(I’m halfway through making a customer her hot chocolate.)
Customer: “Could you make it hot, please?”
Me: “Um… It is made with boiling water.”
Customer: “Yes, but I want it hot.”
Me: “Do you want me to not add any milk?”
Customer: “Well, no, I just want it hot.”
Me: “Don’t worry. It will be hot; it’s just boiling water and hot chocolate power.”
Customer: *getting frustrated* “Yes, I know that! But I want you to make it hotter!”
Me: “…than boiling water? So… Steam?”
Me: “Good afternoon. This is the [Operating System] IT service desk. My name is [My Name]; how may I help you?”
Caller: “I hope you can. How do I make it so I can’t see my emails when I click on them?”
Me: “Excuse me, sir, but I don’t quite understand. Could you explain this issue to me?”
Caller: “When I click on my emails, it opens them. I don’t want to read them.”
Me: “Sir, if you do not wish to open the emails, the only thing I could suggest would be to not click them.”
Caller: “How do I make it so that I can click on my emails without reading them?”
Me: “What is it that you are wanting to do with the emails?”
Caller: “Nothing!”
Me: *unsure what to say* “Um, if there is nothing you wish to do with the emails, you should just be able to leave them in your inbox without having to click on them.”
Caller: “Will I still be able to open them later?”
Me: “Yes, sir. The emails will remain in your inbox until you choose to delete them.”
Caller: “Oh, okay. Thank you for your help.” *click*
(I’m serving behind the register when a woman approaches the till with her shopping, complaining the entire time about our air conditioning — how it’s too cold, blowing her hair all over the place, etc. I explain to her the reason why the store has its temperature so low — the building is largely made of glass and the heat generated spoils the food — and the transaction finishes. I begin to serve my next customer when the woman stands DIRECTLY UNDER the air conditioning unit, blocking the entrance to the store, and yells:)
Customer: “You know, when you stand under here, it blows straight up your nose and it’s just awful. Awful!”
Me: *my patience is running incredibly thin* “Yeah, well, we have to stand under it for hours on end, so…”
Customer: *points at our automatic door* “You should have this open all the time now; it’s a beautiful day outside and you don’t need it closed all the time. Then, when this door is open you can take all of this mess out.” *points at the air conditioning unit’s metal pipes* “And it won’t blow up people’s noses anymore.” *leaves store*
Me: “…!”
Other Customer: “Oh, my God. Did that just happen?”
(I work for a fairly large Internet company who provides free emails addresses for our customers. In customer service, we can only change the email password, nothing else. Tech support actually troubleshoots.)
Me: “Hi, thank you for calling customer service and billing. How can I help you today?”
Customer: “Yeah, I forgot my email password.”
Me: “No problem. Let me secure your account with your username and I’ll give you a temporary password… Okay, so, I’ve got your temp password set up; go ahead and try to log on.”
Customer: “It’s still not working; this is a scam!”
Me: “Go ahead and tell me what the page is showing, and we’ll go from there.”
(Our customer reads off a fairly common system error, which usually happens after his account has been locked out for quite some time. It just needs a simple reset, but only tech support can put in that order. I explain this to the customer.)
Customer: “Well, this is just bulls***! Get me your supervisor. Even better yet, get me my bill for free!”
Me: “Sir, I know this is frustrating, but this will be solved in five minutes if we get you in the correct hands. I can’t credit off your bill, because your free service has been down only because you forgot your password. Tech support will finish what I started with you, okay? I’ll even stay on the line until the issue is resolved.”
Customer: “And you’ll credit my bill?”
Me: “No, I cannot credit your bill.”
Customer: “But it’s only $220 dollars, and today’s my only day off. Your supervisor will credit my bill! Get him on the line!”
Me: “No, we cannot credit for your free service being temporarily down. We cannot credit for inconvenience. We’re a big center, sir; waiting to speak to my supervisor will be approximately a 45-minute wait, and he’ll only reiterate what I said just now. I’m connecting us with tech support. In five minutes, you’ll be on with your day.”
(I called tech and the first thing the customer screamed was, “That b**** in billing didn’t apply my 300-dollar credit!” while I was still on the line. As promised, his email was up in minutes. He’ll never get that credit.)
(One of my bosses goes to a hearing where the client fails to show up. The particular cases we deal with are not criminal and don’t involve much attorney-client contact outside of the initial interview and the much-later hearing, so it’s not uncommon for clients to disappear in the interim, failing to return calls or changing their address without notifying us. This time it is unusual, however, because it turns out that the client has died.)
Boss: *agitated* “I really wish she would have called to say she didn’t want the hearing anymore.”
Me: “She died.”
Boss: “Well, she should have called to tell me she was dead!” *storms off*
(He later apologized and dealt with the ensuing paperwork more rationally, but at the time, I was torn between laughing and being appalled.)
