Turns out writing on this subreddit is pretty therapeutical.
So I used to work customer service for a car rental company and this customer called in during the weekend to make a complaint. I live in Europe, and registration plates in my country are in this format 1234ABC (so four numbers and three letters). We also use the metric system, so we don’t use miles but kilometers (km).
Our rental agreements clearly stated the registration number of the vehicle, as well as the included km in the rental period (usually 350km per day were free and anything over that the customer has to pay), and the pick up km (how much was driven before the rental).
This customer calls me and immediately asks to file a complaint. I’m alone during the weekend and if I blow him off I know he will keep calling and I will still have to deal with him. So the conversation goes along these lines:
Me: Sir, what is the reason for the complaint? Maybe I can help you directly from my department. (Note that customer service is not supposed to deal with complaints from customers who have not picked up their vehicle yet/are currently with a vehicle, as we were post-service. There was a whole other department for this but I didn’t want to transfer him and make him more angry).
Customer: You people think you’re so slick trying to scam me with this car. Your papers are all wrong and I want to file a complaint, speak to a manager and get a discount on this rental!
Me: Sir, what exactly is the issue?
Customer: The registration number of the car does not match the paper! You are trying to scam me and give me a different vehicle!!
Ok, so at this point I’m like oh shit, the people at the station fucked up and gave him the wrong keys. I take a moment to look at his contract, which I luckily have in the system already even though the pick up was on the same day (system took a while to update the documents).
I ask him what the registration is on his vehicle, and what number he is seeing on the paper. I am going to make up some numbers for the purpose of the story.
Customer: The car is 2644KMV and the paper says 15627KM.
Now, you probably know where this is going. The guy simply does not know what is the registration number (clearly marked on the paper) and what are the kilometers (also clearly marked on the paper, and the car itself has a meter).
Me: Sir, it seems there has been a confusion on your part. Allow me to explain. The first number is your registration number, which you can see on the bottom left of the rental agreement along with the make and model of your vehicle, and the second number are the kilometers at the pick up, which are also marked on the paper a little further down. Do you see it in front of you? (I always make sure to ask them to confirm if they are seeing what I’m saying so I’m sure that they are actually listening to me).
He pauses for a few seconds and I hear some mumbling.
Customer: Yeah, I see it now. This is bullshit, you don’t even have the numbers marked clearly. The staff didn’t even tell me anything, and they didn’t inform me that I had to look at the numbers so I still want to file a complaint.
I opened a phone call (which doesn’t do shit) and gave him a case number. I also told him he could complain at the station when giving back the vehicle, but I made sure to say once more that the numbers are very clear on the paper and he needs to read the contract before signing anything and talk to the staff if there is something he doesn’t understand.
He says whatever, and that he doesn’t see this as his responsibility and hangs up.
Note: This customer was not foreign, so there wouldn’t have been any confusion about the formatting of the registration plate.
TLDR: customer wants to file a complaint because he can’t differentiate between a registration plate and the driven kilometers on a car.
submitted by /u/metabolt4e
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