Customers - don't you just love them?!

[deniser]

Spent all morning dealing with an irate customer who first accused us of not replying to her emails about her delivery - today's was the first one we received - and did not reply when we asked her which email address she had been using.

Asked about her order with no order number and giving her maiden name when the order was placed in her married name - took us ages to work out which one was hers.

Then tracked her order and found that the postman had tried to deliver it at 6.30am two weeks ago. She denies anyone ringing the bell or leaving a card.

She then rants and raves about how could we possibly use a delivery company which delivers that early in the morning and why don't we use the Royal Mail? I tell her it is the Royal Mail. She then accuses us of lying about the whole thing saying she knows the postman and he would never do this and not deliver her parcel.

I ask her to check for herself and speak to the postman. She is not happy and thinks it is all a big scam and that we never posted it despite giving her the tracking number.

Honestly! All I need on a dreary Tuesday morning! Rant over!

 

[Stephen Davies]

Customers are a law unto themselves.
I often used to wonder how they were able to hold down jobs when they were so rude and irrational.

Then I realised that people tend to vent at customer services people, because they can and that something in our culture has convinced them that the more they shout and scream, the more they'll get.

But thankfully the trouble makers are a minority. Otherwise no one would bother doing business.

 

[puffin]

The customer is (always/usually/not always) right.

 

[a4labels]

I didn't think the postmen were allowed out that early now!

 

[gibby]

Customers and people in general do seem to be getting more uptight or stressed.
I think its partly down to all the negative rubbish in the news but some firms/organisations are just dreadful with customer service.

For me the worst has to be HMRC as they seem unable to sort the simplest of tasks or unable to read a letter.

G

 

[sglobal]

It seems like its just impossible to make some customers happy. I got an order from one customer and as it was a high valued item, I decided to send it using Special next day delivery (customer was charged for normal delivery). He contacted me and told me it was a used item. Even though it had all the labels/stickers everything in place, the only thing was seal was broken by us so we could write down the serial number of the item and he wanted partial refund. I assured him that wasn't the case. Then he left me negative feedback!

 

[gibby]

Might be worth adding a note to the picking sheet infuture to avoid that, but then half the time they don't read em and give you a call

G

 

[AbsolutNut]

Have to confess I am surprised RM are delivering at 6.30am and can possibly understand the customer's cynicism in that respect.

We certainly have our fair share of wack job customers who we wonder what planet they are on including the "i ordered my stuff yesterday and it hasn't arrived yet" when yesterday was Sunday.

As a side note, we hate it when a customer on Amazon supplies an incorrect delivery address with their order. We naturally send to this address then the customer a week or so later asks where their order is. We sent it to.... and they reply "that isn't my address", we say well that is the address you gave to Amazon who passed on to us etc. We then advise that we will have to wait for Royal Mail to return the order to us so we can re-dispatch to correct address (which often they don't). Customer not happy - raises an A-Z claim. We defend it then Amazon finds in favour of the customer as we cannot provide tracking as it was a relatively low value order. Makes us laugh every time.

Steve

 

[puffin]

parcelforce for us when we're awaiting a delivery seem to be getting here earlier and earlier.
Least it gets us up and working .. I suppose.

 

[Definition_Group]

I'll never forget the customer who spent an hour moaning about how we wouldn't refund a high value graphics card bought 4 months previously as a gift. She claimed it had never been used even though all the packaging had been opened and the pins had clear signs of wear. No refund

On the other side of that coin we had a customer who brought a complete PC back to us claiming she couldn't use it. Completely unopened and unused so not only unable to use it but obviously unwilling to engage with the technology at all! Full refund

And finally... the customer who demanded he buy a particular adaptor (£1.99) as detailed on a note given to him by his 'technical expert' even though it was the wrong one, we explained why and offered to sell him the correct one (£1.99). Needless to say he was back the following day for a refund but claiming it was our fault as we had sold him the wrong one!! Refund given... in pennies

 

[roydmoorian]

"I am a teacher and have been unable to get the car out of my housing estate and go to work for the past 2 weeks so I bought all my christmas shopping online on wednesday and only nine out of the ten items arrived by friday - it's simply NOT good enough and I paid an extra 10p for priority delivery" ........Sorry madam, next time we will try to do better

 

[tickseed]

Re: "I know the postman and he wouldn't do that/come that time etc"

RM often use a different delivery person for parcels, especially if the regular guy is on foot. It's not practical for them to carry lots of parcels !

We once had a customer send back a childs wooden xylophone because it wasn't "musically correct" !

Regards,

david

 

[deniser]

We once had a customer send back a childs wooden xylophone because it wasn't "musically correct" !

Having once stocked a batch of toy recorders which didn't play the right notes, I do have some sympathy with your customer!

 

[gibby]

Customer giving us grief this morning.
She orderd a very small order for £3.50 and as it was a small item we placed it in a small box for protection.

She demands to send it back & wants compensation as we sent her tea bags instead of sweets.
Another cas of customers reading whats on the packaging box and ignoring the picking note as the sweets are in the box.

G

 

[deniser]

Customer giving us grief this morning.
She orderd a very small order for £3.50 and as it was a small item we placed it in a small box for protection.

She demands to send it back & wants compensation as we sent her tea bags instead of sweets.
Another cas of customers reading whats on the packaging box and ignoring the picking note as the sweets are in the box.

G

Aaagh! Hope she was happy when you explained!

 

[jac0byterebel]

Business would be far easier if you didn't have to rely on customers!

 

[Definition_Group]

Business would be far easier if you didn't have to rely on customers!

Or customers understood the valuable difference between what can be achieved by being reasonable against trying to bully you to do stuff right from the off. ha!

 

[gibby]

Aaagh! Hope she was happy when you explained!

No she wasn't, just grumbled and hung up.

In a previous biz we had an expression for customers like this "She isn't getting any!"

Some customers will never be happy, no matter what you do as they arn't getting any. But if they did they may be a bit happier.

G

 

[Deleted member 136029]

Love this thread. I was going to start a twitter account to tweet the crazy things customers say, but was worried I'd get busted!