Regardless, the woman purchased the items on the previous day, and company policy was to issue a check in the amount of the refund from our corporate office. Cash was not permissible under any circumstances.
Herbert went behind the counter and looked at the screen. "May I ask why you're returning all of this, Ma'am?"
"I got it all cheaper elsewhere," she muttered. "I don't see what that has to do with your store refusing to give me back my money."
"It was more of out of curiosity," he explained. "We don't usually get returns this large."
"Well then I guess your customers don't shop around for the best prices," she snarled back. "Now, I demand that you refund my money!"
I could almost see Herbie tell himself to look for the good in this woman. "Unfortunately, I can't do that. Company policy requires that we issue you a check in the amount of your refund. It will be mailed from our corporate office within one to three days after your check clears."
The woman pointed an artificial fingernail at Sasha. "She already said that. And I'm not accepting that offer. No one told me that when I paid for the items in the first place. Had I known that, I wouldn't have shopped here to begin with!"
"All return policies are posted at each register and on the back of your receipt," Herbie explained.
"Who reads receipts?" she shot back. "No one looks at those! They aren't binding contracts! Get a manager! I want someone who will actually help me."
Sometimes, we all want things we can't have. At that time, I was the manager of the customer service department. And I had been explicitly reminded by corporate that the check refund policy is non-negotiable. "I am the manager," Herbie told her. "And if I could help you further than this, I would. There are certain-"
Now she raised her voice to talk over him. "You're not helping me! You're not doing anything for me! You're giving me the same garbage story she's giving me!" Again, she pointed at Sasha.
And again, Herbie tried to explain. "There are certain-"
"I don't want to hear about rules and policies!" she shouted over him again. "I want my money and I'm not leaving without it!"
"There are-"
"Plenty of businesses bend the rules to make sure their customers are happy! Don't you want happy customers? Don't you?! I guess not!" She was trying to make a scene. That much was evident from the way her eyes darted from side to side to see if anyone was watching.
Looking at Herbie's face, I could see that he had given up trying to find any good in this woman. His stare was cold, his eyes narrow. He didn't say anything this time. Sasha kept quiet, but she looked ready to leap over the counter and tackle the lady.
"Well?" the customer growled after a few moments of Herbie's silence. "Don't you have anything to say to me?"
Herbie spoke in a low and steady voice; the voice that comes out whenever I'm trying to keep my raging anger under control. "That all depends on whether or not you intend to let me finish my sentence."
"The only sentence that should come out of your mouth is an apology!" she shouted at him. "Who is your boss? I want your supervisor this instant!"
Herbie gladly picked up the phone and paged Randy Mueller—he had taken over as general manager when Dean left the company a year earlier—to the service desk. Meanwhile, a sizable line had formed behind this stubborn lady, and many of those waiting were rolling their eyes at her. Sasha leaned to the side and said to the next customer, "We'll be with you as soon as we can. I apologize for the wait."
"They'll be with you as soon as they do the right thing," the woman added. "Your wait is their fault, not mine!"
When Randy arrived at the service desk, Herbie opened his mouth to explain the situation. Not surprisingly, he didn't get a word out.
"Listen," the lady began, putting both hands on the counter. "You really need to hire some competent people who have a clue about customer service. These two don't know the first thing about putting the customer first!"
"What seems to be the trouble?" Randy asked her, completely ignoring her comment.
She let out an exaggerated sigh as if to say she was tired of explaining herself. She wouldn't have had to if she'd let Herbie speak. "I bought these groceries yesterday. I want to return them today. These two buffoons won't give me back my cash."
Randy glanced at the computer screen. "You didn't pay by cash. You paid by check."
"Same thing," she said, rubbing her forehead.
"Not at all, actually," he told her. "A check is nothing more than a promissory note saying you have the money to pay for your products. We don't actually get paid for anything until the check clears and the bank deposits the proper amount into our account. That process generally takes several days."
"Well, when the check clears, you'll have that cash. So there's no reason why you can't give me cash now!"
Randy pressed a couple of buttons on the screen, and her transaction vanished. "Sasha, please take the next customer in line. Ma'am, if you wouldn't mind stepping over here," he shifted to the right side of the counter to give Sasha room to work, "I'd be happy to explain the situation to you." The woman made her reluctance to follow quite clear through her body language, but she complied.
I loved the way Randy dealt with customers. His voice never raised, he never let himself appear angry, and he never allowed anyone to bully him into doing what they wanted. "There are a number of reasons why we cannot give you a cash refund," he told her. "But there are really only two important reasons. First, your check has not yet cleared. I cannot give you money that hasn't been deposited into our account yet. Second, neither Herbert nor I have the authority to override this particular policy. Our corporate office has taken a very firm stance on the subject, and they do not allow the stores to make exceptions for any reason whatsoever. There are certain aspects of the return policy that we have the ability to waive, but the check refund policy is not one of them."
I know it was wrong, but I took pleasure in seeing the look on the woman's face as she finally began to realize that she was not going to be getting cash back. "This isn't fair," she mumbled. "I'm not waiting for a check from you people."
Randy didn't miss a beat. "Then I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to remove your products from my service counter and take them with you."
With a glare of what I can only call hatred directed at Herbie, the woman groaned. "Fine! I'll take a check."
Randy nodded. "Absolutely. Sasha will take care of it when she finishes with her current customer." He turned to Herbie before heading back to the sales floor. "Let me know when you've finished counting the safe. I had a discrepancy this morning and I want to know if you find it."
"Will do," Herbie answered.
As soon as Randy was gone, the woman started swearing under her breath, repeating over and over that we didn't know a thing about customer service. Herbie visibly bit his tongue and started toward the warehouse. He was still wearing his jacket and carrying his lunch.
"She was a fiery one, eh?" Doc said softly.
"She was the first of several difficult customers I ran into on this particular day. C'mon."
The Chronopod made it easy to jump ahead to the important parts of the day. The next difficult customer I remember running into was a middle-aged man who had a problem with the price of a product. Sasha called me to the service counter, and the customer proceeded to tell me that we were intentionally misleading customers with incorrect price labels. I tried to explain that there were several thousand individual price tags in the store and that accidents do happen. That got me nowhere. Even after I told him we'd refund the difference to his credit card, he continued to ramble on with threats of a lawsuit and complaints of our incompetence.
The price difference? Thirty-nine cents.
An hour or so later, I was heading through aisle seven with a customer when I came across a shattered jar of pickles on the floor. The juice had almost spread to either side of the
aisle, and shards of broken glass were everywhere—some even lodged into the pickles themselves. When we discovered the mess, I told my customer that I'd have to go and get someone to clean it right away. I noticed there was a woman browsing the shelves not five feet beyond the spill, so I asked her to please be careful.
She spared me a frown and grumbled, "Yeah, sorry about that. You got the shelves so packed here that it fell when I moved something else."
She was the person who'd knocked it off the shelf, yet she didn't tell anyone. Her apology wasn't exactly heartfelt, and to top it all off, there were tracks of pickle juice running right up to the glistening wheels of her shopping cart. So she had made the mess, didn't care, and actually appeared to have rolled her cart right through it. It was unbelievable.
But the cherry that topped off my day was a customer who thought he was going to take advantage of a promotion we were running. Easter Sunday was approaching, and many people were shopping for party and dinner supplies ahead of the holiday weekend. Grocery King will usually make a number of significant price cuts before holidays to attract customers. This particular year, the theme was barbeque. So all sorts of products for backyard barbequing were dramatically reduced in price. The Grocery King brand of plastic utensils, for example, was priced at ten cents for thirty utensils. We took massive profit hits on those items in exchange for bringing customers into the