off.”

Me: “I’m sorry; I’m not able to do that. Please let me see if another store has a fault-free one for you. Where is local to you?”

Customer: “Here.”

Me: “Well, yes… I meant where else is local to you. As you can see, we don’t have one here.”

(At this point, my manager steps in and goes to ring around local stores. I am left with the couple. The husband then joins in.)

Customer’s Husband: *to his wife* “Look, I’m fed up of waiting here. It’s already 20% off, and the girl is offering you 10% off. Let’s just get it.”

Customer: “Ah ha! I’ve found a thread in the lining and one at the top of the zip, that’s two more 10% discounts!”

Me: “I cannot give you 10% off per fault. That’s not how it works!”

(The customer rants on and on about how poorly made our items are. My manager returns, and tells the woman that a large store about 10 minutes drive away has two of those dresses and that we’ve put both on hold for her so she can check both and choose the better one, that they have both been checked for faults, and they will still give her 10% off.)

Customer’s Husband: “I can’t stand it anymore; we will go to the other store, pick the dress up, and go home.”

(I give the couple directions to the store, apologise again. and the couple leave, with the woman loudly ranting to anyone who will listen that our products are poor. We ended up spending around 45 minutes of our time on this rude lady, and what’s even worse? When she got to the other store, she filed a complaint about us saying that we were standing about looking bored, ignored her, refused to help her, and ‘eventually’ fobbed her off on another store.)