h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I work in a shop in the UK, it's called MEXX (just for realistic detail), and I got asked a bizarre question just the other day.

This woman was holding a garment against herself in the shop-floor mirror, and it was a whole full-length mirror. about as big as you can get them without having it cover the whole wall... so anyway, she could see all of herself in this mirror, from top to bottom.

her husband/partner/type thing comes up to me and says

"Do you have any bigger mirors? In the changing rooms or anything?"

(me) "What exactly do you mean? We have a slightly wider mirror in the fitting rooms..."

"But is it *bigger*"

"We don't have any mirrors taller than that one, if that's what you mean....?"

to which he simply replies "I'll just shut up now".


a few weeks ago this woman wanted to buy a t-shirt, and she came over to the till, so i scanned it through, and she said in this dodgy accent:

"do you think it will fit me?"

so i recommended she tried it on in the fitting room, to which she replied that she couldn't be bothered and was in a rush. so i asked her size, and said that the t-shirt would probably fit her. she told me she had one that fitted that was a different size. so i said it'd only a take a minute to try it on, but again she refused. so i totalled her transaction, and quoted the price, at which point she pointed out THE tiniest, most insignificant mark you have ever seen on the t-shirt.

by this time we've accumulated quite a queue.

so my manager comes over and asks the problem, she explains about the worry that it might not fit her, and the mark. so my manager explains that she can have 10% off and non-returnable, or she can have it at the normal price and see if that mark washes out. the customer looks puzzled, and says "but it might not fit me". my manager suggests she tries it on. she again refuses, claiming to be in a rush.

so the weirdo customer says to me: "hang on a minute" while she goes and spends five whole minutes looking through the rail to see if it has the other size which fits her better and isn't marked (which is weird, coz surely she'd have looked for her best size first?), and then comes back with the same original t-shirt and says she'll get it with the 10% off. so i put through the transaction again, she pays and then walks off again to look around the store for another twenty minutes.

and she was in a rush? weirdo.

The ones who are "in a rush" invariably have time to pitch a screaming fit about anything they perceive to be less than perfect service, too!

Usually, the ones who are "in a rush" are the ones who decided that didn't leave their office or home or the reataurant in time to get into the shop. Worst are the the ones who thought they could sit having 5 or six beers and come in 5 minutes until closing to find what they were looking for.

We used to close the upper level of the store at about 10:50 pm (we closed at 11:00pm) and ask the suctomers who were upstairs to make their way to the cash. Not, to my mind, and unusual request. Actually, I thought we should close 15 mointues before store-closing. By the time they "make their way to the cash" the doors are locked. Even than, it would sometimes be 10 or 15 minutes after that the final person left the store.

Reactions to being asked to make their way to the cash:

"I thought you closed at 11!" ("We do...l that means you are supposed to be GONE at 11)

"Yeah, yeah...." and continue browsing until the announcement that the store is now closed.

"Well, I am GOING TO BE BUYING... Don't you want my patronage?" (they have 3 sale books worth $3.99 @.... )

Running up the escalator (the one that has the large sign in front of it "This floor is now closed!"... "I just have to get one thing... I know exactly where it is." Then browsing for another 15 minutes despite your asking repeatedly what it is they were looking for and finally demanding that they make their way downstairs.

"What the Hell is your problem.... I buy thousands of dollars worth of books every year from you people. You should be happy to have me in here...!" Again from someone who buys the odd sale book..IF they buy anything at all.

"&#^@% you. I will take as much time as I want!"

The best one was many years ago when I worked at Classic Books at the National Arts Centre.... fairly classy W.H. Smith store.

Christmas Eve, at 6pm (Smiths didn't lwet us close early on Xmas or New Years Eve). The door was locked and this guy comes pounding on the door. "I am desperate! I just need one book... I know exactly where it is..." (from the telltale whiff of alcohol, I could tell that he had been at the office Christmas party).

"We are closed..."

"It will take 2 minutes, I PROMISE!"

We let him in. I ask what he is looking for... he ignores me and proceeds to browse. We tell him "We really have to ask you to hurry. The cash is closed now."

"Yeah, yeah...." and continues to browse....

It is now 6:15. Finally, I had enough and went over and said "Sir, I am going to have to ask you to leave. I would like to go home to my family."

He blows up..... "Jesus ^&^*. What the Hell is your problem? You'd think that you would be glad to have someone who is going to spend money. You should be grateful!"

I lost it.... "Sir, I have a home and family and it is Christmas Eve. I am now on MY time, not on yours. If you are too lazy to go out shopping to get your Christmas presents in time, it is not my fault. We were kind enough to let you come in after the doors were locked and we had every right not to open for you. You are abusing our good natures. Now kindly leave......"

He left, but trailing expletives..... From then on, whenever someone begged me to let them in when we were just closing I said no....

Not my experience but one related to me by a friend who worked at HMV.

Q- *Do you have that new song everyone is playing?*
A- *Who is the artist?*
Q- *I don't know but it is all over the radio*
A- *What is the name of the song?*
Q- *I don't know, but you must know it, it's very popular.*
A- *Is it a man or a woman?*
Q- *I'm not sure. It sounds like this. (whistles)*
A- *I don't recognise it, sorry.*
Q- *Where is the manager?*

And so on.

Y'know the best thing about that kind of exchange?

"Where is the manager!!!"
"That would be me"

We frequently get people coming in 5 minutes before close who "know exactly what they want". Thing is, we're open from 9am until midnight every single day of the year, except Christmas Day and New Years Eve when we close at 10pm - that's 15 hours a day, 105 hours a week.

We also close the listening stations 15 minutes before the store closes so that we don't get people still standing there with headphones on at midnight, saying "Just let me listen to one more cd" NO!! I've had to unplug the things more than once to get people off them at five past closing. I refused to let one woman get on a listening station at two minutes to midnight, and she stamped her little feet all the way out of the store Her husband gave me a and said "I think you've just annoyed my wife".

Customer service only goes so far. And if I hear one more f*****g story about Nordstrom

Is Nordstrom a competitor?

Book clerks also get the "Do you have that new book?"

"Do you know the title?"

"No, but it was in the Globe and Mail" on the weekend.

"What is the Author's name?"

"I don't know, but you should know it..... Don't you read the Globe and mail?"

"Yes, but they review a lot of books. What was the topic? Fiction, Business, Fantasy...?"

"I don't know, how am I supposed to rmemember all that?"

Obviously, this is a memorable review that the persone can't remember title, author, subject... even the general topic or genre...

"Well, our "New release Wall" is over here. If you look over that you...."

They interrupt, whilst rolling their eyes and sighing... "I have looked there.... You don't even seem to have them in any sort of order. What kind of bookstore is this?"

The books, by the way, are organized by Fiction and Non-fiction, and then by author.... can't get much simpler than that.

"I suggest you find the article you were reading and check back with me (writing your name and the store's number down). If we don't have it, we can certainly try and order it for you...."

And they stomp off into the night.... Sometimes they will return and it turns out it was an article in the Citizen, two months ago, about a trashy novel and the review was terrible.

I love the "I saw a book here last month. It was green and had a cow on the cover. I think it was about sailing...."

IF you actually track it down, it turns out to be purple, be a bio of Stompin' Tom Connors, and have a train on the cover.... and has been out of print for two years.

Or they want you to hunt down something equally obscure that they saw 3 years ago for 8.99.....

No, Nordstrom is a department store which supposedly wrote the book on customer service. They will do anything and everything to make the customer happy. The most well known story about them (which may well be an urban myth) is that you can exchange anything with or without a receipt, and someone once took in a set of tyres and got their money back... even though Nordstrom don't even sell tyres They'll keep the store open after closing if a customer needs to buy something, they'll... oh, too many tales to tell. Long story short, if you work at Nordstrom you'd better like the taste of s**t, cos your tongue's gonna be up the a**e of everyone who walks through the door

And that brings me to another story

It's Sunday afternoon - not as busy as Saturday, but still pretty rushed. The phone rings, it's a bloke who brought in some cd's to sell on the previous Thursday and left his bag behind. He said it was quite an expensive bag which also had some sentimental value, and he wanted to know if we still had it. I told him I'd look in the place where we keep all the bags that people leave behind (yes, it happens quite often - and not only bags). I couldn't see one like the bag he described, and I told him that it may be somewhere else.

He started to get a bit panicky and asked if there was a chance it might have been thrown out. Judging by the description he'd given me it didn't sound all that much of a bag and so I said that was a possibility, but we're rather busy right now and I'll have a more thorough look when the store quietens down. Now he really gets going.

He wants to talk to the manager. That's me. He starts going on about how this was a $200 bag which he bought 10 years ago and which would cost considerably more today, how it's from some flash NYC store, how it's been around the world with him, and how anyone who saw it it would know what it was and wouldn't throw it away. My thought at this point is 'If it's that bloody valuable in terms of money and sentiment, why are you using it to bring cd's to sell, and why did you leave the store without it?'

I tell him again that we're very busy right now and I'll have another look in a while. Not good enough. He starts tells me all kinds of things he's going to do like file a police report for theft, and follow home everyone who works at the store.

That's where I lost my temper. I told him that if he's going to accuse anyone at the store of theft he'd better have some damn good evidence to back it up, and if he makes any kind of threat or tries following *anyone* home, he'll find himself up before a judge so fast that the dust cloud won't settle for a week. I give him my full name, I give him the name of the store owner and I tell to call back the next day when the owner will be there. Then I slam down the phone

About five minutes later the phone rings again and one of my co-workers answers it. He calls to me and says "Oh, it's not over yet " Actually, it pretty much was - the bloke apologised for all the things he said.

A couple of hours later we found his bag - didn't look like $200-worth to me He came in the following day to collect it. Unfortunately it was my day off, but before leaving on Sunday I'd written a report about the whole thing and left it on the owner's desk. Apparently this pillock asked if I was there, and looked quite relieved when he found that I wasn't.

I've been told on more than one occasion that I'm quite frightening when I'm

So THAT is who to blame for "The Customer is Always Right"! Bastards....

I actually read a really good book on customer service which... damn... "Dealing With the Customer From Hell" by Shaun Belding, which actually said that the customer is NOT always right. I certainly didn't agree with everything the author said, but he actually had some fairly good tips on dealing with "troublesome" customers. Here is his website (I didn't realize he was from the Ottawa area). http://www.beldingskills.com/ . Unfortunately, the publisher is going under and his book is temporarily unavailable. It is a pretty good read and isn't one of the ones that advocates selling your soul for a sale.

He said that there were three types of unhappy customers....

There were the ones who have had a bad day, and make that apparent to you. Even if you can't supply what it is they are looking for, a little gentle treatment will make them a happy customer, and likely to remember the time you took with them.

"Most unpleasant customers are not unreasonable people. They are unsatisfied people who are behaving unreasonably."

There are the ones who come in prepared for a fight. They may have received bad service somewhere else, or have a legitimate beef about the service they have received up to your encountering them. You may or may not be able to make them happy, but you have the responsibility to deal fairly and make the effort to give them good service..... no more no less.

Then there are the ones who rolled out of bed with every intention of sh!tting on someone and you happen to be that person. That person you deal with firmly, honestly, and politely. If you have a manager or owner handy, turn the customer over to them. If you don't, you make it clear that they have overstepped the line. You have done everything you can to assist them and thaat obviously this is not a situation that is going to be settled to anyone's satisfaction.

"We're taught, as business people, how to interact positively. We're taught how to smile and sell and how to be nice. And then all of a sudden, we're faced with a very negative situation. It's very traumatic, and the experience sticks with people a long, long time. And in many cases, the experience actually has an effect on the way people conduct their business in the future. It's really quite amazing how much of an impact this can have on people."

"LESTER is a process revolving around two principles. The first is that most unpleasant customers are not unreasonable people. They are unsatisfied people who are behaving unreasonably. The second is that in most cases, once we take the time to fully understand why this person is agitated and behaving the way they are, then the problem becomes much easier to solve and far less traumatic. I ask people in seminars, "After a customer walked away, have you ever said, 'What's that guy's problem?'" And everybody laughs and says yes, but the thing is, you should ask that question while the person is there.

In LESTER, the "L" stands for listening, which is perhaps self-evident but there's an awful lot of ways to do it wrong.

The "E" stands for echoing, which is reflective listening where you reflect back to the customer the issue as the customer perceives it. [That way you can] make sure you understand the issue, and it lets the customer know you heard it. The customer won't feel the need then to repeat himself or herself over and over again and stay agitated.

The "S" stands for sympathizing, which is really validating the customer's emotional state. It's simply saying, "From what you've told me, I can understand why you're frustrated." People like to hear that. When somebody says, "Wow, I hear where you're coming from. I understand that," it takes a lot of the confrontational aspect out of the conflict.

The "T" stands for thanking a customer. When most people are dissatisfied, they don't tell you about it; they tell everyone else in the world. So these nasty customers, as unpleasant as what they say or do may be, are giving you some pretty valuable information. And it's genuine to be able to say "Thanks for telling me about this. Thank you for giving me a chance to fix it."

The "E" stands for evaluate. Theoretically, if you've gone through the first four steps, you've been able to bring the customer's emotional state down to where it's not a fight anymore; it's a discussion. The evaluation stage is where you can work with the customer to come up with a solution instead of butting heads.

And then the "R" simply stands for responding. Once you come to a decision, do it. Don't just say, "OK, that's great," and stick it on a shelf."


Here are some articles on dealing with problem customers:
http://www.ontargetmag.com/pdfs/issue5/10may.pdf
http://www.engraverschoice.com/Articles/how%20to%20handle%20a%20bad%20customer.htm
http://www.cinet-online.net/english/news/info59.htm
http://www.asu.edu/lib/library/cs/beyond.htm

I always thought Nordstrom's was exclusive to Seattle, just south of me. Are you from Washington state? I must admit it has a good rep here in Canada, although Eaton's (now gone) and Hudson's Bay are (were) pretty damn good!

I must admit that I've never seen a Nordstrom store so I don't know if they're confined to one area, but the chances are that if you've done any customer service training then you've heard of Nordstrom.

The Bay and Eaton's were very good stores. However, I think Eaton's marked its own cards. When they started having difficulties, they started making retail decisions that cut the company's own throat. They started a ridiculous return policy... any return, even for defective merchandise was subject to a "processing fee" of a percentage of the cost. They started cutting back on the sales clerks (the big mistake that many companies make). When people cannot buy with confidence, and can't find a clerk to help them, they go somewhere else.

Chapters did the same thing. They cut the staff so far back that there were days when there were only two people on the floor and one cashier until mid-morning and in the evenings. They started buying huge amounts of books no one wanted and not providing the ones they DID want. However, you can be sure that management at HQ didn't suffer cutbacks. They went full-steam ahead with opening new stores and the on-line business..... It sealed their fate.

The Bay, which was, like Eaton's, a retailer that offered very good quality and variety at reasonable prices, has jumped on the "designer brand-wagon". You can buy $300 Tommy Hilfiger or Ralph Lauren sheet sets in three ugly patterns or you can buy the "Baycrest" sheets in 135 shades of beige or pink... but you can't find a set of reasonably priced sheets with a nice pattern on it.

Unfortunately, they don't seen to understand that not everyone wants overpriced designer ugly stuff in their homes. I haven't shopped at The Bay in several years. You can't find a sales person, anyway, even if you did want to shop there.

Find a Nordstrom's near you.... or not....

http://about.nordstrom.com/ourstores/?origin=hp-leftnav

Hello
I normally work on the customer desk in Argos!

Had one lady once returning a buggy, she obvioulsy must have thought I wouldn't open the box, cause when I did it was full of dirty nappies. I didn't see someone leg it so quickly, leaving me to dispose of the gastly thing.

Had a lady view 5 big dumbell sets yesterday, theres poor lil me dragging out these massive boxes, spending an hour with her and she finally decides to go for the teeniest dumbell set there is...without looking at it! .

Was on the jewellery counter a few weeks back and one lady was looking at a sterling silver ring to buy as a gift. She kept saying 'is there proof that its sterling silver'? I kept telling her its hallmarked, but she wouldn't accept that .

Ohhhh I could go on!

Please do!

Sorry, I've got nothing.