Bad customer!, No Donut!

[aerodave]

I agree sith the sentiment of a lot of the posts in this thread. When I use to work customer service and retail jobs, I’d usuallyreserve my special treatment for the nice customers. A couple posts (especially the ones from the banned dude above) have expressed dismay that a sales/service rep would not give equally good treatment to the meanies, as if it’s a violation of the “customer is always right” axiom.

But in reality, there’s a BIG difference between outright refusing to serve a customer who’s being abusive, and simply refusing to go above and beyond for that same customer. I always did what I had to for a customer…never did I deny someone the minimum of what was required. But when they were demanding, mean, or condescending, that’s ALL they got. When they treated me decently, they got all the help I was able to provide, even to the point of bending company rules.

The post from the Litoris was a great example, because I also worked for a wireless company who insisted that we charge for every little thing. You wouldn’t believe how often I waived those kinds of charges for decent customers. It got to the point where the only time I ever enforced that policy was to customers who had pissed me off. Fact is, how I treated those bitchy customers fell in line with exactly what I had to do, so no one could complain that I wasn’t providing them with proper service. It’s just that the extra measures were given enthusiastically to the people who were nice to me.

Man, I’m so glad I don’t work with the public anymore. Just talking about this is bringing back traumatic memories.

[Sunrazor]

I have to wonder whether **MacTech ** didn’t mistake the customer’s panic for assholishness. I can be really difficult to deal with when my laptop goes down, and here’s why: Despite more misgivings than I have time to list, I have entrusted the most important documents, processes, data and forms in my life to a little five-pound piece of plastic and silicon technology. I try to “back up” when I can but goddamnit, I never lost an entire filing cabinet full of documents when my Selectric typewriter broke!

So, when things go wrong with my computer, I am utterly, totally and completely screwed. I can’t do my job, I can’t do my classwork, I can’t communicate with family and friends, I can’t retrieve important personal and professional documents – suddenly, it’s 1968 again, and I’m dead in the water. Do I “back up” sufficiently? Probably not. The computer, as important to my life as it is, is NOT the center of all of my waking thought. I am not a slave to it. It is supposed to serve me, like my car, my telephone and other machines that make my life easier.

When my computer breaks down, the computer mechanic has me at his mercy, just as my auto mechanic has when my truck breaks down. The difference is, the truck mechanic knows he’s a mechanic, knows I don’t want to do business with him, but I have to, and he goes out of his way to make the process as painless as possible. My computer mechanic, on the other hand, seems to think he is the Lord God of Technology, and only when I have showed sufficient obsequiesness and subjugation does he deign to accept my unworthy little laptop into his Temple of Technological Holiness, lay his sacred hands upon it, and make my life worth living again.

Bullshit. MacTech, you’re just another mechanic. If you taught your customer any lesson at all, you taught him to seek assistance elsewhere, at a place where the mechanics will explain in calm, reassuring terms exactly what the problem is, what it will take to fix it, and how much it will cost. And the lesson you should learn is that, if your shop has a stack of paperwork that must be filled out for each and every customer before repairs are done, then you need to adhere relentlessly to that process – or maybe change the process so it’s not such a ball-buster. You set yourself up for the whole episode by circumventing the process in the first place. Accept your share of responsibility for that.

[Ludy]

@Sunrazor

I have to wonder whether **MacTech ** didn’t mistake the customer’s panic for assholishness. I can be really difficult to deal with when my laptop goes down, and here’s why: Despite more misgivings than I have time to list, I have entrusted the most important documents, processes, data and forms in my life to a little five-pound piece of plastic and silicon technology. I try to “back up” when I can but goddamnit, I never lost an entire filing cabinet full of documents when my Selectric typewriter broke!

So, when things go wrong with my computer, I am utterly, totally and completely screwed. I can’t do my job, I can’t do my classwork, I can’t communicate with family and friends, I can’t retrieve important personal and professional documents – suddenly, it’s 1968 again, and I’m dead in the water. Do I “back up” sufficiently? Probably not. The computer, as important to my life as it is, is NOT the center of all of my waking thought. I am not a slave to it. It is supposed to serve me, like my car, my telephone and other machines that make my life easier.

When my computer breaks down, the computer mechanic has me at his mercy, just as my auto mechanic has when my truck breaks down. The difference is, the truck mechanic knows he’s a mechanic, knows I don’t want to do business with him, but I have to, and he goes out of his way to make the process as painless as possible. My computer mechanic, on the other hand, seems to think he is the Lord God of Technology, and only when I have showed sufficient obsequiesness and subjugation does he deign to accept my unworthy little laptop into his Temple of Technological Holiness, lay his sacred hands upon it, and make my life worth living again.

Bullshit. MacTech, you’re just another mechanic. If you taught your customer any lesson at all, you taught him to seek assistance elsewhere, at a place where the mechanics will explain in calm, reassuring terms exactly what the problem is, what it will take to fix it, and how much it will cost. And the lesson you should learn is that, if your shop has a stack of paperwork that must be filled out for each and every customer before repairs are done, then you need to adhere relentlessly to that process – or maybe change the process so it’s not such a ball-buster. You set yourself up for the whole episode by circumventing the process in the first place. Accept your share of responsibility for that.

Did you miss the part where it was a very minor cosmetic issue?

[jali]

@Sunrazor

Bullshit. MacTech, you’re just another mechanic. If you taught your customer any lesson at all, you taught him to seek assistance elsewhere, at a place where the mechanics will explain in calm, reassuring terms exactly what the problem is, what it will take to fix it, and how much it will cost. And the lesson you should learn is that, if your shop has a stack of paperwork that must be filled out for each and every customer before repairs are done, then you need to adhere relentlessly to that process – or maybe change the process so it’s not such a ball-buster. You set yourself up for the whole episode by circumventing the process in the first place. Accept your share of responsibility for that.

The first sentence is rude, IMO. No one is “just another” anything as far as I’m concerned. It seems that your attitude (at least as written here) might be the reason the computer mechanic you deal with treats you as he does. A random act of kindness should be rewarded not punished and asking the OP to share in the responsibility for someone else’s assholish behavior is ridiculous.

[Wile_E]

@fluiddruid

<snip> He admitted to another employee that he is acting this way on purpose since he believes pushing really hard is the way to get results. <snip>

Many years ago I remember a lot of talk going around that you had to be assertive to get things done, there were even assertiveness training seminars. There is a fine line between being assertive and being an asshole and a lot of people cross it but they don’t see that they are being assholes, they just think they’re being assertive. The sad fact is that these people often get their way because the other people just want to get rid of them. And since they got their way that one time they will continue to act that way every time until they start getting slapped down enough that it dawns on them that it really doesn’t work.

By the way, the old adage that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar is not quite true, some flies actually prefer vinegar.

[Omegaman]

@jali

The first sentence is rude, IMO. No one is “just another” anything as far as I’m concerned. It seems that your attitude (at least as written here) might be the reason the computer mechanic you deal with treats you as he does. A random act of kindness should be rewarded not punished and asking the OP to share in the responsibility for someone else’s assholish behavior is ridiculous.

Well to be honest, as far as a customer purchasing somingthing from you, you are just “another” whatever. Down the street, aroung the corner, wherever, there is always somebody else who would love to have you’re customer. A fairly large percentage of my pay is based on commision so while I don’t enjoy dealing with pissed off people the bottom line is if I don’t somebody else will. Even if the customer knows their being a dick and I know their being a dick. Doesn’t change a thing. The only difference is will I put away my pride and help them. In the end I can only control how I act. Not how they act.

[Ferret_Herder]

@Sunrazor

I have to wonder whether **MacTech ** didn’t mistake the customer’s panic for assholishness. I can be really difficult to deal with when my laptop goes down, and here’s why: Despite more misgivings than I have time to list, I have entrusted the most important documents, processes, data and forms in my life to a little five-pound piece of plastic and silicon technology. I try to “back up” when I can but goddamnit, I never lost an entire filing cabinet full of documents when my Selectric typewriter broke!

Why is that the problem of the computer tech, that you panic when your computer breaks?

[Litoris]

I think the gist of what the majority of those who work with the public understand is that while you absolutely can get more flies with shit than honey, shit stinks and flies are germ-ridden ickiness, I’d rather be slathered in honey and smell and taste good than covered in shit and flies. YM(if you’re a nasty grossmonster)MV.

[Rocketeer]

Um, right.

[dwc1970]

@Litoris

Which reminds me of a funny thing that happened one morning at my favourite $tarbucks store. They were pretty well slammed (which, as I am there at the same time each day, I know was unusual) and therefore understaffed. A cuntstomer started bitching at the barista…

[Whips out paper pad and pen, makes note to add “cuntstomer” to list of colorful epithets.]

[thirdwarning]

@Ferret Herder

Why is that the problem of the computer tech, that you panic when your computer breaks?

I think what he was saying is that maybe the customer wasn’t that much of a jerk, maybe he was just really upset, and a little bit of understanding might have made things easier for everybody. And maybe he’s right, but MacTech was there. I’d hope he could tell the difference, and I’d hope he’d give the customer the benefit of the doubt at first, until customer made it clear which he was. It really does sound like he’s willing to go the extra mile if he isn’t pushed or yelled at.

I had to call the help desk at work the other day to try to figure out how to resolve a computer glitch from the register. Both of the people there said they’d never seen that particular thing happen before. We finally worked it out, but at one point the help desk person told me I needed to watch my attitude. I wasn’t upset with her. I was just getting frustrated because they kept telling me I couldn’t refund the whole amount to the customer, when I knew we had to. It shouldn’t have been charged in the first place. But my frustration came through on the phone badly. We finally got it straightened out, but I had to get very slow and specific with them to get them to see the whole picture. And I’m a person who makes it a point never to get nasty with service people.
eta: We really do have great help desk people. I don’t know what they say to each other after I call sometime, but they’ve never treated me like I’m stupid, even if I feel that way sometimes afterwards.