🙂 My first retail job was Saturdays in a greengrocer’s. One day a guy came in with 5 Outspan Oranges demanding his money back. We did not sell them. I started to speak but the boss interrupted and politely apologised and offered to replace them. I tried to speak but the boss silenced me. The customer – who I had never seen before – went away very smug. The boss said “I know, he bought those from [our nearest competitor]. You’ll see why I did it.”
That man was a frequent customer every week after that.
That greengrocer was the most honest (he realised being an honest greengrocer was worth more than fiddling people, that’s how he went from a market stall to owning two shops), most business-savvy and sharpest manager I ever had the pleasure to work for.
That was a good thing to do, but he still should have made it clear to the customer that he was doing him a favor. I was fine with managers overriding my adherence to store policy, but I HATED it when they created a situation where the customer could assume I was incompetent during the process. Repeat customers that are obnoxious and/or difficult to please are very rarely worth the original effort.
Entitlement, thy name is “customer.”
🙂 My first retail job was Saturdays in a greengrocer’s. One day a guy came in with 5 Outspan Oranges demanding his money back. We did not sell them. I started to speak but the boss interrupted and politely apologised and offered to replace them. I tried to speak but the boss silenced me. The customer – who I had never seen before – went away very smug. The boss said “I know, he bought those from [our nearest competitor]. You’ll see why I did it.”
That man was a frequent customer every week after that.
That greengrocer was the most honest (he realised being an honest greengrocer was worth more than fiddling people, that’s how he went from a market stall to owning two shops), most business-savvy and sharpest manager I ever had the pleasure to work for.
That was a good thing to do, but he still should have made it clear to the customer that he was doing him a favor. I was fine with managers overriding my adherence to store policy, but I HATED it when they created a situation where the customer could assume I was incompetent during the process. Repeat customers that are obnoxious and/or difficult to please are very rarely worth the original effort.