Mr Russia, The Bad to the Good

As promised I am going to tell you all about Mr Russia. This customer was a pain in the ass when he first contacted us but has turned into an good customer. Guess that goes to show people can change.

It all started when we got his order through our website. We flagged it straight away because some how he was getting 20kg of dog food to Russia for free. I couldn’t even action it before he was onto the live chat with my colleague saying that he couldn’t pay any delivery. What a nice guy, most people would take the free delivery and hope they get it but he actually contacted us to pay more. He was passed to myself via email and I emailed him advising him that I would send a secure payment link via email to him shortly.

I guess I should have used a different word than shortly because 5 minutes later he was back onto the live chat with my colleague saying he still hasn’t received the payment link. Talk about impatient lol. We sent him the payment link and within 10 minutes we had conformation of his payment. It was then he came back onto live chat saying his order still showed free delivery.

I am so glad this customer hadn’t phoned or I might have shouted at him telling him to just wait more than 5 minutes before complaining.

I had to drop my work just to sort this guy out because he was bugging not just myself but my colleague as well stopping us getting on with our work.

So he has now paid the full amount and I have put his new order onto our system and sent him email conformation of this. Surely there is nothing else he can contact me about.

Oh hang on, customers ALWAYS find something to comment or complain about.

Here he is again, at least he waited 30 minutes this time.

“Can I have the tracking number for my order please” is the email we received from him.

Does this guy think that not only the sales staff are going to drop everything to get him sorted but the dispatch team as well. After emailing him telling him that we haven’t dispatched it yet and that we would be dispatching it later today. I agreed to also email him his tracking number once we had one.

Man at least that is over with until the phone rings. Its my colleague. Turns out the food he had ordered was not in stock in our warehouse in the size bag he ordered. Great….

Back to the emails to tell him we wont be dispatching it today however he was fine with this as he was in no rush to receive it.

No rush…. really…. he bugged us every 5 mins about the order then for the tracking number and there is NO RUSH. Maybe no rush means something different in Russia.

Finally 2 days later we dispatched the product and sent him his tracking number. Its a good feeling when you know you have finished dealing with the customer and there is nothing more to say to him.

Lets fast forward about 1 – 2 weeks when I receive an email from Mr Russia.

“I haven’t yet received my product and the tracking number doesn’t work”

Hmm I guess this is what we deserve for using the courier Yodel

(For those who don’t know Yodel are in my opinion one of the worst parcel couriers around)

I tracked the parcel and it turns out Yodel only offer tracking details until it leaves the UK.

After countless phone calls to Yodel I get told it will be with him in 3 – 5 days and I forward this onto Mr Russia.

He received the dog food and was very happy with it. So much so he decided to order again.

The first I hear about this is my colleague skyping me with one word. “LOL”

I had nearly forgotten about the customer until she said look who just ordered. Again the price was charged at free delivery. Here we go again.

It wasn’t to bad this time because we had the food in stock and the extra payment went through with ease.

Mr Russia is one of those customers who starts bad so you really really hope he doesn’t come back or if he does a colleague gets him. I should be so lucky.

There were no further problems with Mr Russia until his third order. Firstly he requested it be put under his wife’s name as Russia customers will only let him import 24kg of food a month and he was ordering more than this. Secondly when he received the bag it was out of date. Now we don’t have a habit of keeping out of date food in the warehouse and it turns out this bag came directly from our supplier.

I kinda feel sorry for Mr Russia because it seems he can never have an order just be paid for and delivered no problems. We got the out of date food sorted and he has since changed the food he is ordering but he still has problems. This time it was nothing we did. Russian customs stopped the parcel due to lack of paperwork. Err woops, maybe it was warehouse’s fault that one :s

I have now received an email from Mr Russia saying he has got the food and all is well apart from the bag we packed it in was ripped and the free sample we sent him was split. He actually asked if we wanted him to pay for the sample. Bless him.

So there we have it. A customer who is impatient, awkward and just annoying at the start but turns out to be a nice guy and a valued customer.

The top 5 crazy customers.

So I have talked about a couple of customers and the full story but I thought I would share some of the customers that haven’t taken much of my time up but are just plain mad.

5. So you have had a delay in your order. The normal way to deal with this is to contact the person you paid your item from and ask for an update. Not this customer. They skipped any nice emails and went straight to the aggressive. First came an email saying “where is my item, I have been waiting long enough, this is unacceptable”. OK I can let that slide as she had been waiting for 10 days since she ordered. Turns out our supplier messed up and didn’t tell us. So we contact the customer and informed her of the issues with out supplier. Now I don’t know what anyone else would do but I think I would kinda understand that these things happen. Not this customer, she went mental. I had recently left her a voice mail as I decided to call and email her regarding the issue as she seemed upset about it. Big mistake. She called back and I picked up the phone. Do you ever see those comedy sketches where the actor is holding the phone a foot away from his head and you can hear the person on the phone. Yeah that was me, no word of a lie i held the phone at arms length because she was shouting so loudly. I felt I would have had a better chance at explaining what had happened to the portal turret sitting on my desk. I finally managed to get her to stop shouting and said that I would arrange another one to go out on a Saturday delivery. Her response was that if she didn’t get the product on Saturday then she would be slating our company all over the internet along with our supplier (who she didn’t know the name of). I think this was the first customer who actually shouted down the phone because of a small delay. It’s always the same reason, “I took a day off work to wait in for this parcel and now im a day’s wage down”. I have no sympathy for this because if you can’t be in for the parcel have it delivered to a family member or go and buy one at a shop at the weekend.

4. Talking of customer who want to slate the company this customer takes the top spot. It was an eBay customer and she ordered some dog treats. Now she miss-read the eBay listing and thought she was getting 10 packs of the item instead of 1. She only paid around £10 for the treats so how she thought she was going to get 10 packs for that price I will never know. It started off as a nice customer. She said she wanted to return them and we accepted the return. Nothing really bad happened until the item didn’t get back to our warehouse. She emailed us asking where her refund was and we informed her that we hadn’t received the parcel back. She couldn’t supply proof of postage so we have to wait for the parcel just in case she hasn’t sent it and is looking for a free refund. So time went on and still no product. Her emails became more aggressive and her last email took the biscuit. I can’t remember the exact wording but it went something like this.

“I have still not received my refund and it seems you just want to steal my money from me. I will be leaving you negative feed back on every review site I can and I hope you go out of business”

So not only does she want to leave a bad review she hopes we go out of business and all the staff lose there jobs. FOR A £10 ITEM. Needless to say just to shut her up we refunded her. She still left negative feed back but I am happy to report that wasn’t enough to shut down the entire business.

3. No customers sometimes get the measurements of a cage they want slightly wrong. maybe they say inches when they mean CM. This guy went slightly bigger than that. He was originally a walk in customer asking for a bird cage. My colleague dealt with him and I’m not sure what happened at that point. But the customer then phoned up asking if we found the cage. I asked him what cage he was after and he didn’t know he just wanted one a set size. So I ask him what size he wants. His response “I want 2, 12ft by 18ft and 12ft by 16ft”. Err what. 12 foot by 18 foot. What is he housing a pterodactyl. Needless to say we couldn’t supply one that big so he said that’s fine and went elsewhere. Now I know what your all thinking. That’s not to crazy how did that make it to number 3. Well I shall tell you. When we had finished talking on the phone and I said thank you good bye he made what I can only describe as the crazy frog start up noise. If you haven’t heard that you should youtube it right now. The guy was in his 50s as well.

2.  Number 2 is not so much crazy as a weird. This customer has brought a lawnmower, one of the £600 mowers. Now there is a delay as the courier seems to have lost it. The customer is happy with our service and is happy to wait until we resolve it with the courier. I agreed to call him Monday which is when he said it.

“I will await your call Monday….If I haven’t committed suicide by then. Its not been the best week”

OMG

Here is a guy who has just said he might kill himself over the weekend because of the bad week he has had. If any customer needs to be given stuff to keep him happy its him.

1. The top crazy customer has to go to the customer who doesn’t know what he wants. We get a call and they are after a product. My colleague actually took the call but it still deserves to be top on this list. From what my colleague told me the conversation must have gone something like this.

Jay2 – “Good morning how can I help”

Customer – “I want to buy something”

Jay2 – “What is it your after”

Customer – “I’m not sure”

Jay2 – “…………….”

Customer – “Chicago”

Jay2 – “Is that a brand of product sir?”

Customer – “I’m not sure”

Jay2 – “…………….”

Jay2 – “Have you had a look on our website. You can find our full range on there. I have done a search for Chicago but nothing is coming up”

Customer – “Ok never mind”

Hangs Up

I get the feeling this guy does it ever where. He walks into a restaurant “Table for 2 sir”, “I’m not sure what do you recommend” lol

So there we go. Top 5 crazy customers. We have had worse customers but they get stories to them self.

To anyone who reads this, if you work with customers please share your experience in the comments. Would love to hear if anyone else has to deal with the kind of insanity that we have to deal with.

Mr P – Not sure if he was mad or just plain stupid

Mr P is an elderly customer (I think not sure of his age). It started off as a general enquiry about a lawn mower.

Mr P – “Hello its Mr P, I’m after a mower”

Me – “Hello Mr P, I’m more than happy to help”

I took some details down, size of lawn, flatness, price he wanted to pay things like that

Me – “We have a couple of mowers that would suit your needs. They are both push mowers and are both within your price range”

Mr P – “The second one sounds good. Will it cope with the uneven ground I have here?”

Me – “I’m not 100% sure. I will need to look into this and get back to you”

This is where it gets “interesting” to say the least.

Me – “If I could take your contact number I will look into this and get back to you as soon as I can”

Mr P – “I don’t have a mobile”

Me – “Do you have a landline number I can get you one?”

Mr P – “I don’t want to give it because my mum or dad could answer and its none of there business you understand”

Hmm not wanting mum and dad to know what he is buying. Now this guy sounds in his 60s why would he care if his mum or dad know he was buying a mower. For that matter why was he living with them lol.

 

Me – “Not to worry, do you have an email address I could take”

Mr P – “I done use the internet, I will call you tomorrow”

I didn’t really have a chance to agree. he said good bye and hung up.

Great another crazy customer to add to the collection. Why did I always get these one.

So I looked into the mower. the more expensive one would suit him fine. I’m not the sort of person to recommend the most expensive if its not needed but in this case with all the details he gave me this would be the only one that would suit.

The following day Mr P phones up.

Me – “Hello Mr P, the mower we discussed yesterday will be able to cope with the uneven ground and is the most suited to your needs.”

Mr P – “That sounds good, what is the price for this again”

Me – “The price is (can’t remember exact price but was just over £200 – FOR A PUSH MOWER THEY ARE INSANE)”

Me – “We will also add a free tin of lubricating spray for the blades to ensure that they are kept in the best shape”

Mr P – “That sounds fair. I would like to go ahead with the order”

Me – “OK I will need a few details ”

I take his address down and get to his phone number

Me – “And could I take a contact number please”

Mr P – “I don’t want to give it over the phone, I don’t know who is listing”

OK the crazy is showing through. I’m going to regret taking this order I think.

Me – “We require contact details either a contact number or email address in case there is a problem with your order or delivery”

Mr P – “I will send the phone number when I send the payment”

I was a little confused with this remark but I had already branded him crazy by this point

Me – “Do you have a card to pay with today”

Mr P – “I don’t use debit or credit cards”

Someone shoot me now.

Me – “How would you like to pay for this mower then sir.”

Mr P – “I will send you a cheque”

Me – “I will just have to ensure we can accept a cheque for a large amount please hold for a second”

I checked with my boss and he was happy to accept the cheque.

Me – “My manager has agreed to accept the check. please send this to our address”

So the following week the cheque arrives with a contact number, a bloody mobile number. but hang on he said he didn’t have a mobile. Oh well a number is a number. We cashed the cheque and sent his mower and thankfully there wasn’t a problem with delivery.

3 weeks past and I got a call from a lady who said that she was Mr P’s mother.

Now this woman sounded in her late 30s but he sounded in his 60s at least. Brain Hurts

At least she spoke some sense but it meant more hassle

Mr P Mum – “We would like to return this mower”

Me – “Can I ask why you would like to return the mower”

Mr P Mum – “It doesn’t work. It wont cut the grass correctly”

Me – “It may be that you haven’t set the mower up correctly. I can send you some videos on how to set this up or talk you through the process if you would like”

Mr P Mum – “We shouldn’t have to set it up it should be ready to go out of the box. We want to return it”

Me – “That’s fine please return the product to our return address and we will arrange a refund once we receive the product”

I had forgotten that Mr P had paid by cheque. Oh what a mess

Mr P Mum – “Please advise when you will pick the parcel up”

Wait, first they want to return because it doesn’t work but wont take some time to set it up correctly then apparently its us that has to pay to pick it up. Now that doesn’t sound right

Me – “Unless the product is damaged it will be down to yourself to return this product. We can help you in setting up the product as this will enable you to use the product fully.”

Mr P Mum – “This product doesn’t work. Please arrange a courier to pick up the mower”

Me – “I will need to contact my manager regarding this. Please hold”

I explained what had happened to my manager and he said to just arrange a pick-up. Often the best option to get rid of these sorts of customers.

Me – “OK I will arrange the collection of this mower”

We discussed the best day for collection and I arranged it but not without more hassle.

Me – “You will need to stick the label on the front of the parcel. Do you have access to a printer and the internet”

Mr P Mum – “No we don’t have a computer here”

Me – “We will need to post the label to you so we will need to put back the collection date so that we can guarantee you have the label ready.”

We arrange the new date and sorted the label out.

Me – “Once we receive the mower we will arrange for a cheque to be sent back as your refund”

Mr P Mum – “Can the refund not go back onto our card”

Me – “Mr P sent us a check therefore we will need to refund in the same fashion”

Finally I was done. The mower came back and stunk of oil which Mr P had used on the blades.

This was the most bizarre customer I have dealt with in a long time. including my time in customer service at a supermarket. he seemed like an elderly man but his “mum” seemed in her 30s, he didn’t own a mobile but sent a mobile number (which we called and he answered) and he paid by cheque because he didn’t own a card yet his mum wanted the refund back onto “his” card.

Its not easy keeping calm on the phone. Sometimes I want to laugh, sometimes cry and sometimes just shout down the phone.

More stories will follow and I think you will find Mr Russia particularly annoying although he has become a valued customer his beginning orders were a pain in the ass.

 

 

The not so nice Mrs V

Hmm where do I begin with Mrs V. She started as such a nice customer, a phone in customer. She wanted a product which she had previously purchased, I sold it to her and I thought that was that. Oh how wrong I was. It began with a phone call.

Mrs V – “I only received one product. I ordered two”

Me – “I’m sorry about that. I will ensure the second item is dispatched ASAP”

I informed her that the missing item would be dispatched and I dispatched it myself to ensure that it went correctly.

So 2 weeks pass and suddenly I’m handed the phone by my colleague, low and behold Mrs V is back.

Mrs V – “I am still missing one of the products” she said.

I’m still thinking she is OK as the replacement could have been lost in the post.

Me – “Thank you for informing me Mrs V. We dispatched the second item to you 2 weeks ago however it may have been delayed”

Mrs V – “I received a second parcel but im still missing one”

OK now I was getting confused. she ordered 2 items. we sent her 2. she said she only received 1 so we sent another (they didn’t cost much so wasn’t to big a deal).  Now she is saying she received the second parcel but is still one short. This needs further investigation.

Me – “Im a little confused Mrs V. So you have received the new parcel and the first but your still a product missing is that correct?”

Mrs V – “Yes I am”

Me – “According to your order you only ordered 2 products and have only paid for 2 products”

Now this is where it gets interesting.

Mrs V – “I ordered 2 packs of 2 and I have only received 1 pack of 2 and 1 pack of 1”

Me – “According to your order you ordered 2 packs of 1. These products only come in single packs”

This discussion went on for 15 minutes. It ended with her complaining like mad that she paid so much (about £13 for both products) and not getting what she thought she was paying for.

Eventually she just hung up on me and I was just thankful to be off the phone with her.

3 weeks later

So today the boss is in. He often works from home but he had a few meetings so was in for the day. The phone rings and I answer thinking it will just be a nice easy call because it was the land line number. Oh what a fool I was.

The fear that shot over me when I heard Mrs V’s voice was high.

Mrs V – “Im still waiting for the rest of my order”

OMG did she just ignore what I was saying last time. She still thinks she is getting another product.

Me – “Mrs V, as explained before we have sent your full order and you have acknowledged receiving it.”

Mrs V – “No I am still one product short”

Anyone else feel like a broken record sometimes

Me – “Your order was for 2 packs, each pack has a single product in it. We have now sent you 3 packs which you have acknowledged receiving therefore you have an extra product. On this occasion we will not ask for this back as there was confusion regarding the order. We are now out of pocket for this order.”

Mrs V – “I wouldn’t pay that much for single packs and I need the last product sent”

Is she just ignoring me. At this point I actually put the phone on hold (means I can hear her but she can’t hear me) and I just let my head bang on the table. My boss looked over in a kind of shock and asked what was wrong. I explained the situation to him and he said he would take the call.

I was relieved. The boss was always good at getting the point across to customers so I thought this will be a quick 2 minute conversation for him. Oh how wrong was I.

about 20 minutes he was on the phone. It appears she demanded a refund from us as we hadn’t sent the whole order according to her. I heard the boss tell her that if she wants to return all the products we sent her we can issue her with a full refund but we would not be able to do any further unless we got the products back. She again just hung up on the boss (quite rude if you ask me) and that was the end of it.

The boss looked amazed at the fact the customer would not stop going in circles.

So that’s the end of it……..

No it isn’t 🙂

1 week later

A letter arrives FAO myself or the boss (Both have the same first name)

I open the letter and guess what. Its a hand written letter from Mrs V. Now the letter was very hard to read however the outlining fact was she hadn’t received her refund she was “promised”. Now come on, I can understand her not understanding the whole only 1 in a pack not 2 but how did she get the impression she was getting a full refund. We had no reason to refund her and she had no right to a refund without returning the products. The letter was filed in case we needed it in the future and we let the issue fall into the nether. But this was not going to stop. I honestly thought that Mrs V would never leave us alone regardless what we done.

3 weeks after the letter

My colleague answer the phone and appears to be having trouble with a customer. Now this was about a month after my colleague started with the company so I offered to take the call for him.

Me – “What is the customer after?”

Jay2 – “She said she hasn’t got her refund but I can’t find her order”

Me – “Give me the phone and I will sort it out for you”

Jay2 – “Thanks”

I take the phone from him and answer it

Me – “Hello, My name is James how can I help”

Customer – “Its Mrs V here. I’m still waiting for my refund”

I think I actual let a little whimper out when I heard it was her. There must have been a look of anger/fear on my face because Jay2 definitely noticed something was wrong.

Me – “Hello Mrs V, we haven’t received your products back yet so we can’t issue a refund”

Mrs V – “When I spoke to your boss he said he was going to refund me”

Me – “My boss agreed to refund you if you wanted to return the products you received. We would then be able to issue you with a full refund however as we have sent your entire order to you wont be issuing a refund until that point.”

Mrs V – “But I haven’t received my whole order yet.”

Mr – “As we explained before you have received the order you placed. You ordered 2 packs of this product and we have sent you 2 packs. We have in fact sent you 3 packs so you have had 1 for free. We will not be issuing a refund as well as we are already out of pocket.”

This “argument” went on for another 20 minutes. I managed to get her to understand that she ordered packs of 1 not 2 and that she had miss-read the packing slip that we send with all orders. Some how though after 10 mins of her understanding she some how forgot it all again. Then she finally ended it.

Mrs V – “So I wont be getting a refund?”

Me – “Not until we have received your products back to our warehouse”

Mrs V – “And you aren’t sending me the rest of my order?”

Me – “We have already sent your full order plus an additional product”

Mrs V – “Right I am not ever shopping with you again and will be lodging a complaint against your company”

Before I could say anything that lovely sound of a hung up phone was heard. Finally she had gone.

Mrs V is one of the most awkward customers I have had the misery of dealing with. however there are a few more that come close. Mr P and Mr Russia for example but they are for another story….

 

 

A little about myself

So my name is Jay, I work for a e-retail company as an e-commerce assistant. Its a funny job sometimes, I deal with some amazingly nice customers and some real asses as well. I thought I would share my tales and customers with whoever wants to read. All accounts are of real customers (names changed) and real outcomes.