Sooo Not Ready For The Internet, Part 12
A woman in her late forties or so has purchased a tablet from us, excited about being able to watch her “YouTubes” on the go. Less than a week later, she comes back in, distraught.
Customer: “There is so much bad stuff on here! You need to make it all go away!”
Manager: “Excuse me, ma’am, but what bad stuff? Can you be more specific?”
Customer: “I just wanted to watch my YouTubes, but my son put Facebook on there, too. But I’m seeing such horrible things on there! You need to make it go away!”
Manager: “Did you want us to uninstall the Facebook app, ma’am?”
Customer: “No, I want to keep my Facebook, but make all the horrible people stop posting horrible things!”
My manager — bless his heart — tries to see if the customer can show him an example of what “horrible people” she’s talking about. They scroll her feed, and within just a few seconds, she screams.
Customer: “There! There’s one! Oh, it’s so horrible!”
Manager: “That’s an ad for a charity that looks after abandoned pets.”
Customer: “Yes, and it’s horrible! I don’t want to think about all those poor animals!”
He scrolls once more, and she is upset again.
Manager: “That’s someone who has posted a reaction video to a video about a trans person being misgendered.”
Customer: “Yes! All those poor people! This is very triggering! I don’t want to see this stuff!”
Manager: “You can select this option — ‘Show me less like this’ if this stuff upsets you. Also, it helps if you don’t click on these so that—”
Customer: “I don’t click on them! I go past them as quickly as I can! I don’t want to see it!”
Manager: “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but if even the risk of the mention of any of those topics is this triggering for you, then perhaps the Internet — especially social media — isn’t the best place for you.”
My manager soldiered on and helped show her how to improve filtering her feed, but she still left seemingly still upset and looking concerned.
Related:
Sooo Not Ready For The Internet, Part 11
Sooo Not Ready For The Internet, Part 10
Sooo Not Ready For The Internet, Part 9
Sooo Not Ready For The Internet, Part 8
Sooo Not Ready For The Internet, Part 7
Question of the Week
Have you ever served a bad customer who got what they deserved?
