The saying goes that the customer is always right… but we’ve spoken to some retailers who might change your mind.
We asked small business owners to share the strangest, funniest, and silliest complaints they’ve received from customers.
The stories range from the absurd – asking how many blades of grass a horse has eaten – to the annoying, but they all have one thing in common: they’re evidence that sometimes, the customer is entirely wrong.
Here are some of the best… or worst.
‘The tassel earrings were too tassel-y’
How about tassle earrings that are “too tassly”?
That’s the complaint Kerry Clayton who owns Trend Tonic received about her tassel earrings.
‘They wanted holograms, not holographics’
Zoe Lacey is a stationery designer who runs Pretty Post, where her biggest seller is a pick-your-own card selection. They come in a choice of 20 gold or holographic foil.
Last year one customer complained about receiving the wrong order, as none of the cards had holograms. She mentioned that they’d all been replaced with silver cards instead.
Slightly stumped, Zoe checked the order and realised the customer was expecting holograms instead of holographic foil.
Asking the customer to send a photo of what she had wrongly received, Zoe added that she didn’t make silver foiled cards, and if she shifted the silver cards she would see these were ‘holographic’.
She didn’t receive any photo so hopefully the customer was happy.
‘They complained the 13 cats weren’t perfectly behaved’
Ever heard of the phrase ‘like herding cats’? Think of Paula Stewart, who runs The Animal Talent Agency, being told that the 13 cats appearing on an advert at the same time were not performing well enough.
‘I was asked how many blades of grass a horse had eaten’
Jo Zwierzchaczewski-Mitchelhill is a parenting and family coach who used to run a full livery yard.
She once had a customer who asked how much grass their horse had eaten on its hour turn out.
Jo tells Metro.co.uk: ‘The exact words were “How much grass, as in how many blades of grass did my horse eat while it was turned out?”‘
Jo was only able to assure them that the animal had followed normal eating behaviour – having had 18 stables to muck out she hadn’t been counting blades of grass.
On the positive side she says that times like this helped teach her how to manage client expectations and take a step back and understand that some questions that sound irrational come from a place of emotional concern.
She adds, in case you were wondering: ‘On average a horse will eat about 4kg of grass an hour, but as in the number of blades of grass, I still don’t know!’
‘They said my teabags had broken apart after a 20-minute brew’
Tas Jay sells consciously sourced loose leaf tea at Verycraftea. A customer bought two sets of her self-fill tea bags (100 individual bags in total).
About a week later Tas received a complaint saying that the product was poor quality and not fit for purpose.
They said that they had spent two hours filling 76 bags with their own tea but one used in a mug broke apart. Asked how long they left it in the mug, they said 20 minutes.
‘He wanted his wife to join the call’
A customer of Lea Turner’s LinkedIn training business came to a one-to- one coaching call with his wife, and became angry and abusive when told he needed to pay extra if he wanted his wife to join the call, as he had paid for a one-to-one session.
‘They wanted a discount code for their mum’
Customers of Femss, a solution-based fashion brand, are given a welcome discount on their first order.
One customer emailed to say that they couldn’t get the discount to work. Founder Stacey explained that the welcome discount is only for their first order, so once used it will no longer work.
‘But the order is for my mum,’ came back the email. Not wanting to point out that a code and ordering system doesn’t know who is going to ultimately receive the order, Stacey sent them a code for their mum to use.
Being helpful even when you receive a complaint can provide a win-win, as Stacey received ‘a lovely email just to update us that their Mum had placed their order and shared her name so we knew which was hers’.
‘This did make us smile, said Stacey.
‘They were annoyed the box went to their old address’
Joanna Baker agrees that sometimes people’s expectations of technology can be a little high. She runs Collar Club, a sustainable and natural subscription box for dogs.
One customer very indignantly complained that the box had gone to the wrong address when they had moved. A classic common case of a customer not updating their details but blaming the company.
Priding herself on good customer service though, Jo did send another box and karma played its part as she received the original parcel back in the post.
‘She wanted to bring in her sex slave’
No sector escapes a complaint. Danusia Malina-Derben is now head of a niche consultancy DMD Global, specialising in boardroom peak performance.
But many years ago she was funded to undertake research into hedonistic consumption. Working in a shop as part of her research, she took a call from ‘Mistress Jane’ who demanded she shut the store for her to ‘bring my slave in’.
As you might expect, ‘Mistress Jane’ was very forceful and not happy that the store would not be closed for her. Danusia did, however, manage to hold her ground, explaining that the shop could not be closed for her.
Just before closing time an impeccably dressed middle-aged woman arrived with her male companion, scantily dressed and crawling on the end of a leather leash.
‘They wanted the strippers to be more naked’
Carol Deveney runs a consultancy business, specialising in adding corporate income streams and runs events and books entertainment, which involve fully-clothed people. But this wasn’t always the case.
As head of food and beverage in a Glasgow bingo hall, part of her role was planning and organising the entertainment.
She recalls the male strippers going down a storm, saying: ‘I was young, naive and a little stunned to see some of our customers banging walking sticks on tables shouting “Get them off”.’
Not everyone was happy, though. Throughout that week four customers complained that the male strippers should return but they weren’t naked for long enough. They were booked for longer and the bingo hall got no more complaints.
‘They were annoyed their fingerprint didn’t look like the one on the website’
Lucille Whiting’s business specialises in making handcrafted necklaces and wedding rings that feature customers’ own real fingerprint impressions. Sophia Alexander Gold Fingerprint Jewellery is sold online and Lucile ensures product details and information is extensive and regularly updates customers before making the items.
One customer commissioned a bespoke necklace for an elder family member. Lucille remembers everything going beautifully.
‘The print was a really lovely shape, complete with wrinkles and the little creases you’d expect to see in someone in their 80s,’ she tells us. ‘I gift wrapped it, wrote out the gift card and awaited the usual “thank you” message.’
Except this time the ‘thank you’ didn’t come. Instead, Lucille received an email expressing disappointment that the fingerprint didn’t look exactly like the one shown on the website.
The complainant said that there were dents (these were the wrinkles) and that the lines of the print were bigger; more spread out. The pattern looked completely different.
Lucille explained about fingerprints being unique and offered a refund. The same day she altered the description on every product page of the website to include information about what affects fingerprint clarity and quality.
‘It’s now written into the T&C’s on every product page – just for the folk who didn’t listen in biology,’ she adds.
‘He said using blue ink wasn’t realistic’
Diane Ivory knows a thing or two about fingerprints. A former Scotland Yard Fingerprint Expert and crime scene examiner of 30 years, she now owns the event company Forensic Minds.
She was delivering a crime-themed event and the group were kitted out in full CSI kit. Each team had a CSI case filled with items needed to examine the scene, case papers, and some exhibits that had already been recovered.
Each exhibit was placed in a sealed exhibit bag and details relating to it written on the ‘exhibit label’, printed on the bag. Diane had filled out these details mostly using black ink, while one was written in blue ink.
A very unhappy chap brought this to her attention, telling her that this simply wouldn’t happen in real life.
Diane begs to differ. She says: ‘Believe you me, having spent 30 years examining real crime scenes, I know how often pens are put down and new ones picked up or the ink runs out and the pen replaced mid-way through writing. This is real life.’
‘He kicked off about a monkey throwing poo at him’
It would appear that the events industry is prone to some jaw dropping complaints. Sian Downes, founder of Strawberry Lemonade Events, recalls organising a great corporate summer party at Edinburgh Zoo in the sun.
There were drinks in the monkey enclosure, followed by a BBQ at the main house. Everyone left happy and complimenting the unusual venue… until the following morning.
Sian received an email from a disgruntled delegate who was so enraged he had to complain that a monkey had thrown poo at him. Sian replied to say it probably wasn’t personal, she was sorry this had happened to him and would reach out to the monkey for comment. She never heard from the monkey or the delegate again.
‘She hadn’t bought anything from me, but gave a one-star review’
While we might be used to seeing some complaints going viral, especially if written by a celebrity, occasionally a response can go viral too. And perhaps the final word should go to Niamh Lily Wimperis.
Niamh runs a company providing embroidery kit subscription boxes. Proud of her record of five-star reviews, she was upset to receive a one-star, especially when the person had never bought from her.
The customer had complained about the price of one of her items. Not only had she never bought from Niamh but she was referring to the £200 prints price but was reviewing the kit price that was actually £34.99.
Niamh says: ‘I was very frank in my response and said: “Ann, I am not Amazon”.’
Niamh was so angry she decided to stitch the phrase and post the embroidery and the email exchange she had had with Ann on Instagram. It went viral. Many other small business owners empathised and had been in similar situations.
It is worth noting that there is always a reason for what may initially appear to be a daft complaint. It could be poor communication, the customer is vulnerable in some way or it really is just something that the recipient of the complaint will never understand.
The key for all businesses is to handle complaints on a case-by-case basis and treat everyone appropriately as an individual. Where this happens it usually ends with both happy customer and business.
Every company gets complaints, it is how they deal with them that matters most.
Do you have a story to share?
Get in touch by emailing [email protected].
Source: Read Full Article
