[no2pencil]

When was the last time that you did something for a customer, because you felt you should? Because you know you can, & that it would really help out the situation?

Over this past week I was at the home of one of my return customers. He's an elderly man who's too old to continue bringing his pc to my shop, so now I go to his home. For the last two years I've been servicing his pc. Over the course of these 2 years he's been using Avast anti-virus at my suggestion, & before that he used Norton which had an expired subscription, & most likely the reason why he had virus infections.

So when I arrive he asks if I would mind looking at his credit card statement. On it he shows me a $35.95 charge that was paid in May, to Trend Micro. The question being, he's never heard of this company & wants to know if it's familiar to me. I explain to him that it's an anti-virus company, an industry leading one at that, & most likely an annual subscription from a previous installation. His next request was for me to call them, & get it canceled because he's frustrated with trying to talk to them on the phone & getting no-where.

After three wrong numbers (all resellers) I am finally able to get the corporate office on the phone. They insist that I must provide them with the customers email address, & as luck would have it, his AT&T address does not pull up any subscription. To this I explain to the rep, you are charging this customer of mine, certainly you have an alternative way in your system to look him up. A short hold time later, they have his information & I verify the account. So we put a stop on the re-occurring payment & my customer is very happy because I got the job done.

Time to step into action.

My next move is to explain to this customer representative that I've been servicing this customers PC for two years & in that time he's never even had Trend Micro installed, & I'd like to see his most recent payment refunded. The customer rep says that the most recent charge is well over the 30 days & there is no way they can make a refund. At this point my customer is laughing & says "There is no need for you to ask that...". Well, one more try couldn't hurt. I explain that in two years he's never hit their server for an update, used their product, or even so much as used any resource for the money that's been collected. Surely there must be something they can do to offer some sort of a refund. I'm placed on hold again for another 3 or so minutes. The customer representative comes back on the phone & says they will refund $26 & some change (don't remember), which is the equivalent of 9 months.

Needless to say, my customer was very, very pleased by this.

Less than 10 minutes to do the right thing. Not because I had to, because I could.

Please share with us your stories of going above & beyond for a customer, just because you knew you could.

[lordofduct]

I put it to one of my customers... good and hard.




nah, good story bro. I don't do well with customers so never really was put in that position all that frequently. Well there was this one time while I was a truck driver that this girl's dad had got her a used car for her graduation. Just a little beater that she could take off to university. We got in real early to where they were at and I parked the car right in front of her window, got back in the truck and pulled the horn. The girl comes to the window at like 6AM all sleepy and shit and sees the car, I honk again, wave, and drive off as she comes bolting out the door all happy and shit.

That was cool I guess.

This post has been edited by lordofduct: 18 June 2011 - 11:21 PM

[no2pencil]

Just because you give them candy doesn't make them your customers.

[ishkabible]

i want to go to no2's store. i envision it as a magical place with modest front desk, computer parts strewn about, a room full of servers in the back, and a little thing on the door so that when people come in he hears it and hides the pron...

[Slice]

I work part-time at a supermarket to put my self through University. Needless to say, I spend a lot of time with customers.

There was a time when some woman wanted some specific brand of garlic cheese. We stocked different items of that brand, but not a garlic variety which she said she buys all the time. Being a gentleman, I took her to the customer service desk and phoned 5 of our other stores in the nearby area and asked them if they sold this cheese.

It was only on the last call that I got some answers. The person I spoke to put out a tannoy call for someone from the cheese department. I explained what I was looking for and he put me on hold. Turns out he had a rep from the dairy company who produces that cheese in the store, who told him it doesn't exist. He followed up by saying "it's a nice idea though."

God I hate customers.

[creativecoding]

ishkabible, on 19 June 2011 - 12:52 AM, said:

i want to go to no2's store. i envision it as a magical place with modest front desk, computer parts strewn about, a room full of servers in the back, and a little thing on the door so that when people come in he hears it and hides the pron...

And no matter the problem you give him, he can fix it.

Oh and a fog machine, don't forget that. Fog everywhere.

[BenignDesign]

.... and through the thick, nearly blinding fog, you catch little twinkles of the magical glitter embedded in everything from the walls to the keyboards... and you see ocassional glipses of movement from the tiny gnomes that run about fixing the small problems so no2 can focus on the bigger problems.

And the entire shop is most likely inside a hollow tree in a magical wood full of lush, green moss and red, polka-dotted toad stools.

Spoiler

This post has been edited by BenignDesign: 20 June 2011 - 07:29 AM

[supersloth]

when i worked retail i used to think the customer was always right.

now that i've been a developer for 7 years, i know they are always wrong. always.

[xclite]

I always provide a Happy Ending at discount prices.

[Nykc]

A customer who was blatantly rude and nasty to me right from the get go came in and ordered a single with cheese combo and then began to tell me it better not have mustard on it and then begins treating me like I am 15. Well this is uncalled for I was a 16 year old and very insulted by this treatment. Since I was working the register I just smiled and said rest assured ma'am I will personally see to it this is taken care of.

I made her the sandwich and completely smothered it in Mustard! This was going above and beyond as I was only expected to work the register and I took the bull by the horns so to speak to ensure my client had the burger she so desired.

[xclite]

Quote

begins treating me like I am 15. Well this is uncalled for I was a 16 year old and very insulted by this treatment.

Is there really that large of a difference between 15 and 16?

[supersloth]

depends when your balls drop i guess.

[creativecoding]

supersloth, on 20 June 2011 - 10:20 AM, said:

when i worked retail i used to think the customer was always right.

now that i've been a developer for 7 years, i know they are always wrong. always.

What if the customer said "the customer is always wrong"?

[BenignDesign]

They would still be wrong.

Sheesh. Plz try to keep up.

This post has been edited by BenignDesign: 20 June 2011 - 10:44 AM

[creativecoding]

BenignDesign, on 20 June 2011 - 11:44 AM, said:

They would still be wrong.

Sheesh. Plz try to keep up.

Because if they stated that the customer is always wrong, but that was wrong, the only logic correct or truth would be "the customer is always correct"