The Blame Game Is Not The Best Medicine
Pharmacists buy meds from our company through their dedicated software. Monday morning, there’s a ticket in the system asking us to call back a pharmacist. The ticket says that the pharmacist placed her order Friday afternoon and didn’t receive the products the next day, which isn’t normal since we deliver twice a day.
Me: “Hello, I am [My Name] from [Company]. I’m calling you back regarding the problem with your order.”
Pharmacist #1: “Ugh, finally! I’ve been waiting for your call for days!”
Me: “I’m sorry to hear that you had a problem with your order. Unfortunately, we don’t have any orders from you since Friday. I was wondering if you could place your last order again with me right now, so we—”
Pharmacist #1: “WHAT?! ALL OF MY ORDERS?!” *Mumbling* “It’s so inconvenient to call me now, the drugstore is packed, I can’t believe it…”
Me: “Whatever would be easier for you: the whole order if you have the option to send it again or just a specific product. Would you prefer if I called you back this afternoon?”
Pharmacist #1: “I’m not here this afternoon!” *Mumbling again* “This is so inconvenient. Why are you even calling me right now?”
Me: “I could call you back tomorrow or at a quieter time if—”
Pharmacist #1: “Well, I don’t want to wait until tomorrow! I want my order delivered!”
Me: “Okay. Are you in front of your computer? Could you check the order history and—”
Pharmacist #1: “What? I won’t do anything. I just want you to fix it. We didn’t do anything wrong.”
Me: “Actually, I can’t find your order on our system. If you could check the order history and give me the order number it would help me research it. Sometimes a specific product causes an issue, or your software may have received a bad update, or maybe there was an error message, or—”
Pharmacist #1: “We didn’t do anything; it’s your system’s fault! And I already explained what happened to Whatshername [Her Salesperson]!”
Me: “Okay, could you please explain it to me?”
Pharmacist #1: “No.”
There are a few seconds of silence.
Pharmacist #1: “Well? Is it fixed now?”
Me: “I… I can’t fix the issue if you don’t—”
Pharmacist #1: “I won’t. Can you fix it?”
Me: “Could you try to place your order again so I can see if there’s a problem on our end?”
Pharmacist #1: “NO! Ugh, what an incompetent child. FIX IT!” *Hangs up on me*
I’ve left out a few exchanges that were basically in the same spirit, with the pharmacist cutting me off and questioning my intelligence. I call this client’s salesperson, who unfortunately doesn’t have more information besides, “It worked before Friday, and now it doesn’t.”
I take a five-minute break before calling the drugstore again. A different person picks up the phone.
Me: “Hello. I called earlier about the problem with the order for [Company].”
Pharmacist #2: “Oh, right. We can’t order anything since her son made those changes.”
Me: “I… What changes?”
Pharmacist #2: “She didn’t tell…” *Sighs* “I’m sorry. [Pharmacist #1]’s son started some programming course. He explained that he could encode the different company names with different colors and that it would be easier for us to see the company we’re ordering from. I wasn’t so sure about it, but she’s the boss, so…”
Me: “I see. Could you please take a minute to go in front of a computer and read to me the exact name for our company in the last order?”
The pharmacist’s son tried to insert HTML and CSS (basically web programming language and stylesheet language) in a completely differently coded software. Instead of “Company1” or “Company2”, there was a mixup of names with “<“, “/”, “=”, and a lot of characters that the software couldn’t process. They couldn’t order anything from anyone since that change, and the pharmacist was absolutely adamant that it was our — and all of our competitors’ — system’s fault. Worst client ever!
