Friday, April 30, 2010

Table Lady.

A woman was interested in a small side table and asked me to put it on hold while she thought about it. She came back about an hour later and said she would buy it. When I rang up her purchase, she got an angry look and said "That's not right!" and started going off about how when she was in earlier (an hour before), the price was $50 less.

Ah. That game. Lady, I've played it before. See, the customer acts irate and keeps mentioning the price they thought was correct (a.k.a. the price they want to pay) for the item. In the case yesterday, she kept saying "it was like $130!". They are hoping that the clerk will freak out and panic and lower the price because "the customer is always right." Sometimes the customer will escalate the situation to accusations. "YOU changed the price!" The woman yesterday was very close to it. I was silently daring her. Come on. Go ahead. Tell me I raised the price as soon as you left. Say it aloud and listen to your own bullshit.

The weirdest part about situations like this is that they are still a sort of conversation. The customer says all these crazy angry things and then shut up and wait for a response. When this happened with the table lady, I did the following things:
1. read the price tags aloud. "This is the regular price," I said, "and this is the sale price."
2. looked in our sale book to confirm the prices. I also read these prices out loud.
3. suggested that maybe she had seen a different round side table with the same price. Even though I knew we didn't have anything like her table in her suggested price range, we went on a hunt through the store looking at every table. And when this didn't produce any results, I
4. noted that there was a slight smudge on the plastic sleeve holding the price tag for her table and maybe that smudge made the 9 look like a 3?
5. asked her if she wanted me to hold the table a little longer if she needed to think about it.

Basically, "Bitch. Give it up."

"Oh, I'll just get it!" she said. And then what does she do? She pulls out a wad of cash, for the exact amount of the table as it's posted.

Games, I tell you. Fucking playing games.

3 comments:

  1. God, people do that all the time in my store too. My manager pretty much lets them get away with it too. It drives me insane!

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is INSANE.
    I'm so sorry you have to deal with terrible people like that.
    You are a far stronger woman than I.

    ReplyDelete