Tips on Being a Good Customer

The BBQ Pit
1

I work in customer service.

Yes, some of the people I work with are fucknuts with their heads entirely too far up their asses. But I and most of my colleagues really are people who not only can help you, we want to. So here’s the deal:

  1. When I say “Hello, how may I help you today?” DO NOT respond with “help? You can’t help me. You can straighten out my fucking bill.” No, I can’t. I can explain to you why your bill is more than likely correct. Yes, our new software sucks, and yes, it has caused problems for some people, but nowhere near as many people as the media & City Council (who approved this piece-of-shit system that we didn’t want in the first place) would have you believe. You could say something like “I don’t understand this bill. I’m not sure if it’s correct. Could you help me figure it out?” Yes, I’d be happy to, and if it is wrong, we will correct it as soon as possible, and cheerfully, too!

  2. Printed very clearly on your shutoff notice is “no arrangements will be made on this bill.” Do not hand me the bill and say “I’d like to make an arrangement on this bill.” The answer won’t necessarily be “no,” but you’ve got to show me why I should. Hard luck stories don’t always cut it, either. You’re the 50th person today who’s just had a baby/lost a relative/been out-of-town/was abducted by aliens, for fuck’s sake! Ask me if I can help you. Let me look at your payment history, and if I can see that you’ve been trying, even if it’s only ten bucks a month, I’ll go to bat for you with my supervisor. Oh yeah–if I do convince my supervisor that you’re worth it (and believe me, I do have to beg my superiors for arrangements), keep the damn arrangement. Because if you don’t, you’ll never get another one. I’m not kidding. And if something happens and you can’t keep it, call us. We’re not evil. We’ll try to work something out. One more thing: If you haven’t made a payment within the last six months, the answer is no, and I’ll be happy to get my supervisor to tell you the same thing.

  3. Do not bitch to me about the state of our local government. I work for it. I know what a mess we’re in. I don’t much care what you think of the mayor. The fact is, he beat the other candidate in the last election. You want him out? Start a recall campaign. Quit voting for him. Or just wait three years. This city is in such dire shape there’s no way in hell he’s going to get elected again. Just quit whining to me about it. I didn’t vote for him.

  4. If you want a zero balance on your bill, pay the amount that’s printed there. If your bill is $30, and you only pay $15, it’s going to carry over. Don’t say we double-billed you. You half-paid us. Do the math.

  5. Volume doesn’t get you anywhere. You aren’t Dogbert the LOUD DOG. You won’t get what you want by screaming, especially after we’ve proven to you eight ways to Sunday that you are not correct. You might think you have to teach us a lesson, but trust me–when you scream and swear and call us heartless thieving bastards, all you do is make yourself look foolish in public. Loud customers make the others waiting behind you get quiet, because they don’t want to look like you just did, no matter how angry they were when they first came in.

  6. A personal note to the lady who took up an hour of one of my co-worker’s days today, at 4 pm, when there was a line out the door behind you: Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, bitch. He told you that your payment was probably here, but since we’re so shorthanded due to the massive layoffs we’ve just suffered, it hadn’t been processed yet. What did you do? You insisted that he go find it. That man, and one of his senior clerks, spent an hour looking for your “little white envelope,” amongst the thousands of other “little white envelopes” here in our office. I and the other three clerks waited on approximately 200 other people while you stood there, taking up space. He found your payment, and in your favor, you thanked him politely for his patience. And in the most amazing display of class I’ve seen in years, he gave you a genuine smile, and said “No trouble, ma’am. I’m sorry it took so long.” But after you left, and the doors were locked (yes, you took up so much of his time that we had to lock the doors behind you), he fell to his knees, and said “oh God, can I please go home now?”

I enjoy my job. I really do. Most people are genuinely decent, and I will go out of my way to help you, even when that little voice in my head is telling me not to. Just try to show the folks in the trenches a little courtesy, and I swear, we will use everything at our disposal to help you. I swear.

2

Where I work, today was not a good day. I had to come in early 'cause the main computer crashed. All the stores in the chain lost communication, invoicing, parts look-up, pricing. Not a fun day. Glad to know I’m not alone.MTS

3

Persephone, I bow down before you! I’ve been meaning to post some sort of “Customer Code of Conduct” as a companion piece to the “Customer Bill of Rights”. I would like to add:

  1. Guess what? The cashier does NOT run the store. Really! So if you have a problem with a product, ask for the manager or assistant manager. They’ll be the ones who will try their best (usually) to help you. The cashier’s job is to ring up your purchase.

  2. Swearing ain’t gonna cut it. EVER! I had a customer call me and started yelling “Fuck” every other word. I hung on him. Several times. He finally caught on and stopped.

  3. Did you buy it and for whatever reason want to bring it back? KEEP THE FUCKING RECEIPT!! There are many cross-store scams where low-lifes buy an item at one store and return it to another.

  4. I appreciate that you’ve been a long-time customer, but the new cashiers don’t know you from the man in the moon. If they ask for your ID, show it to them. Everybody’s got to start somewhere.

  5. No, I don’t know why your credit card was declined. The machine doesn’t tell me personal info about your account, only that your purchase can’t be made today. Call the bank. You are probably waaaaaayyyyyy behind or overdrawn. Don’t blame me for inability to keep up with your finances.

  6. Keep your wild children under control. We COULD make you pay for that stuff your offspring just smashed onto the floor, but we probably won’t.

4

EEEEE!!!
http://www.customerssuck.com
I am a mod there, and I LOVE it…there’s no swearing allowed, but the place is a GOD SEND. SEriously…without this place to vent, I would’ve gone insane a long time ago.

5

Oh yeah! I forgot to mention the difference between the clerks and the tellers!

In my department, we have clerks, and we have tellers. The tellers take your money. The clerks help you solve your problems. When the teller says “I’m sorry, I can’t help you with that, but one of our clerks can. Just go right over there and one of them will be with you shortly,” don’t scream at the tellers. The big machine that the tellers have on their desks may look like computers, but in fact, they’re just cash registers with really pretty screens.

And no, the tellers will not accept your payment without a bill. No way, no how. If you don’t have a receipt, you have no proof that you paid us. And sometimes, sometimes, payments do not post. If your payment didn’t post, and you’ve got your receipt to prove you paid it, we can find your payment. We will do backflips trying to get that payment on to your account.

Don’t get mad at the clerks for not having cash registers, either. Hey, we can’t all collect the money. If all of us did, there’d be money floating all over the office. We can’t have that. We can’t. We don’t just collect your water bill. If you owe money to the city, for anything, it comes through our office. That’s a lot of freaking money. And the fewer people that deal with it, the better. It’s easier to keep track of that way.

6

Okay. Yes, I know you paid good tuition money to go to this school, and they should provide you with computer labs so you can type your paper. Yes, I am the computer lab assistant. No, I cannot do anything for you if the network goes down. No matter how much you swear at me, threaten me, or whatever, the techs over there in the other building with the big machines are not going to turn on the file server and enable logins again, just for you. Yes, this is campus-wide. No, I don’t know how long it will last. Yes, I can write a note for your instructor because the paper’s due in an hour. Maybe you should give him or her the disk that the paper’s on with this explanation. Oh, you haven’t written it yet? Well, too fucking bad. You’d better hope that your instructor is really understanding, because unless you go to the Kinko’s 5 blocks down the street, there’s nothing I can do. No, calling me a bitch will not get these $1500 paperweights to actually WORK. Yes, you can feel free to go talk to my boss. He’s dealing with the exact same problem I am, and will feel free to tell you where you can go stick it if you treat him halfway as bad as you’ve treated me.

I get $7 an hour, you assholes. I have absolutely NO training on how these damn things actually work. The techs were here, and THEY were baffled, okay? So stop abusing me. There’s NOTHING I CAN DO.

7

  1. Picked up an item and you don’t want it? PLEASE give it to someone to put back or, and here’s a radical thought, put the damned thing back where it belongs!

  2. That sign that states that you must wear shoes into our store is there for YOUR benefit. I’m serious! While we try to keep our floors clean and free of debris, sometimes we miss something! We don’t want you to cut your stinky feet on something and SUE US!! We really do care, but c’mon!

  3. "I can get this cheaper at (insert name of other store)! Well then, why are you here? You probably have no life and like to bitch at SOMEBODY!

8

A few more things, if I may:

The utility that my customer service department handles is water. Not electricity, not the phone. Because water is a thing that you can see and touch, we cannot control it with a computer. The service people have to go to your house to turn it on and off.

This is why we tell you that we cannot turn your water on until tomorrow, or the next business day. Unless your water is off for non-payment and you are paying your bill plus the turn-on fee that we charge when we shut you off for non-payment, you can’t have water today. The non-pay turn-ons are done in overtime. If we turned everyone’s water on the same day, the service people would be working 24-7. They don’t like that. They have lives, too. So don’t scream at me when you come in at 4:55 pm on a Friday and can’t get water until Monday. You knew you were moving in. It’s not my fault you couldn’t get here yesterday. I am not the service people’s supervisor. I cannot authorize their overtime.

Water service in this city is not like McDonald’s, either. We’re it. You want water, you’ve got to come to us. And if you’re not happy, you can’t send it back and get more of it for free. While we strive to make our customers happy, city ordinance states that no one who lives in the city gets free water. No one. I pay a water bill too, and no, I do not get a discount. I pay income tax & property tax too, same as you, same rates & everything. Because I am here, living in this city just like you, I can and do feel your pain. Just trust me on this one, okay?

9

You know, I really, REALLY wish that stores all over would re-institute this policy. I used to see “You break it, you bought it” signs all over. Sure, you might lose a customer. But maybe that customer, after paying for damages at EVERY store, would put his/her brat on a leash, or teach the brat how to behave in public. Yes, accidents happen, and yes, you can’t watch kids EVERY second, but I see too many people who just let their kids run wild. Not only is this costly for stores, it’s a safety hazard. And while I’m at it, store merchandise, even toys, is NOT there to amuse kids while Mom and/or Dad are shopping. It’s there to be sold. And stores are NOT playgrounds, kindly do not allow your children to play basketball in the supermarket!

10

I’d love to add to this, but I’m afraid the tips for tech-support customers have been done to the point of exhaustion. And we’re all exhausted enough. You’ve all raised really good points, though.

11

once i worked at a grocery store, our ads started monday AND then would end sunday night. so sometime we would run out of a sale item on saturday or sunday.
the dozen eggs $0.28 ; the gallon of milk $1.39 ; the half-gallon container of icecream that was free with coupon; hotdogs and buns also free with coupon; and my favorite, twinkies a dollar cheaper!

sometimes we ran out of things, maybe the truck had not delivered enough, they did not have the correct brand at the warehouse. or shipments ran late. demand was too high, while supply proved inadequate.

but people would scream at the clerk, when they did not like the limits somebody else set, “cakemixes and frosting $0.68, limit 4!” they read it like “4 cakemixes and 4 frostings each $0.68” !
and naturally it was the clerk who, after trying to explian “limit 4”, being shouted at to call a manager, and being made to look like a dipshit, then backing down, and giving the rude bitches what they wanted. :wally :eek:

they screamed at the clerk when she had said “we are out of the _________, can i give you a raincheck?” as if clerks were in charge of ordering, and it was the clerks fault that the store had run ot of twinkies, icecream, and hotdogs! never mind that you waited until the end of an ad to go shopping, and never mind that a raincheck had been offered.
:wally :eek: :confused:
my god, it was almost as if they were going to have a heart attack!it was the fucking end of the world if they could not get twinkies and hotdogs! keep eating like that and do not take your lipitor!! and skip the blood pressure meds, you assholes!
such behaviour convinced me that half of the people seen in the grocery store had mental problems. as for the clerk, she quit her job, it was making her crazy! lol

http://www.customerssuck.com is the best website for retail workers.

12

Ugh! Or you uphold store policy under threat of being terminated…only to have the manager come along and GIVE IN!
Or the customer calls you a bitch, and you respond with Fuck you! And you get called out for that!

I hate, hate, hate, I mean, stomach churningly loathe customers. It’s like, heaven forbid, we ask to be treated like decent human beings!

And at Kmart, they try to get out of giving you your fifteen minute breaks, claiming it’s just a “courtesy” and they don’t have to do it. Give me a fucking break. In PA, you get fifteen minutes for every four hours. Don’t give me that bullshit.

13

** I don’t condone the tone, but there ** have ** been times when I’ve explained and attempted to get my bill fixed (yes it was their fault) and the eighth person I talked to started off the same way the prior 7 did, and yea, I was more than a little overdone trying for over an hour of my **unpaid ** time correcting ** their fucking mistake! ** (AT & T charged us for a 900 call on a phone line a.We didn’t have AT & T, b. We hadn’t had that phone line for a period of 8 years)

Please, if you print on the thing “no arrangements will be made” but actually DO them, why are you surprised that people try a wide variety of stories, just in case? don’t you think word gets around “don’t pay attention to that, if you come up with a bad enough story they might” ??? try instead a statement like “arrangements will only be made once in any given 12 month period of time, and only for established customers with a good payment history” or, “no arrangments will be made” and DON’T DO THEM! (although, I do think it’s nice that your company is willing to accept that an occasional fluke can happen)
Otherwise, I agree with your rant. :smiley:

14

On this point, you are right. I personally would love to have that line totally removed from the bill, because the truth is, in some cases, high bills are not the result of a customer’s failure to pay the bill, and yes, word does get around. But I am not in charge of the wording on the bill. If I were, trust me, that line would be gone, gone, gone.

We have to make exceptions for some bills, because we’re water, not the phone or power. Water can leak. You can’t have a phone leak or a power leak. A running toilet can cost a customer a lot of money, just on one bill. If a customer comes in with one huge bill due to a leak, we will arrange on that. But they usually come in when they get the actual bill, not when they get a shutoff notice.

15

Oooh, ranting about customers, I love it. I worked in retail for waaaaaaay too long.
Let’s see…

Jewelry:
You bought a hollow bangle bracelet. By its very design it HAS to be hollow. You’ve had the thing for a month and you suddenly realize it’s dented. Of course, it MUST have been dented when you bought it, OF COURSE it’s our fault, OF COURSE we’ll replace it for free…yeah, right.

Your poor mother recently passed away, you have my sincere sympathy. You’ve inherited all her jewelry, how nice. No, we will NOT re-size her rings to fit you for free, even though she bought them here 20-30 years ago, sorry. It’s $25 per ring.

You bought some POS ring from the Home Shopping Channel, ordered it in a size 4 because that’s all they had left, and want us to re-size it to fit your fat, size 8 finger. Sorry, no can do. Your cheesy ring will fall apart and then you’ll REALLY be mad at us.

Clothes:
I just spent an hour folding the sweaters on that table. Stuff is stacked by size, dummy. Small on top, mediums in the middle, larges on the bottom. Did you really need to unfold every freaking sweater?

I can tell you wore this once and are trying to return it. No matter what you do WE CAN TELL YOU WORE IT ONCE AND ARE TRYING TO RETURN IT!!! I can smell the deodorant, the perfume, whatever. The biggest giveaway is the smokey smell. I can see wrinkles. I can tell it has been dry-cleaned. I can tell you washed it yourself. YOU ARE NOT FOOLING ANYONE!!! We can’t re-sell it, so it is a loss. That’s why prices are so high, shithead! You try to justify buying and returning by saying we charge too much for clothers, but you are a factor in that!

You would like to return something? Ok. See this tag that says “The Limited”? This came from The Limited, not The Gap. You are in The Gap. Kindly return it at The Limited, not here. We did not sell it to you. The Gap DOES NOT FREAKING sell merchandise from The Limited.

I could go on and on.

16

Another rule: if you think that you have the right to curse me out over the phone for something I didn’t do, then I have the right to hang up on you.

17

I you give me endless runarounds and won’t let me end the call and I hang up, you have no right to *69 and tell me it’s rude to hang up- you were far more rude first or I would never have hung up.

18

And when my light is OFF that means I"m CLOSEd. Don’t whine about how long the lines are-they don’t pay me enough to care.
Hell, they don’t pay me enough, period.

Do NOT tell me that the Customer pays my salary. If that’s true, then I need a fucking raise.

19

OK, if you come to one of the registers, and I go out of my way to use the other register to ring you up, there’s probably a reason. They’re close enough that it doesn’t really matter, but it might be nice if you moved over to where I am. On the other hand, if you start forming a line at the register I am not using, you’re just a moron.

Also, the counter on the side is just a counter. There’s no register on it. I can’t ring you up there. No, the blue thing over at the end of the counter is the lottery machine. They’ve been in every convenience store in the entire state for over ten years. You really should recognize them.

Asking again or refusing to believe me isn’t going to make items that are out of stock appear. Really, it’s not. Just because we had Salems in a soft pack a few days ago doesn’t mean we have them now. They’re just not here.

In a similar vein, if you try to pay with a hundred dollar bill, you just have to accept that I might not have change. Especially if all your coworkers just got change for their hundreds from me. I feel bad that that’s how they pay you, and that it’s too late to go to the bank, but I really don’t see how that’s going to make the necessary change appear in my register. And, by the way, this isn’t a bank.

I know you’re in a hurry, but you could at least try to get my attention rather than just leaving the money on the counter. I’m not going to make you wait, I’m a nice guy. It would be nice if I had some idea of what the fuck you’re buying. I’m not psychic.

If you knock over the Tic Tac display on the counter, don’t just stare at it. What the fuck is wrong with you? At least apologize, you ungrateful fuck.

Finally, regardless of how old you are, it’s never acceptable to simply piss on the floor. Buy Depends.