My daughter, who has a chronic illness, often deals with bureaucracies. Once she told me something very wise: If you don’t get the answer you want, ask it again – just in a different way.
This is an excellent tactic for all sorts of customer service issues. Here’s how it shook down for me earlier this week.
Some time ago DF and I bought a set of flannel sheets on clearance. DF thinks it was early spring, because he seems to recall that snow was still on the ground. Since our current linens weren’t yet completely raddled, we put the new set on a closet shelf.
Fast-forward to seven or eight (or more) months. Time to use the new sheets! But when DF opened the package, planning to hang them on the clothesline to air, he noticed one edge of the top sheet was ragged. Not just badly sewn, but torn and scraggly.
And of course we didn’t have the receipt. Taping it to the package would have been intelligent.
I took it back to the store anyway and politely pleaded my case. The very young woman at customer service seemed sympathetic – until she’d done the math. First she asked a colleague, “When is spring?” Then she counted on her fingers.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That’s past our policy. Six months.”
Testing customer service
I could have just shrugged and walked away, except that of course I couldn’t.
“Obviously I should have kept the receipt,” I said. “But let me just think this through out loud. We bought this product before we needed it. Are you saying that any time we decide to stock up on something we should open the products and look them over? Whether it’s food or housewares?
“And that because we didn’t do that this time, we’ll have to eat the cost of the product – even though it was defective? That sounds to me like an issue you should take up with your supplier.”
This was all spoken politely, in a soft voice, and I could see her face changing. “Just a minute,” she said, and asked a colleague an exception could be made. The colleague replied along the lines of, “Yes, give it to her.”
Success! Until she scanned the sheet package and it did not show up in their system.
I knew, I absolutely knew, that the sheets had been purchased there, as it bore the retailer’s house brand label. When I said as much, she explained that sometimes a particular item – say, a sheet set in that color – gets discontinued.
For that reason, the clerk said, she could not do a refund. “We don’t have anything to compare it with.”
The customer service I needed
At this point I’d been there maybe 20 minutes, and was in a hurry to get the car back to DF so he could do errands. But the situation still didn’t seem right. The store clearly had sold me the item, so why couldn’t it make good?
The old me would have given up meekly. Not the new me, however. “Is there a store manager who might be able to override the policy?” I asked politely.
She looked surprised, and a little flustered. “Well, um, I could get the main manager, I guess. Do you want me to do that?”
Yes. Yes, I did.
Within a few minutes I’d explained the issue to the head honcho, who asked if I remembered what I’d paid. To the best of my recollection it was $19.99 but I wasn’t completely sure. He sent another employee back to find “a comparable item” and told the clerk to ring it up as a return. Two minutes later the employee produced a queen-sized sheet set that rang up as $24.99.
“Uh, that might be more than I paid,” I said nervously.
“Doesn’t matter,” the store manager said. “We need to make this right.”
And that’s how I got my money back: by asking more than once. If you don’t get the answer you want, I hope you’ll do the same. Be polite, but be firm, and stand up for your rights as a consumer.
Don’t threaten a civil suit over the fact that one egg in the dozen is cracked, but do ask for what’s fair. Hold the store – or medical provider, or repair place, or whatever – to its promises. Like the place where I shop, they should want to make it right.
Readers: Did you ever have a situation like this? How did you resolve it?
Related reading:
Well done! The rank-and-file employees usually don’t have the authority, so that’s when you get a supervisor involved. Sorry about the sheet set, but glad the store did right by you.
Me too! And yes, the front line doesn’t always have the authority but the manager can probably pull it off.
Some low level employees think they have the right to your life or death. When I am told with certainty how things will be, I ask for someone else to talk with. If I ask for a supervisor, the people at the customer service desk often just turn to the person on their same level who confirms the wrong information. I have gone up several levels to get satisfaction.
When I worked for Sears in 1968, in training we were told that we did not have the right to say “no” to a customer, that we should call someone above us. I take this to be my defense in asking for a supervisor/CSM/manager.
One time, well more than once, I have said to the new and ill-trained employee, “You know, you are just exacerbating the problem.
Since they mistake “exacerbating” for “masturbating”, I get what I need. You should see these girls turn red.
Vulnerability is much more beautiful than bullying.
Hi Donna!
Yep, I do this all.the.time. Usually the sales clerk doesn’t have the authority, or the ability with the cash register. (Do they still call them that?) Anyway, recently I had a major issue at Kohls…using Kohls dollars can get tricky on a refund. The manager couldn’t figure out how to give me the refund without me losing the Kohls cash. I calmly (no small feat for me) told him how he could do it. After about 15 minutes, a lightbulb went off in his head and did it for me. He then proceeded to give me all sorts of *rewards* for his lack of knowledge, and thanked me for being patient. I think the key was perserverance, calmness and kindness.
Hey — I just purchased your book! Needs and Wants Edition! It is perfect timing for what I have planned financially in 2018. I will be reviewing it on my blog!I’ve got a lot of catching up to do on your blog!! xoxoxo
I’ve never shopped at Kohl’s but those rewards do sound tricky in terms of taking something back after you’ve used Kohl’s dollars. After all, they were the equivalent of money; if they can’t give you cash, they need to give you credit.
Thanks for buying the book! Let me know if you’d like me to e-mail a press release, for background purposes.
I do this all the time when it’s time to renew the triple play phone /TV/internet package. Car insurance, too.
Just curious…If you needed the sheets, why didn’t you trade the ones you brought back for a new set, instead of the refund?
That’s what I was thinking! You’d spend $5 more at least to get a new set.
Mostly I just wanted to get out of the store! Also, the set the employee brought up was plain cotton; we want flannel, but are thinking now of buying a better-quality variety. This store has several brands, but I didn’t have time to judge each one.
Since we keep getting coupons in the mail, we might go to a different place (or several places) and judge the sheets there. Again, didn’t have time to do that.
With phone support sometimes it’s just a matter of continuing to call back. I was shopping around for a mortgage, called around several companies, and decided the first one was the best deal. When I called back to pull the trigger they had a completely different story – on the same day mind you. I was really bummed as it was a really good deal. It was a monster megabank with a big call center. So I just started calling back every few hours until I got the answer I wanted and then didn’t let them off the call until the deal was done. It took a few calls but it worked.
Adventures in frugal perserverance. Good for you!
TIMELY post. I’m about to get on the horn with Target about an error on an order right now.
And yes, absolutely, I go toe to toe with customer service all the time. I recently reamed out Chase for their horrible no good very bad private banker who was a danger to any financial neophyte. But that was mostly to save myself from having to deal with his smarmy useless butt again, and to help others who would have been led astray by his awful advice.
Usually I treat the front line employee very kindly and politely, and ask them what they can do to help or who I should speak to, because they often aren’t authorized to do what I need. I might suggest things they could to make it right. If they can’t and a manager isn’t available, then I end the transaction and escalate in writing. Then I praise them to upper management with whom I’m VERY stern and disappointed, and normally I get better results that way.
A friend who’s amazing at this sort of thing does have a thing for doing it over the phone and I can’t argue with her results.
You make a good point: By calling people out on bad advice/behavior, we keep that sort of thing from being visited upon others. We hope.
This is my medicare HMO success. My mother needed additional rehab time. The provider said regular medicare would pay, but HMO medicare was denying. I had failed with the HMO directly. I called my mothers employer and asked how to get regular medicare because HMO was rationing care. I got the employer healthcare representative to contact the HMO and then I appealed again and the care was paid. This is the condensed version. The reality is this request took multiple phone calls, emails and faxes over multiple days. Having retirees drop HMO medicare and go to regular medicare is not what the employer wants so I got real help.
Good for you! And I’m sorry it was so difficult and time-consuming.
As someone whose kids both work in retail — thank you for being polite. My kids always say they’ll knock themselves out for a polite customer, but people who throw their weight around — not so much.
Ugh, yes — I’ve stood behind those people in line and am embarrassed on their behalf. Also very sorry for the employees who have to listen to their abuse.
Once a woman berated a cashier because the item rang up wrong; it was on sale, but no one had told the computer that. Rather than say, “I think there’s been a mistake,” the woman was belligerent and rude. The cashier, flustered, called a manager to come over.
The customer, smiling triumphantly, turned to me and said, “I don’t like making a fuss.”
“And yet you are,” I replied quietly.
Her smile faded. Apparently she had wanted me to tell her how right she was to be a jerk in this matter.
Happy Birthday Donna. (Dec. 5th)
Anne and Walt Disney
Thanks! I woke up to cake that was baked while I slept. Bless his heart.
That’s EXACTLY what I found when I opened a sheet set I had bought, but it wasn’t at a department store, it was Goodwill. Please hear me out: I bought a sheetset that looked as though it was never opened; folded PERFECTLY. I paid a reasonable amount for a queen size white sheet set, $9.99 (usually over 3 times that). I opened the set weeks later (no longer had the receipt) and the top of the topsheet was shredded. I just thought for a minute, and reversed the top for the bottom, tucked it in and sleep with the former bottom of the top sheet at the top. And luckily I sleep alone.
Good solution, since some thrift stores won’t let you return an item after a short time.
OOh HAPPY BIRTHDAY DONNA!
And lucky you, your love baked you a cake while you slept. He sounds incredible…might he have a brother??
Afraid he has no brothers. If I could clone the man, I’d make a fortune as a matchmaker. <3
“We need to make this right”? Now THAT is what we call amazing customer service!!
The squeaky wheel gets the grease…
And that is why I shop there. A lot.