Just go to the Customer Is Not Always Right website and keep clicking the Random button until the feeling goes away.
Here's one example from a bookstore employee in South Dakota:
Customer: “I am looking for one of those things that are like a book, but not a book.”
Me: “Do you mean a magazine?”
Customer: “No, no. It is like a book, but not a book.”
Me: *speechless*
Customer: “You know! A book thing, but not a book.”
(After the customer tries to explain this object to me for about 10 minutes, my coworker comes back from lunch.)
Coworker: “What seems to be the problem here?”
Customer: “I asked your coworker if you have those things that are like books but not books, but she is too simple to understand.”
Coworker: “You mean a magazine?”
Customer: “No! Is it so hard to just find one of those things? I thought this was a bookstore!”
(Overhearing us, my manager tries to help.)
Manager: “Is there a problem?”
Customer: “I am looking for a thing that is like a book, but not a book.”
Manager: “Well, let’s go look for it…”
(My manager ended up leading the customer all around the store, pointing out every thing we had. The thing that was like a book but not a book? A bookmark.)
3 comments:
Aphasia?
Yes, that's the only plausible explanation, but -- at least as it's described -- the aphasiac person is less unhelpful than s/he could have been, plus sounds very annoyed that the staff can't figure out the identity of that obscure object of desire.
I was surprised and delighted at the manager's solution.
By taking the problem customer on a tour of the store, the manager did two things at once:
Got the problem away from the obviously frustrated workers and changed the problem from a vocabulary thing to a visual thing.
Good job!
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