In that scenario, the problem was, I was the manager. There was no-one higher up the chain of command for customers to talk to, short of them ringing Head Office, which would get me in trouble for “not making the customer happy”. Yeah, it was a crock and we all hated it.
That’s the problem- trying to explain to someone whose $500 phone has been knocked back for repair due to water damage that there is nothing they can do, short of the contacting the manufacturer (who will say “Sorry, but our techs found water damage to the phone’s circuits”) or the Office of Fair Trading (who will likely say “Sorry, but their techs found water damage to the phone’s circuits.”)
And how do you say to a customer “Sorry, but that policy is in place because 99% of phones with water damage have been dropped in water, and people who have dropped their phones in the sink keep trying to con free replacements out of us”? Because that’s why the policy was in place. You basically have to call the customer a liar or accuse them of trying to pull a fast one on you to explain the reason behind the policy, and that’s not cricket.
Or you can say “I’m terribly sorry, but our corporate policy is that we do not refund or exchange phones outside their early life failure period, except as provided under the Sale of Goods Act and the Trade Practices Act. Regrettably, phones with water damage are not covered under this. I wish I could help you but there’s honestly nothing I can do at this point beyond giving you the phone number of the manufacturer’s repair centre.”
We used to have terrible problems with GPS units. Tradesmen would buy an expensive model and sometimes they’d break two months later, and we’d have a tradesman in the store hitting the roof demanding a replacement right then because they couldn’t manage without it. And despite the fact GPS units were more expensive that a mid-range mobile phone (Average GPS price at the time was between $350-$700), we could exchange those up to a certain point, and usually did. Then we’d send the faulty unit off to the manufacturer, and- this is the important thing- the manufacturer would send us a shiny new one in replacement, even if the customer had dropped it or left it on the dashboard of a ute parked on a mine site at Mt Isa for a week in the middle of summer. For some reason, we never really had problems with “customer-caused fault” GPS units… I think I recall seeing three or four in two years, and the manufacturers decided it was better for everyone to replace the unit than dig their heels in. If only the mobile phone companies thought the same way…
So we’d have customers wanting to know how come we couldn’t replace their two month old $229 phone, but could replace their two month old $350 GPS unit, and when you tried to explain to them it was based on what the manufacturer themselves was prepared to do, their eyes would glaze over or they’d demand to know why the mobile phone manufacturer wouldn’t replace their phone.
All of which is a long and convoluted way of saying “Front line staff would like to be able to help you- really, they would. It’s not their money. But they’ll get their asses kicked from head office if they do so and their jobs aren’t worth risking so you can have a new phone right now instead of after the authorised repairer has determined if it’s actually faulty or not.”
I imagine it’s different in restaurants- there is likely someone there who can fix a problem- but in general, in corporate retail? Demanding the person behind the counter (or their manager) “Just fix it” is optimistic at best and impossible at worst.
