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No matter how hard you try, some people are just never happy unless they’re making the rules.
One assistant manager learned that after stepping in to help when a customer wanted to use several coupons at once.
The store normally bent the rules to make things easier, but this woman thought every solution would somehow cost her money.
Even after the manager explained how the discounts worked, she kept insisting the store was trying to cheat her.
Unfortunately for her, the manager finally reached his breaking point.
Read on to see how it all played out.
“Don’t do my coupon like that! … The customer always gets screwed!”
I’m an assistant manager at a chain apparel store. Last night, I was called up to the register to help deal with an irate customer who wanted to use multiple coupons at once.
Our systems only allow for two coupon codes at once, but typically we do what we can to use three or four at once. Sometimes it requires splitting the transaction, and sometimes we can just do some overriding to make it work.
Either way, it’s technically against strict policy to do this, but, well, we aren’t exactly in the business to make people unhappy.
This customer was trying to use three coupons at once.
So, this customer had three coupons: one to redeem for a free gift, one a reward from our brand credit card, and one $5 coupon given out from a store for an inconvenience.
We HAD to scan in the gift code, and we wanted to scan the reward to ensure that if returns were made, the value was returned. The third my cashier wanted to simply override a few items for its total value, but the customer wasn’t having it.
Me: “Hey, [cashier’s name], what’s going on?”
Cashier: “Well, we wanted to use coupons, and…”
As it turns out, he would’ve done it the same way.
Customer (who I’ll be calling B from now on): “He wanted to use my coupon some weird way so that I lose out on my money.”
Me: “Okay… which coupons do we have here?”
My cashier showed me the coupons and explained his plan. It’s exactly what I would have done.
Me: “Well, that’s the general process that I’d use. If you want, I can split the transaction and just use the code for your free gift on that.”
She just couldn’t let it go.
B: “Now why do you people make it so difficult? Don’t do my coupon like that!”
Me: “Which coupon, ma’am?”
B: “You’re going to use my $5 and just take it off so that I lose it if I have to make a return! The customer always gets screwed!”
Me: “Ma’am, it’s a coupon. If we use it normally, it takes $5 and distributes an equal part of it to each item in your transaction. It’s money that you aren’t paying, so you aren’t losing it if you make a return.”
Then, she started calling the store greedy.
B: “That’s stupid. Why can’t it just take it off the transaction total?!”
Me: “That’s in effect what it does, though…”
B: “[store name] is so greedy. God, just do what you want.”
Me: “I understand that it can be a little frustrating. We’ll be taking off $2.50 from your most expensive items to use your coupon. That’s money you are not paying, so you’re right, you can’t get it back either.”
Now, he was starting to get upset.
I was starting to get irritated at this point.
B: “What about my rewards then? I’m sure you’ll keep those too!”
Me: “If you make a return, your reward coupon will be returned to your card in the form of the points you used to redeem it. That way, if you return $10 of your $20 transaction, you’ll get exactly half of your reward points back, too.”
B: “Yeah right. That’s what they say. Companies must spend so much time figuring out ways to screw me over.”
He hates how good customers get stiffed because of rude people like this.
Me: “You’re okay, then, [cashier]? I’ll be over here if you need me again.”
I walked away. She left, still fuming, a few minutes later. I sent my cashier away to do something in the back so he could have some time away from the sales floor.
It seems like every time we try to help a customer out and go above and beyond, it farts on our faces. I think from now on, we’ll hold to company policy, because honestly if they’re going to be calling corporate because they’re mad, I’d rather it be because we held to policy than because we tried to ad-lib it.
It’s just sad because the nice customers are really the ones who get “screwed” because of jokers like this.
Yikes! She just couldn’t wrap her mind around it.
Let’s take a look at what the readers over at Reddit think about this whole thing.
This person thinks he should keep trying to help people.
Here’s a cashier who doesn’t like dealing with coupons.
Yes! It sounds so ridiculous.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man who is shocked to learn how little he has to do to keep his cushy remote job.
Here’s how this reader handles stuff like that.
Some people make it hard to even want to help them. And this is a great example.
She was getting more than the store technically had to give her, and somehow that still wasn’t enough.
That’s why her accusations are so wild.
Unfortunately, customers like this are exactly why stores stop making exceptions in the first place.
