The customer is not always right

I am a veteran of retail, ten years in fact. Retail is often like a battle to balance the demands of the customers with the company needs and rules. As we all know "the customer is always right."

Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year, used to be one of the most dreaded days of my life. Fighting the crowds to get a parking spot, then trying to put on a happy face as a zillion customers complain that we are out of a certain product or the lines are too long. Seriously it is freaking black Friday people, the lines are going to be long and the cheap items are only going to last so long, you should have gotten up with the crazies and been here at 6:00am and climb under the gate to get to the cheap good stuff. After hearing this excuse 20,000 times, I would tell people that we didn't have magical Keebler elves in the backroom whipping up lotion but if they knew where we could hire them please give them one of our applications. That was always good for a chuckle out of some husband who couldn't figure out a clever way to get out of shopping on Black Friday.

I have many war stories.

The time this woman demanded that I damage a $100 gift set because we were out of that particular lotion but it was in the gift set. She actually took it out of the gift set and brought it up to the cash wrap thinking that we would sell it to her, we didn't. We put the lotion back and sold it to some unsuspecting husband who didn't know better.

Then there was the lady who after finding out we discontinued her favorite fragrance told every single person in line that lotion land was horrible and that we always "discontinue my favorite fragrance!" Okay, first it isn't like you lost out on a kidney, it is only lotion. Second, if you purchased more of the product perhaps the lotion gods would have spared you. I still think it is funny that people think that we do this to them because we know that "cotton-sweet pea-bubble-wonderment" is your favorite fragrance. The lotion land lotion trackers do not have a camera in your bathroom to see that oh my goodness let discontinue Carol's favorite lotion she is due for some disappointment. Seriously move on people.

Another one of my favorites was the time that a woman (again why is it always a woman, notice I never have any irrational man stories about being out of lotion) took out the inners of a gift set (again leave the inners of gift sets alone people) and saw that the geniuses at home office left the price tag on one of the items of the set of three trial sizes on it. She actually thought that the tiny baskets they were sitting in were actually fifteen dollars and the three cello wrapped trial sizes (which individually retailed at five dollars) were in fact only five dollars. When I proceeded to explain to her that she was mistaken she played the "I want to talk to your manager" card. Well honey, I was the only manager on duty and told her no. She then said fine I'll go to mall customer service and handed me her bag.

Here is the thing, mall customer service has nothing to do with the stores in a mall other than to direct you where the nearest Hot Topic is so that you can get your 13 year old obsessed teenage daughter her "I love Edward Cullen" t-shirt. The crazy "I want three products for the price of one lady" came back after discovering this and said wanted the lotion land customer service number. Okay, if you threaten to call customer service most of the time the person at the store will give in because the customer service people are usually never people who have even set foot on a sales floor let alone dealt with "I want three products for the price of one lady." Customer service 99.9% sides with the customer, no matter how silly the customer behaves. I gave because in the long run, it wasn't my money I was losing and I wasn't going to take the fall because some person back at lotion land headquarters couldn't figure out that it is probably not a good idea to leave an extra tag on something in a gift set you want to sell for $15.00 and that tag be cheaper than the gift set.

Yet, even with the silliest of silly women there are still happy memories. The time I lost my mind and sang a version of silver bells describing lotion and the wonderment of lotion land. Another was when I was so brazen to tell a man that waiting in line that to buy just one bottle of lotion was a waste of his time and mine so why not just buy three more (this particular story was also in front of my boss and my boss' boss). The man agreed and bought more, delighting the district manager and giving a relieving breath to my actual boss as she did not have to fire me because of some irrational guy because guys are not irrational usually in lotion land.

One more fun story was when the people in the line would not make one orderly line and so I told the ladies at the cash wrap not to ring up anyone else. I announced to the customers "unless you get into one line no one else will be rung up. Please just leave your shopping baskets on the floor, we'll put all the stuff back." Five minutes later they were all in the line.

I am telling all these stories not to just describe my experience in retail or to even relive my lotion land days. Black Friday was just simply a battle to defend your company and employees from the wrath of the customer. Yet never in my life would I imagine a situation where someone who die because the customers thought that they were right.

This black Friday a man from Queens New York died because a crowd at a Long Island Wal-Mart trampled him to death because they wanted a TV for $400 and they were mad that the store did not open right at 5:00am. As the story goes, the Wal-Mart did not open in time so the customers took it upon themselves to push open the doors, probably thinking "I am the customer so I will do what I want." Also in the may lay an eight month pregnant woman was hurt as were four other people. I cannot believe that people, the day after we said thanks, are so greedy and selfish that a man has to die so that you can get a TV at a discount. Here is the link if you want to hear the story http://www.yahoo.com/s/994444.

After seeing this report I wonder about this man's family, he was only 34. He died because someone couldn't wait another five minutes. He died because customers have some ridiculous notion that they call all the shots all the time. Yes in this new economy you have a lot of pull, but nothing in Wal-Mart is worth a human life. The customer is always right, or first, or the total customer experience is never worth an injury let alone a death. Somewhere along the way the customer being right has mutated in the customer does not have to follow basic rules of law and order.


All of these stories, my funny ones of customers being ridiculous to the unfortunate event of today, highlights that once again the true spirit of this series of Holidays has been lost. Its lost because everything comes down to dollars but not a lot of common sense.