A Violation Of Vocabulary
I worked for a shoe company and in the team that took inbound USA calls. The USA customers were… different.
A frequent misunderstanding was the Buy one get one free offer. For example, a customer may return their free item for a replacement, one customer did this twice one the same order. Unfortunately, they did not call before returning it and we were out of stock.
Caller: “This is terrible; just issue me a refund!”
Me: “I apologise, as this is a free item, there is no money to refund. We can offer you a different shoe as a replacement, there may be a slight charge.”
Caller: *Now irate.* “I have lost money! This is unacceptable; I want a manager. I have been violated!”
Me: “I can certainly do that, but if I may say you will still be receiving a good discount and the bought pair of shoe had already been discounted as well.”
Hence, several minutes of raging till they begrudgingly paid $12 different for the replacement they wanted.
After she hung up, I had to take a minute to realise during all the crisis the in the world with people dying, someone had the gall to bead over shoes and to actually use the word “violated!”