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I may not be in CS anymore, but I have to say I did Call Center Customer Service overall for 10ish years over multiple companies.
\*Disclaimer some of this story is 3rd party as I wasn’t 100% in on each conversation \*
This story starts at my nearly last Call Center job, working the Team Lead/Escalations/Tier 2, of a home decor site.
Those of us on the team had a few back office responsibilities to perform throughout the day such as clearing part request to ensure they were done properly/monitor the outdated ones were being followed up on by the Customer Service Rep (CSR), We would check freight shipment pick-ups for customer refunds \^no one is more pissed than a person waiting on a refund\^.
The other task we did was submit to Accounting requests for refunds from In-Store Credit (ISC). The company would use ISC as a means to buy a replacement product (sometimes with expectations of a returned product and other times with expectation the product would be destroyed/disposed of and a replacement product sent).
Lo and behold the ISC refund request from Hell. Our lovely CSR, Sally, received a call from a person holding on to something of the value of $150.00 of ISC for a Chess set they returned \*4ish\* years prior. Sally, being the proactive CSR knows that we as a company do extend courtesies out to customers that have been holding onto ISC can request to have the ISC sent back to them as a physical check.
Sally does her job and submits the request to request the ISC be refunded back to the ISC holder as requested.
I find myself browsing our back office duties and find this masterpiece of shitfuckery.
The person who placed the original order is not the person requesting the refund.
\^HUGE RED FLAG\^
I already did my prior due diligence and verified all the pertinent details about how this person got ISC in their name while not being the original person who ordered it. I did not pass this request onto the Accounting Department for processing but rather sent the request to their direct supervisor for follow-up and coaching.
Yet, the cascade of calamities was yet to begin. The supervisor doing the bare minimum brought dear ol’ Sally into a 1-on-1 and discussed how the request couldn’t be done and to call the requester back and inform them accordingly.
Sally does make a call and leaves a voice mail but to whom?
It was not to the original caller requesting the ISC Refund…..Sally called the Corporation number of the original order and explained on the voice mail how we could not refund her.
The person who got the voice mail then contacted the person with the ISC and of course that escalated their issue to the team I was on.
The supervisor comes to me “asking” me to take the escalated call because I was familiar with the situation. Oh joy, I get angry lady on the phone and apologize to her profusely about the voice mail and explain the best I can about how refunds can only go back to the original purchaser as is the law.
This is when I am told why she wanted to keep everything hush hush. The Chess set was from a Christmas Party raffle and she didn’t want it or didn’t play Chess and someone in the past, well before my time, accepted it back a return for ISC.
I did what I could and since the cat was out of the bag. I informed her if the original purchaser would call in and request the ISC to be sent back as a check in their name we could process it and that person could sign the check over to her and everything would be in the clear.
This wasn’t the most route she wanted to go but was the only means.
Days later browsing the refund queue, we see the request pass it onto Accounting and I hope everyone at the end was satisfied but man that was not a happy Customer Service experience for anyone involved.
This post might have some past tense present tense swapping but I’m typing it out as is.
EDIT IN
**The amount of those commenting that don’t know about how money is refunded is astonishing**
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