Customer buys from store then goes shopping on the internet
A customer comes into the store and drops off his computer to be worked on because it is dead. We look at the computer and determine that the video card is toast and that the system has viruses/spyware on it. We call the customer and give him the diagnostic and he says go ahead and do the work and install a new video card. We get the work done and he picks it up and takes it home, but it doesn’t work on his dual monitor setup because it doesn’t have the right connections. The customer needs 2 DVI connections and the card in the system that we sold him only has one. He wonders what else we can get for him.
We call him back after researching video cards that will have the outputs that he needs. We call him back and tell him all about the video card and we quote him a price. He says that sounds good, go ahead and order it. We order the card.
The customer calls back within an hour and says that he found the card cheaper on the internet and wonders what we can do for him. The service manager comes and talks to me about it and I am a little bit ticked because we spent time and money on purchasing a new card for the customer. We tell the customer that we can pull the card and refund him the money. The customer then asks if he can get the install labor back and can we let him borrow the card until his new video card comes in. I lose my mind at this point, although I don’t let the customer know that. I tell him that we didn’t charge him labor to install the card, we only charged him labor to fix the viruses/spyware. We basically install the card for free because he is buying the card from us. We also tell him that he needs to bring the computer back today so that we can uninstall the video card. He isn’t happy with that, but agrees to bring in the computer. Within an hour or so he brings the computer back and we uninstall the video card and refund on the video card. We give him back his old video card that is dead. I would be willing to bet that he will try and get the old video card to work in his computer while he waits for his other video card to show up even though we told him it is dead. (which it is)
I can’t believe that people will tell you that they want you to special order something, then they go shopping for the same item. I wonder how I can take care of this in the future. I can have someone pay in advance for special orders. (This puts them out because they have to make a special trip to make the payment) Or, I can wait 24 hours knowing that they might change their minds. Or, I can tell them up front that special orders are final and they are no refunds. Any one of these options puts a burden on the customer. I can’t win mo matter what I do.
What do you think?
