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So I have a wealth of stories of abusive customers after working in a small but extremely busy call centre for 4 years, this particular story is one of my favourites though.
A gentleman had called up and required a quote for a cyclonic fence he was installing, I began running through the list of materials with him and he stopped me stating “no no, I only need x, y and z” and the quantities of each component. I explained how our fencing worked and why it would not work, nor be cyclone rated should he leave out the other materials but he was adamant so it rather than argue I put the quote together as requested and emailed it over to him, in the email I made sure to put in writing WHY he would be short of material as well as referred him to the installation guide to give him a visual, he could then physically see why it wouldn’t work the way he wanted to do it.
I attached the quote he wanted along with a second quote which contained everything he actually needed for the job, and signed off stating to contact me if he would like to proceed with either. I wanted to cover all bases because I knew it was going to cost him about $1500 to have a freight company collect the goods and take them to his job site up north, so having to place yet another order for the remaining material was going to cost that again, plus delay him being able to put said fence up. He replied to my email thanking me for both quotes and my advice, and would be in touch.
He called and said he would like to go with quote 1 (his material list) and I read back through it confirming multiple times that he was sure this is all he wanted to order, that this was all he required. Yes, yes, yes he reckons. Ok no problem, I tried my best.. I took payment emailed his receipt, job done.
2 weeks later I take a call, this man is going off.. “I’M SHORT OF MATERIAL, YOUR COMPANY SCREWED UP MY ORDER, HOW CAN YOU EXPECT ME TO PUT THIS FENCE UP WITHOUT THESE COMPONENTS? THIS IS COSTING ME TIME AND MONEY” Blah blah blah. I apologise and ask for his invoice number so I can look into the issue and get it sorted, bingo! It’s my guy. I calmly and without trying to sound smug state to him that it was in fact me that he had spoken to, me that had done his quote and processed his order and that I had made every attempt to convince him to order what he now claimed was “missing”. He went very quiet so I let him stew for a moment and then said that although we were not going to cover freight costs or give him them for free because this was not our mistake or stuff up, I would be able to supply him those items at cost price and have the goods manufactured express so he could have them ready for freight within 2 days instead of 10.
He huffed and puffed a little bit, I told him I was sorry for the situation he was in but that I had tried and tried to avoid it, he actually sighed and said I was right and thanked me for doing what I could to help him out.
A win for me that day, I was so glad that he happened to get me when he called popping off so I could call him straight out on his bullshit. Very satisfying indeed!
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