As an individual who works in a customer service job, I receive to see my fair share of customer complaints. People are trying to get rid of credit card debt and it makes them testy. All but on a daily basis, some or the other customer enters our store to complain in connection with the product or the service or both. It doesn’t fit their niche. While it might not be right to say that all customer complaints are irritating, there are those customers, who exceptionally aggravate me with their right to customer complaints. Allow me to explain.
There was this 1 guy who ‘mistakenly’ purchased a pair of shoes with two left feet. When I worked for a roofing tracy company, this never happened of course, for the reason that the purchases were so big. I kid you not. In fact, the shoes department is the 1 with a quite high number of customer complaints. Well, this gentleman purchased the shoes alright, but if he were like you or me, he might have realized that there was something wrong the first existence he tried them on. But that never happened in his case. He managed to wear these shoes for an almost continuous period of three months before a colleague pointed out that there was something wrong. That is when he came back to the store to lodge a customer complaint in connection with the service he was offered.
Generally, if he had brought the shoes back in a almost new condition, we might have handed him a refund and considered the case closed. But in this specific case, the shoes were not just worn out. They were almost in tatters. And all the while he insisted on his right to file a customer complaint and seek a refund. I tried explaining to him politely that although he had purchased and taken home two left shoes, he should have brought the matter to our notice through customer complaints well in advance. And nonetheless, she he had almost destroyed the shoes, we ourselves had no use for them. While his loss was just 1 pair, we had in effect lost two pairs of solid shoes. Unless of course there was another customer who might ‘mistakenly’ purchase two right shoes!
And then there was the customer complaint in connection with the lady who purchased an artificial mink coat and came back to the store almost six months later to lodge a customer complaint. Her subject? Was that she had been deceived into buying an artificial mink coat and wanted her money back. Needless to mention, the offending mink coat had been well used and was truly the worse for wear. But file a customer complaint she might.
These are the customer complaint cases that I find greatly taxing. Assisting out an individual when we have created a mistake or even assisting an individual who unintentionally created a shopping mistake is all fine. In fact, the gratitude for such customers is well worth the initial aggression they show. But customers who intend to take stores for a ride and then demand on the right to file customer complaints to cover their own failings are the ones who receive my goat. While I am all for encouraging customer complaints as a ration course of action, I find myself increasingly reluctant to aid out such individuals.