Some customers think that if they reject a quote, they can haggle the price.

What would you do if a client dismissed your carefully crafted estimate only to return with demands for a lower price?

Would you give them what they want?

Or would you stand firm?

In the following story, an intern learns to deal with this exact type of customer.

Here’s what happened.

You don’t wanna pay the estimate, that’s fine ma’am enjoy your day

For context, the software development company I used to intern at uses a sheet to estimate the cost of building a certain software or update for a client.

This sheet includes employees working on the project, how long they estimate it’ll take, and yada yada yada.

After an intern goes around the departments collecting this info from the various employees, we then calculate the cost & send it to the client to “accept” or “reject”.

Since our company is so popular in the area, we have a pretty long query sometimes, so if you reject the estimate, chances are you might have to wait in the queue all over again to request a new one.

He had been trained to help customers with this request.

So the day was slow & they mostly had me, man, the phones and go on coffee runs, typical intern stuff; then a client calls in saying she wants a piece of “Clock in” software for her employees so she can more accurately track their work hours.

By this point in my internship, I had done at least 4-5 of these sheets.

I was taught by my supervisor how to identify which departments would be needed for which projects.

So after gathering the details from the client, I hang up and translate the needs for the employees(essentially explain it in programmer jargon).

Half an hour later, I was done with the sheet & I had checked the calculations 3 times.

So I emailed it to the client, and I swear, not even 2 minutes later, I got an “Estimate Rejected” message on the company smartphone I was given.

The only problem was she did not like the price.

She added a reply stating, “This estimate is non compliable with me,” so I responded to it with, “We are sorry to hear that ma’am; please enjoy the rest of your day,” and then I went about my business.

Roughly an hour later, she emails the phone again, asking, “Is that all you have to say?”

By this point, I realized what she was trying to do and reported to my supervisor that Ms. Karen was trying to haggle the price.

My supervisor calls Karen’s phone and asks if she would like to have the estimate resent to her so she can accept.

The customer doesn’t stop until she speaks with a manager.

Karen outright tells her she wants a cheaper price, to which my supervisor tells her the price is non-negotiable and to take it as is.

So Karen uses her signature move of “Let me speak with your manager, but my supervisor simply informed her that she’d get the same response and just hung up on her.

Karen eventually called back and even showed up to the building to “renegotiate” the price, but she was shot down.

However, she was able to get a meeting with the manager to file a complaint for “Poor customer service & unprofessional behavior.”

My supervisor & I were called in and asked for our side of the exchange.

We just gave them the chat log and proof that she rejected the estimate initially sent to her.

She had no color in her face after those came out and couldn’t even look at him, she was given a blacklist for us and recommended other companies.

No one likes dealing with customers like that.

Let’s check out what the fine folks over at Reddit have to say about this situation.

This is the joy of working for yourself.

She would not have liked this response.

Great point.

Yep, basically.

This woman sounds like a nightmare.

The company is better off not working with her because she probably would’ve complained about every little thing to get discounts and been a pain.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.