Especially when you operate in a customer service world and that person you are breaking up with happens to be a customer. This marks the second customer i've had to break up with. Trust me, the conversations aren't easy. In fact, the first time i had to do it was about 2 months ago. These customers were true regulars...ordering almost once a week. The problem? They loved everything well done. okay, so that's not really the problem. The problem was that they (and by they i mean the wife) wanted a certain amount of well-doneness. Not a smidge too little or too much. This can be hard to do during a friday night dinner rush (when they happened to order most) when your oven is a conveyor oven and its jammed packed with food for all of our other customers. At those times its not easy to make room to keep pushing the pizzas back..oh it wasn't quite well enough so i push it back a second time....crap its still not quite right. maybe if i move this cheesybread over here and take this pizza out and move these wings i can find room to push it back a third time...crap stuff is gonna fall out of my oven if i don't quit messing with this one pizza and start boxing some of these...you get my drift, right? Just for the record, i will do most reasonable requests for any customer. i enjoy my customers (especially regulars) and like making them happy. Love it even. But Sharon (*name has been changed*) would always call back and talk to me like we've never had this same conversation before, or that we had never met. And the convo would start out with her saying something like this.. "i just don't understand why you can't get the concept of well done. Some weeks its great, and about every other time its just the crappiest food i've ever eaten because it isn't well done when i clearly asked for well done." One time, i burned the pizzas (kind of) just to see what she said, since they were never done enough. yeah, she wasn't a fan of that either. sigh. So what do i do? I have to give them their money back or make them new food. That is our policy and one i never mind doing for my customers if they are unsatisfied (luckily 95% of my customers frickin' rock, excluding certain college kids of course, so this doesn't happen too often). Well, one night i had had enough. I received the call from Sharon, she again acted like this is the first time we've ever spoken about this topic, she wanted her money back (because she KNOWS our policy, believe me) so she was sending her husband up there to pick it up. I just want to say, for all of Sharon's craziness, her husband is awesome. Totally laid back, very sweet and always smiling. He even rolls his eyes when Sharon is putting on her show about her food. But i was done with her. I figured out i had refunded her money or given them free food like 22 times. We are a business people, we do need to make money or nobody will get pizzas. And its gotten to the point that when they walk through my door i say to myself..crap, i'm gonna lose money...ugh. So in comes her husband, all smiley and nice, and i politely gave him the money and asked to speak to him outside. I won't go through the whole conversation, but it started out like this...
Me: So, it just seems like we can never quite get the order right for you guys
Him: Well, you know how Sharon is...she just believes that if she is paying money for food she deserves to have it exactly the way she wants it. She's very particular.
Me: I totally understand, and i agree that she should get what she pays for and wants. But we can't seem to be able to do that for her despite our trying, and while i love my customers and especially regulars like you, i have to wonder if maybe another pizza place would be a better fit.
Him: This sounds kind of like a break up talk
Me: Yeah that's kind of what it is.
At this point he just kind of shook his head, then (and i was not expecting this at all) he launched into a vent session about his wife and how she does this at every restaurant they frequent and he is always trying to get her to mellow out but she's just so particular about some things and gosh every manager must hate them and fear them when they walk in the door and ...big breath in... he's been putting up with this for 9 years and he's just so sorry and can they please keep ordering food from me because they just love Domino's and they really like me as the manager and i'm always just so nice and patient with them and...
yeah. i avoided punctuation so you would get the gist of how he was just airing it all out. At one point i wondered if he was gonna turn all smurf-like from lack of oxygen. He begged and pleaded..literally...for me to reconsider. I told him that i would be happy to serve them, but if (and only if) they dealt directly with me. Meaning i would do their order start to finish, starting with the phone call. They had to ask for me directly..that was my condition.
The customer today reminded me of that first experience. Maybe being the General Manager of a quick service restaurant is starting to harden me in the business world. i don't know. But i do know that as she complained about everybody involved in her order two weeks ago..with the main complaint being the way my driver knocked on her door in the MOST unprofessional way (yes, you read that right) and accusing my assistant of being ignorant and stupid, that i didn't let it get to me. When i asked her what we could do to be better since we've messed up the last 5 times she ordered, she literally snarled at me and said "how do you know that, why would i remember how you messed up those times". I explained to her that i could see by her order history we had to free out every order over the past 7 months, so it was obvious to be we were doing something wrong, and that i just wanted to know how to fix it so we could better serve her. I guess she felt trapped in her lie (yes, i am accusing her of being a scammer. i've done this a long time people) so she told me i was unprofessional (i learned that this is her most favorite word) and uneducated and that she would be calling my boss to inquire why he would allow someone like me to operate part of his business. Well that went about like i expected it to. I am sure that if you found out the places she is a frequent customer at, she is a problem everywhere. The part that confused me was that she got so mad right off the bat. And i have 2 witnesses that will tell you i was being very polite AND quite professional, thank you.
I guess my question is...at what point is it no longer beneficial to your business to have someone as your customer? I give people the benefit of the doubt the first several times. But that's why i document this stuff, to protect my store and the morale of my customers and employees. I certainly hope this is the last time i ever have to do something like this...but with the economy in the shape its in and people trying to pinch pennies everywhere they can, we're seeing it more and more. Many people are trying to cut corners and costs anyway they can, and unfortunately this sometimes includes taking it out on businesses to get something for free. I feel for them, i really do. But this is a business. We are here to serve our customers AND make money. Is that too much to ask?
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