SoapZone Community Message Board

Mother's Day. Last week, especially towards the end of the week, we had people in the store buying outfits or jewelry for their moms. Yesterday, it seemed like almost every transaction was a mom returning what she received for Mother's Day. One woman actually had come in, bought an entire outfit--pants, top, jacket--tried it all on, claimed to love it, bought it...then sent her DIL to return it all yesterday. Why???

This morning, I walked in and my SM was already grimacing. She told me the phone had already rung (we don't pick up until we're officially open unless it's a call we're expecting) and she saw from caller ID that it was "J" calling. Again. A few days after the new year, J came in with a sweater she wanted to return. Not sure if it was an online purchase or a purchase from another store but it wasn't one of our sweaters. Her reason: the sweater was snagged. It was, in quite a few places, but there was nobody else in the store and SM spent some time using the Snag Nab It and fixing all the snags. J wound up keeping the sweater and was very grateful for the service...so grateful, she now thinks we're her personal assistants just waiting for her call. A couple weeks ago, she called twice to place orders; one order was three items of clothing off the sales rack and the other was a single sales shirt. I did the order over the phone for her and it took a considerable amount of time while she questioned every step and demanded discounts she wasn't entitled to.

Anyways, SM was already in a bad mood from all the returns yesterday so I of course told her I'd take J's call when she called back. Which she did, about 5 minutes after the store opened. The call went like this...

me: <standard greeting>

J: "This is <full name>"

me: "yes, J, how are you?"

J: "Fine. So I placed a couple orders a couple weeks ago..."

me: "Yes, I remember" (I remember because she was quarrelsome and demanding discounts and when I asked for the address for shipping, she told me the name of the place she's currently living in and not the street name and number, and that became a whole thing)

J: "Well I got everything but customer service told me I should've gotten a free bag. But I didn't get one."

(We were running a promotion a couple weeks ago: spend $175 in a single transaction and get a free insulated beverage cooler while supplies last)

me (not remembering she didn't meet the price point but remembering she called late in the promotion) "Yes, I remember those bags. We only got an extremely limited supply of them and were out by the time you called."

J: "I should've gotten one!"

me: "I'm so sorry but our store is small and we only got a handful of those coolers (true) and they were gone by the time you called (also true)."

J: "But I should've gotten one. You should've sent one to me. Customer service told me I should've gotten one!"

(well customer service was WRONG)

me: <explains for a THIRD time that we were out by the time she called>

J: "But I waaaaaant one!"

me: "I can't help you, ma'am. The only thing I can suggest is you could try calling customer service back and seeing if they can locate a store that still has the bags"

(spoiler alert: NOBODY will still have the bags. We've already moved on to a different promotion...plus the bags were really cute and I was a little jealous the store associates weren't allowed to get one)

J: "Can't you call customer service for me?"

(Um, what? That's not really my job, plus I *know* she was capable of calling them herself as she'd already done so. And had done so when placing her last order; that time, she was told by customer service that the jacket she wanted was at a store in Tennessee--I think--but the computer wasn't showing it, so either it had just sold or the computer was wrong, as it often is. She gave me the TN store's phone number and asked if I could call them for her. Uh, NO. She could call the store herself or ask customer service to do so).

me: "I'm sorry, ma'am but we only have two people working today (true, but unless we know it's going to be super busy--such as on Black Friday--we never have more than two people working) and we're rather busy (kind of true; we were busy with tasks but not customers). You'll have to call customer service yourself.'

J: "I'm VERY disappointed! This isn't my fault!"

(it's not mine either, lady)

me: "Again, I'm sorry. Is there anything else I can help you with today?"

J: "No <hangs up>".

Now generally, I will try to give our customers as much grace as possible. Our customers are mostly older, unused to technology...a few of them are sliding into dementia. Had it been anyone else, I might've tried calling customer service, even knowing full well the answer would be "ha ha ha, you're kidding, right? Of course there's no free bags left!". But I've met J in the store a few times and she seems perfectly capable of calling customer services and--probably--placing an online order. She just doesn't want to, and she wants to be treated like a VIP customer when in reality, before this year, she rarely bought anything and never anything full price.

Moral of the story, not that any of my lovely SZ peeps need it: if you want someone to do all your shopping for you, hire a personal assistant (or maybe ask a family member to do so).