When you work in tech support, and your system is down for a customer, you can often give them a refund to keep them happy.

What would you do if you offered a flat rate refund of $15 for a customer, but she was upset and demanded more money?

That is what happened to the tech support guy in this story, so he said he could get her an exact refund for the time her service was down.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

Lady didn’t do her math and asked for less money. I obliged.

This conversation occurred after lady, (Lets honor the tradition and call her Karen. Sorry actual Karens) after Karen called in the evening with all servies down.

We found a problem and scheduled a tech dispatch for morning two days later.

Karen was rude throughout the interaction.

“So you gonna give me my money back for the time without the service right?!”

Well, that’s better than nothing.

“We can certainly offer you some adjustment. I can credit your account with 5$ flat rate for each day without service including today and the day the issue is going to be resolved so for 3 days that would be 15$.”

“Oh heck no! I pay a fortune for your service and measly 5$ per day aint gonna cover it! Is this how you treat your loyal customers?! Do you think this is fair? Shove your flat rate and give me back what I’m actually paying for your services!”

If she wants a precise refund, this person can help.

Well I was fairly certain that she is not paying us 150$ per month. Just very few customers do and I knew what services she had so I was happy to oblige with a huge grin on my face

“I’m sorry Karen, of course if you prefer, I can calculate the exact amount for you. I’m pulling up the bill as we speak”

*in sarcastic tone: “Yeah great! now you are finally doing what was supposed to happen in a first place! Good job!”

So, Karen, I have your bill in front of me. I see here that you pay us 90$ each month, if we divide that by 30 days, thats 3$ per day and the total adjustment would be 9$. Would you like to go ba-“

Well, she was the one who wanted the exact refund.

“Oh no. You you jerk! Who do you think you are? How dare you?! I want to speak to you supervisor!”

Well, it was a really busy evening (as most evenings are) and we waited ~20minutes for some tier 2 (“supervisor”) to take over the call.

For the entire duration of the wait, she refused to talk to me (like I care lol, 20 minute break).

Finally, I was next in queue for tier 2 and was asigned to a dear friend of mine who was well known for being smart but also not taking customers crap. I gave him the customer and continued working.

Some people are so nice once they get a ‘supervisor.’

Later that day, I met my friend on a smoke break and he told me the rest of her story: “yeah she was like angel when she got to me. (they often are to seem more credible like thay are the victims)

Told me you were rude, blah blah blah and that you offered her 15 and than refused to give it to her. (He ofc knew what happened, we give them brief recap).

Oh, I bet she was so mad.

So I told her that while agents can give flat rate adjustments to streamline the process, I as a supervisor need to adhere to the rules more strictly and 9$ is the fair and only adjustment I can offer.

She said that’s fine cos she dont care about the money. She wanted to help us improve our customer service by kindly letting us know about a rude agent in our ranks.

So yes, after more than half an hour on the phone with us, she walked away with 9$ and we laughed about this one for a long time.

Some customers think they are entitled to everything but end up getting very little.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about this funny situation.

Here is someone who has been in a call center for years.

This commenter thinks she deserves a month’s refund.

It is hard to deal with upset customers.

I bet she would have gotten real quiet.

This must have been funny.

If she wants what she is entitled to, that is exactly what she’ll get.

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.