Customer Service Stories

shiny

Go-go-gadget-wrist-thingy
Rather than clog up the Newly Released Bikes thread post your Customer Service Stories here!

I worked on a tech help desk at an Internet provider many years ago. Customer had no connection. First question - is your modem switched on? Yes. What lights are on? All of them. Can you tell me the names of the lights. all of them. Sigh. Ok. Well I am not seeing any attempts from your device to connect are you sure it os switched on. Of course it is. ‘Click’. Oh it’s working. Bye.
 

Asininedrivel

caviar connoisseur
Niiiiice. Can totally see this devolving into a "f*** I hate people" thread but it'll be a fun journey.

While I prep myself for venting, as an aside I have noticed the few times I've been out in Melbourne post enforced hibernation that pubs / venues are looking pretty short-staffed and service is slow and a bit haphazard pretty much everywhere I've been. It's understandable given most places are probably on life support and will be looking at any way to keep costs down by keeping staff overheads a bit lower but I can still see it being a lightning rod for every wannabe Karen and Man Karen to throw down with some unnecessary outrage.

Also, making every single person do a year of working in retail / hospitality (think of it as national service) for a year would be pretty good way of encouraging more positive behaviour from everyone imo.
 

leitch

Feelin' a bit rrranty
Haha, as goes for many others, I could write a book after a decade in cafes/restaurants including a number of years as owner/operator in London.

I will say though, that NOTHING set off the twenty-something Karens like our "no laptops on weekends" policy :D Motherfucker there is a line for tables, you cannot sit here sipping an almond latte for three hours at peak Saturday brunch-o'clock doing your invoicing for your shitty website design side hustle. Fuck off.
 

Scotty T

Walks the walk
Anyone who has ever worked help desk has had the magic touch. It's where the customer has some sort of issue but as soon as you arrive it stops. Sometimes you have to lay hands on the keyboard and mouse, and reboot, sometimes it just stops fucking around as you arrive. Customers are always dumbfounded, and often you are too.

Definitely did my share of making sure it was plugged in or turned on too.

These days I just try to convince customers of what they don't need in their website so we don't have to make it. They inevitably think they need everything, sometimes we are forced to make it, and then they don't use it. When they come back and ask for something else, they get the standard offering or nothing.
 

mxh

Likes Dirt
It's where the customer has some sort of issue but as soon as you arrive it stops.
Have noticed this for years now. My theory is that when you arrive and they attempt to demonstrate the problem, they actually do what they're supposed to, rather than the "I'm in a hurry so I'll just ignore those unimportant steps in the instructions" method they've been using up to now. It's amazing as well how many times the "password seems to be working again now" once they take the time to type it in correctly!
 

slowmick

38-39"
I love the ones that say - the program needs a password and I don't have one.
Do you remember installing the software sir? - Yes, it was easy.
Do you remember it asked you a few questions along the way to set it up. Yes, there was few screens to work through.
Well one of those was your email address and a password....
 
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Flow-Rider

Burner
We had an oldish bloke come into a shop I once worked at wanting new brakes on an immaculate Honda Prelude, the car had no towball so we just put standard brake pads back into it.

Anyway, the job goes out the door, everything working fine, 4 weeks later he comes back in swearing and cursing that we ripped him off because the brake pads were too soft and now metal on metal, we think that's odd, maybe a brake caliper has seized or an anti-rattle clip jammed the brake pad. We put this car on the hoist, remove the wheels, and brake rotors are almost jet black like the car's been driven at high speeds, everything else besides the worn brake pads looked fine on the car.

We call this bloke over and show him, he says that he's an old man and doesn't drive the car that hard and that we're scum and ripped him off. We get the rotor's machined and new heavy pads installed at our cost and send the old prick on his way, a few months go by and he comes back into the shop, I walk out waiting for a spurt of insults but he apologises and explains that the police came knocking on his door after they caught his teenage son in the car without a licence.
 
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Art Vanderlay

Hourly daily
We had an oldish bloke come into a shop I once worked at wanting new brakes on an immaculate Honda Prelude, the car had no toeball so we just put standard brake pads back into it.

Anyway, the job goes out the door, everything working fine, 4 weeks later he comes back in swearing and cursing that we ripped him off because the brake pads were too soft and now metal on metal, we think that's odd, maybe a brake caliper has seized or an anti-rattle clip jammed the brake pad. We put this car on the hoist, remove the wheels, and brake rotors are almost jet black like the car's been driven at high speeds, everything else besides the worn brake pads looked fine on the car.

We call this bloke over and show him, he says that he's an old man and doesn't drive the car that hard and that we're scum and ripped him off. We get the rotor's machined and new heavy pads installed at our cost and send the old prick on his way, a few months go by and he comes back into the shop, I walk out waiting for a spurt of insults but he apologises and explains that the police came knocking on his door after they caught his teenage son in the car without a licence.
Sorry, my Dad is a grumpy old coot and yes, he does drive like an old man.
 

Flow-Rider

Burner
Anyone who has ever worked help desk has had the magic touch. It's where the customer has some sort of issue but as soon as you arrive it stops. Sometimes you have to lay hands on the keyboard and mouse, and reboot, sometimes it just stops fucking around as you arrive. Customers are always dumbfounded, and often you are too.

Definitely did my share of making sure it was plugged in or turned on too.

These days I just try to convince customers of what they don't need in their website so we don't have to make it. They inevitably think they need everything, sometimes we are forced to make it, and then they don't use it. When they come back and ask for something else, they get the standard offering or nothing.
382799
 

Dales Cannon

lightbrain about 4pm
Staff member
I reckon I can tell this tale...

Second job as an engineer. Part of the role was finalising the plant for handover including installing 4 million maintenance monorails and several winches / cranes. All needing to be certified under the crane and hoist code which involved govt witnessed load testing and licencing. Lots of time and tedium.

Client hated one set up and repeatedly requested a 50t all terrain crane instead!! To be provided at our cost...

First plant overhaul using these particular hoists was on a weekend. I get a call that the winches are shit, motors smoking, monorails deflecting etc etc. The plant was several sections split horizontally with bolted flanges. Each section was about 30t and each flange with maybe 80 M24 bolts holding the bits together.

I was in a good place (unhampered by clothing...) and didn't want to drive an hour to work. Client insisted. Stupid question are you sure all the bolts have been removed. Long nasty string of vitriol. Ok I am on my way.

Get to site. Foreman demonstrates the smoke pouring from the winch motors and the deflection of the monorails. I explained that it must be loading up or the beams wouldn't be bending and that the motors and winches are now likely munted. Much more swearing.

I climbed onto the plant, copping an even bigger spray along the lines of what are you doing? Get us a crane and get rid of these useless hoists.

I found a few bolts still tensioned holding the flanges together. Guys, how about removing these?

They got a hired crane, a full rebuild of the winches, new monorails and mounts. At their cost! And I got to go back to the happy place.
 

K.C.

Likes Dirt
We had an oldish bloke come into a shop I once worked at wanting new brakes on an immaculate Honda Prelude, the car had no towball so we just put standard brake pads back into it.

Anyway, the job goes out the door, everything working fine, 4 weeks later he comes back in swearing and cursing that we ripped him off because the brake pads were too soft and now metal on metal, we think that's odd, maybe a brake caliper has seized or an anti-rattle clip jammed the brake pad. We put this car on the hoist, remove the wheels, and brake rotors are almost jet black like the car's been driven at high speeds, everything else besides the worn brake pads looked fine on the car.

We call this bloke over and show him, he says that he's an old man and doesn't drive the car that hard and that we're scum and ripped him off. We get the rotor's machined and new heavy pads installed at our cost and send the old prick on his way, a few months go by and he comes back into the shop, I walk out waiting for a spurt of insults but he apologises and explains that the police came knocking on his door after they caught his teenage son in the car without a licence.
lol, years ago, i had no idea what a "brake job" was. Dude was telling me, "my brother used my car and did a brake job all weekend long and now the transmission is gone". Took him a while to explain to me you need to have the brake on while doing a burnout :rolleyes:, just says burnout man. gawd.
 

Cardy George

Piercing rural members since 1981
Worked as a retail manager at a big chain for a few years as a change to printing, which is how I came to assembling POS bikes as a side gig. Those who I worked with then and assemble for now know what my bike is roughly worth and by comparison how crappy what they sell actually is. So when a customer brings back a $200 shed ornament it's easy to say to them the customer took it outside and scared it, and then leave it to the poor sap to explain that to the customer. Every so often Poor Sap gets me involved in the argument, which almost invariably starts with "I paid $150 for this bike". Oh, sorry, I didn't realise. Just for perspective, you nearly paid for my tyres. Tends to calm them down pretty quick.

My favourite though was when the Customer Sevice assistant came to me for back up. The irate Karen was demanding a whole new bike because the wheel was buckled. "The blokes where I work said it is fucked, I want a new one."

"OK, let's have a look." Now, while it was quite a large wobble, it was well repairable. "I can fix that"

"No you can't, the boys said it was stuffed"

"I can. And this store has a repair or replace policy. This is repairable."

"How!"

"With my spoke key and twenty years of experience."

Ten minutes later she had a straight wheel back in her hands.

"Thanks, I guess." Ok, bye Felicia.

Customer Service Smurf watched the whole exchange. By the time I'd finished there for the day, the story had gone around the whole store. I was instantly elevated to Legend. Was even offered a role in management :D
 

pink poodle

気が狂っている男
"Well I'm having lunch with the prime minister next week and I'll be discussing this matter with him then."


And a few days later someone from John Howard's office called my boss.




Last night - just over 900 patrons, recently had some wifi and POS issues, told resolved, test run = all good, first customer triggers POS crash across whole crew.


Tonight - lots of new faces on the team, some are really green (first job green). One of them is serving 3 excited ladies the other side of 65. They are fishing out the grief about her wine pouring..."you have to at least fill it the line!" Now that one. And this one. And that one...new staffer handled it well but was all shook up after the mega Karens were finished.

One of my favourite scenarios.
I'll have 2 glasses of wine. I pour 1, go to pour number 2..."I asked for 2 glasses of wine." I know, but I can only pour one glass at a time. You can relax.
 

link1896

Mr Greenfield
"Well I'm having lunch with the prime minister next week and I'll be discussing this matter with him then."


And a few days later someone from John Howard's office called my boss.




Last night - just over 900 patrons, recently had some wifi and POS issues, told resolved, test run = all good, first customer triggers POS crash across whole crew.


Tonight - lots of new faces on the team, some are really green (first job green). One of them is serving 3 excited ladies the other side of 65. They are fishing out the grief about her wine pouring..."you have to at least fill it the line!" Now that one. And this one. And that one...new staffer handled it well but was all shook up after the mega Karens were finished.

One of my favourite scenarios.
I'll have 2 glasses of wine. I pour 1, go to pour number 2..."I asked for 2 glasses of wine." I know, but I can only pour one glass at a time. You can relax.
Nothing in the responsible service of alcohol laws say the server has to be sober right?
 

dirtdad

Wants to be special but is too shy
Scene -- Local cafe
Me: Hi. Can I please get a large flat white, and a bacon and egg roll with bbq sauce.
Cafe staff: Would you like bbq sauce on that...
Me: blinks Yes pls.
... Almost every time.
 

pink poodle

気が狂っている男
Scene -- Local cafe
Me: Hi. Can I please get a large flat white, and a bacon and egg roll with bbq sauce.
Cafe staff: Would you like bbq sauce on that...
Me: blinks Yes pls.
... Almost every time.
It's is good to see they were committed to the script!





FYI - people! Never be that person wanting coffee before the doors are open or while staff are zipping around getting set up unless you want to be served by someone who hasn't had their coffee yet. Those people need their caffeine too and yours will be better if you wait a little bit.
 
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