Customer: This item is not what it was supposed to be, I checked it on-line and it isn’t worth what I paid for it… I want a refund.

Me: Okay that’s fine, I just need your receipt.

Customer: I don’t have a receipt and I want a refund, it was a gift and it’s my consumer rights to get a refund, I will call trading standards as this was labelled as designer and it isn’t.

Me: Okay but I didn’t label it, or price it, or sell it and you don’t have a receipt which will make my till £19.99 down at the end of the day which makes it look like I’ve taken it or lost it because our system doesn’t accept a random receipt for a refund…

Customer: I want a refund I’ll sit here all night if I have to I’m not leaving without one, I bought it as a gift so I don’t have a receipt…

After back and forth for about an hour a panic attack as I have anxiety and me having to make about 5 unanswered phone calls I eventually had to give in and give her a refund just to get her out of the shop, all of the other customers left and she had her kid and husband stand there who looked completely mortified… she was told not to come back for abusing my volunteer and told us we are rude.

Retail…

I work for a large discount clothing retailer. I notice a couple looking at coats. The man moves the entire fixture so he can have a better view of the mirror on the wall.

Me:Excuse me sir. If you’d like, we have a three-way mirror in the fitting room that you can use.

Wife: He doesn’t have time for that. He has to catch a flight.

Note: Our store is about a half hour from the airport.

I get this same call about thirty times a day on weekends
Customer over the phone: “Hi, I’d like to book a reservation for a party of X at 6:30 tonight.”
Me: “I’m sorry, it looks like we’re completely booked up this evening so we are unable to accommodate any more reservations.”
Customer: “Oh… how about around 5:00?”

I was working in a Telco Call Center at the time, we were actually an internet chat center where you use a text based chat system online to communicate with us as opposed to calling up on the phone. This is back when chat support was very new in Oz.

Cust: Hi, I’d like you to get me connected up to my new address.
Me: Hi, my name is [name], I’d be happy to help you out today, I’ll need to ask you some questions to best assist getting you connected up. First of all what are you looking to get connected up? Landline? Internet? Pay TV?
Cust: Just landline and internet thanks.
Me: No worries, if you can confirm the address for me, I’ll check what services and technology are available there for you, then we can talk plans and connection times.

[this is super important as we handle connection requests for all of Australia across multiple technology types and network configurations. This then determines timeframes for connection, cost, everything.]

Cust: Sure, I live at [number and name of street] Canterbury 7XXX.

[In Australia, our postcode system is a 4 number system, the first digit tells me what state you are in, 4 for Queensland, 6 for Western Australia, 3 for Victoria. In this case 7 means that little island off our southern coast, Tasmania. I promptly start loading the given address into our addressing and service qualification systems.These systems have a very good fuzzy search on them. However local councils have this great little habit of changing locality names without telling utility providers, or developers arbitrarily selling new developments with non-approved names. It has gotten to the point where we have been using a combination of various mapping and database tools to determine a customers actual location and we’re very good at it. Suffice to say sometimes in a new estate, sometimes the address just does not exist in our data base, in which case we check with the customer. This is one of those cases where I could find nothing.]

Me: I’m having a little trouble finding your address today, I’d just quickly like to make sure I have everything correct. Such as making sure that Canterbury doesn’t have any other local names or if it is a new development or anything.
Cust: Sure, no Canterbury is definitely right, it’s an older area.
Me: So that is [repeats street number and name], Canterbury, Tasmania, 7XXX?
Cust: No, not Tasmania…
Me: I’m sorry, NOT Tasmania? What do you mean? Tasmania is the only state in Australia with a 7XXX post code.
Cust: No, Canterbury, New Zealand.
Me: I see, I’m sorry, I cannot help you connect up there I am afraid. You’ll need to contact a New Zealand telco, I am an Australian one.

(Customer enters. She has three children under the age of 8 with her, and goes up to order while they go out to the kid play area.)

Coworker: Hi, what can I get for you?

Customer: (orders a long list of food, including a kid’s meal)

Coworker: What drink did you want with the kids meal?

Customer: I want a smoothie.

Coworker: Which flavour did you want, #1 or #2?

Customer: I’m not sure, can I pay for this all and then go check and come back?

Coworker: Yeah, no problem.

(She pays and heads outside. Coworker hasn’t put through the smoothie on the order, because it’s impossible for us to put through a smoothie of unspecified size and flavour on the system, so it hasn’t been paid for.)

Customer: Okay, she wanted a small #1 flavour with the meal.

Coworker: Awesome, I’ll make sure that gets on the meal. That’ll just be (price).

Customer: I already paid for it.

Coworker: No you didn’t, sorry. I didn’t put through the smoothie with what you paid for before, because I had to know what flavour it was to give you a price. But if you pay for it now it’ll equal out the same.

Customer: Well you made me think I’d paid for it! I’m not paying for it a second time.

Coworker: I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to mislead you. But you haven’t paid for it, so I can’t give it to you with the other food unless you do. You can check your receipt if you like.

Customer: I already threw it out. Get your manager!

(My coworker brings the manager over. Our manager on duty is a tiny woman who is less than 5 feet tall. She also has a slight accent, since she is from the Phillipines. The much taller customer makes a big deal of leaning over towards her to be taller and in her face when she arrives.)

Customer: She’s trying to charge me twice for the drink. This is absolutely unacceptable service. Are you even managing these kids here?

(At this point, quite a few of us have started coming closer to the front counter to see what’s happening since the woman is acting very threatening.)

Manager: I’m sorry, but she didn’t put through the drink before, so you haven’t been charged for it yet. I’m sorry about the confusion.

Customer: Then why did I pay full price for [kids meal] before?

Manager: She gave you the drink discount on your coffee, because it just gives you a set amount off. The total will be the same, after you pay for your smoothie.

Customer: Well this is just ridiculous! I want my coffee right now! (leans in close to coworker and tells her an order very very slowly)

(Coworker comes over to where I am working, since I am the barista.)

Coworker: She wants a small long black, with a shot of milk, hot.

(Since she specifies ‘hot’ I put a small amount of milk, since I can’t increase the water temperature beyond what the machine puts out. I take it over to her at the front counter.)

Customer: What is this? I asked for a shot of milk. Does this look like a shot of milk?!

Me: I’m sorry, did you want more or less milk?

Customer; (rolling her eyes) A shot of milk is 30ml of milk. Is this 30ml of milk? No. It’s barely a drop of milk. God, I can’t believe they call you a barista.

(I go away, and remake her coffee to bring it back. When I return, the woman is still arguing one-sidedly).

Customer: She spoke to me completely disrespectfully! I was led to believe that I had paid for it already!

Manager: Yes, I’m sorry about that.

Customer: Yeah, sure you are. Do you even speak English, huh?

Me: I have your coffee Ma’am.

(She tries it, and apparently finds it okay, because she thanks me and goes back to lecturing the manager. After about five more minutes of her telling the manager that she’s not managing well, and probably doesn’t speak English well enough to be a manager, she goes away and eats with her kids.

Twenty minutes later, she returns to the manager.)

Customer: Look, I’m sorry. I’m not an angry person, I don’t go off at shop staff. But that girl was totally out of line.

Manager: I appreciate the apology, thank you.

Customer: Seriously, if you’re the manager you need to act like the manager. The way she spoke to me was totally unacceptable, she didn’t make it clear at all.

Manager: I will make sure to-

Customer: And how was I to know the flavour anyway? You guys don’t even have a big menu board, it just flicks up on the screens!

Manager: We can’t control that, it’s the corporate decision.

Customer: I understand, but it’s silly the way you’ve all handled this. I got upset because all your staff was listening in on us, and standing around us. Do you think it’s acceptable for them to come and involve themselves? You’re meant to be in charge, you’re meant to stop them.

Manager: Yes, I’m sorry that it was handled badly-

Coworker: I am not an angry person, I’m not a bad person, I’m not mean to shop staff so I don’t want to come out of this feeling like I’m a bad person. You can see why I’m upset, can’t you? You see why this was unacceptable?

Manager: Yes, absolutely.

(Finally, after about ten minutes of assuaging her guilt, the customer went back to her kids. The manager left to pull herself together, as she was nearly in tears from the customer trying to intimidate her before and again then.)