Tuesday, September 30, 2008

I deal with a wide range of people working at customer service. In face customer service is like the U.N. of the retail world. We deal with customers from every corner of the consumer world. Generally I like to help out this wide range of people, and do what I can to help them out. But once and a while I run into what I suppose would be the North Korea of customers. This last week was one of the more odd encounters I had. A woman walks up to the counter with her hands almost folded. Obviously holding something in her hands she gets to the counter and sets down a small melted ball of black goo. I looked at it closely, then to her, then back at the ball of goo. After a moment she broke the silence with the last think I expected her to say, "I want to return this." I stood, almost unable to speak, I just stared at her, to which she said again "I said I want to return this" louder this time like I hadn't heard her the first time. All I could muster to as was "what is it?" She then went into a story of how she had a music card that you redeem online by typing in the code on the back. Unfortuneatly she has set a hot metal pan on it and it burst into flames, causing the plastic to curl up into the black goo I saw before me. I had the unlucky task of having to explain to her that I can't return something that has been lit on fire. I assumed this was a resonable response, and I was wrong. My response sent her screaming and yelling at me about how I don't know anything about customer service and we should learn how to treat customers better. All I could do was sit there and take this screaming. Thats pretty much the story, so just remember: I will return most things not on fire.

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