Mama Kat Thursday: Thought So MeMe

The Mama Kat blog writing topic today is, "Write a post that ends with the words, "thought so."

Have you ever had a customer service job? You know the kind where unhappy customers call to tell you why they're unhappy?

I used to work at a flower shop. The fun part of the job was making the flower arrangements; the customer service was not-so-fun.

Getting their woes over the phone was the worst!

Customers would speak to me as if I were the devil who had on purpose messed their stuff up.

A case in point was a certain gentleman who called late one afternoon.

 I happened to be the one who answered the phone. 

Now, I just arranged flowers; I didn't have anything to do with the accounting or billing end.

One of the services our flower shop provided people was an in-house billing account, so they could "charge" their purchase and be billed by mail later. This was especially convenient for many people who liked to set up their orders in advance for their altar flowers to be delivered on certain designated Sundays to the Methodist church throughout the year.

This man who called had an in-house charge account and had received a bill for an altar arrangement sent to the Methodist church, an arrangement he insisted he hadn't ordered! He was completely incensed, telling me he'd cancelled sending arrangements to Methodist church two years earlier and that he wasn't even a member there anymore! 

Then adamantly accused "me" of purposely sending flowers he never ordered, then having the gall to bill him for it!

He was totally sure he was right, that our flower shop was evil and he'd been wronged.

There was nothing I could've said that would've made any difference, though I knew the flower shop was an honest business and would never, ever fake an order just to bill someone! 

All I could say was I'd give the matter over to the account person, since she wasn't available.

Later, the lady who did the accounting and billing told me that man had called her. Apparently, unbeknownst to him, his wife HAD , in fact, ordered an altar arrangement from our flower shop for the Methodist Church in in memory of their deceased son. It had been the anniversary of the son's death and that man was all contrite with the accounting lady, asking forgiveness for his poor behavior. 

So, our flower shop wasn't in the wrong after all.

Thought so.*****

Have you got a stinky customer service story? 

*****

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