A Support Desk Is Cheering After a Manager Completely Banned a Toxic Corporate Client
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Imagine working in tech support in a call center, and a customer calls in who is angry right from the beginning of the call. The more you talk to him, the more you dislike him, and the more you realize you’re not going to be able to help him solve the problem, at least not in the way he would like.
If the caller asked to speak to a supervisor, would you expect the supervisor to back up what you already told the customer, or would you expect her to cave and give the customer whatever he wanted to make him happy?
In this story, one tech support worker was in this situation, and he was very pleasantly surprised at how the supervisor handled the situation. It was a huge contrast to how another supervisor would’ve handled it.
Keep reading for all the details.
The tale of the unrealistic expectations (and a surprisingly bold supervisor)
I do tech support for a large global computer company.
Last night a guy called in around 7:30(which, going by the trends I’ve noticed in my time here, seems to be the witching hour for jerks) and I could immediately tell that the call was gonna be an escalation.
Heavy sighs every few seconds, and an overall rude & condescending tone with insults directed at our company in every sentence.
Here’s how the call started.
He started off by complaining that he never got a call back from the last agent he spoke to, so I pull up his account but see absolutely NO previous calls or notes anywhere form any other agent(which, even if the agent doesn’t log any notes, would still show up as an inbound call due to the automation of our call system. This means he either called in on a different system or was lying about calling in altogether).
When I tell him this, he snorts & says “Typical (company name), always incompetent!”. He then launched into a rambling story of how he had 5 systems, all with the same major problem, and we better fix them NOW or else he was gonna swear off of our computers forever.
Well then, nice to meet you too sir, my name’s Lydious! How can I help you? Yeesh.
The caller explained what he did and what he wanted OP to do about it.
The major problem turned out to be stripped hard drive screws on each system.
When I asked why he was removing the hard drives, he says that he can’t image them in the laptops due to our recovery partitions “blocking the install” & that whenever he bought a system from us, he has to hook the HDD up to other systems to image them.
Its at this point that I know he’s a complete idiot, because our recovery partitions absolutely do NOT prevent users from imaging their systems. At all. Ever. I have no trouble guiding even the DUMBEST of users through a full reimage, how are they having no problems yet he, a self-professed IT manager, can’t seem to manage it?
Anyway, I ask him what he would like me to do to rectify the situation, and he says he wants me to send a tech out to get the screws out, because stripped screws are CLEARLY a manufacturing defect & his current situation is 100% our fault. (Yes, it’s definitely a manufacturing defect that you can’t remove a tiny screw without getting caught in a ceiling fan)
OP was not going to do what the caller wanted.
Uh, no. Not happening.
First off, since HE stripped the screw it’s considered customer induced damage & not covered by his warranty. If he wanted us to send a tech out, it’d cost him $300.
Second, we don’t send techs out for stuff like this anyway because they don’t even have the tools to remove stripped screws. Even if they did, we still don’t send techs out under warranty just because YOU broke something on your system.
Here’s what he suggested instead.
I offered him the option to ship it in to our service center, and told him it’d take up to 10 business days for the system to be sent back to him.
He said “OK that’s fine, I’ll send them in & you can just send me 5 replacements.”
Wait… what? You want me to send you 5 brand new computers to tide you over while yours are being fixed? Sorry sir, but it doesn’t work that way.
I explained that I cannot just send him some ‘loaners’ while his systems are being fixed, and that he would have to wait to get them back like everyone else.
Let’s see how the supervisor handles this call.
He proceeds to completely flip out & starts screaming about how we have the worst customer service he’s ever encountered & demands to speak to a supervisor.
Fine with me. I tracked down the one acting supervisor, an older lady from another department, and sat back to listen.
She tells him basically the same thing I did, and going by her replies, he’s gone straight to demanding complete system replacements instead of fixes.
She finally said, in an exasperated tone, “Sir, I’m sorry but I am NOT giving you 5 new systems over some stripped screws. Maybe you can talk your sales rep into doing it, but I won’t. Your only option if you want US to fix them is to send them in.”.
OP wasn’t expecting this supervisor to react the way she did.
I was floored.
I’ve never heard anyone here speak to a customer like that before.
It was GLORIOUS.
The usual night supervisor would have bent over backwards to make this jerk happy & caved in to every demand, but not this lady.
I’ve seen her in the hallways before but never really interacted with her, and I had no idea she was that awesome.
It turns out, this caller has complained before.
Anyway, he hangs up on her seconds later & she said he started screaming that he was sending back every single system & never buying anything from us ever again. (No. Please. Don’t go. We will go out of business without you. Stahp.)
She handed back my headset, told me to make my notes & send her the case number.
I did, and a few mins later she hits me up on chat & she is MAD. She proceeds to rip the guy to shreds, telling me that she looked at his past cases and can’t believe what a jerk he is.
Apparently he has a long history of being abusive- making unrealistic demands, escalating on every call, & throwing fits because we can’t just snap our fingers & make what he wants to happen magically happen when he wants it to happen.
OP provides some examples of his awfulness.
Even during the times he DID get his way, he was still a complete jerk & needlessly difficult to work with.
I looked at his old cases myself, and I was astonished at all the completely unwarranted awfulness on his part.
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Angry, all-caps emails when a service tech was a few minutes late, constant threats, rudeness, breaking stuff & blaming it on us, swearing at agents, etc.
Most customers are happy with their service.
I get kudos emails every day from people raving over our excellent support, so I dunno why he had such a bad experience with us.
Maybe the key is to not be a complete jerk to each agent every time you call in? Just a thought.
Or maybe don’t make unrealistic demands like same-day repair service for self-induced damage(and on a friday night, no less)?
Either way, I pity the next company that has to deal with this jerk.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out! Nobody wants to keep a customer like that! He’ll complain no matter what.
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Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.
I completely agree!
The customer can only blame himself.
Another person explains how they would’ve handled it.
Another person praises the supervisor.
More supervisors need to stand their ground when dealing with customers. If they let customers get whatever they want when they complain, that will just encourage the customers to keep calling back, complaining, asking for a supervisor and expecting to get their way.
Losing that customer would actually be a huge win.
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