My, That's Quite a Large Sense of Entitlement You Have

I've been thinking lately about starting a completely different blog. I would still keep this one, because I like writing about everyday events, and I want to use it to keep people updated when I move back to Chile. But I would also love to start an entirely separate blog - a new, fresh idea that would keep people coming back to read. The challenging part is coming up with a concept. Well, here's one concept I will NOT be using, but one that would no doubt provide me with endless material (at least for the next 2 months): a blog that would be updated daily, spotlighting a different crazy customer that I have to talk to in my tech support job.

So, humor me, and let's just pretend I am actually launching that blog, and that this is one of the entries (actually I just need an excuse to write about these insane people I talk to at work - it's very cathartic). So, today's spotlight would be on Crazy Customer #1 - we'll just call her CC, for convenience sake. My morning was going so well today, and then the phone rang, and who was it? None other than CC, who had a problem with the cordless phone she had just bought. One of the phones was ok, but the other one had been fully charged up and still only displayed 1 bar of battery power - uh oh. Well, here's the thing. In the past, I would have immediately said, no problem, we can ship you some new batteries. But we received an email from the "higher-ups" in my company last week saying we were sending up too many battery requests (read: tell the customers to go buy their own replacement batteries). So I politely advised CC to simply replace the batteries in that phone, and if she was still having trouble, to give us a call back as we may need to replace the whole phone for her. Well good Lord - you would've thought I had suggested she go bungee-jumping without a cord, from the way she reacted. She was upset at the notion that I even suggested she drive to a drug store and spend a couple of dollars for batteries, when she shouldn't have to. For the record, I completely emphathized with her. If it's not working out of the box, she shouldn't have to spend more money to make it work. But I was just doing what I'd been told.

Well, if the customer insists that they don't want to go buy batteries, we are then allowed to send a battery request to our headquarters. So I politely informed her we could send her some replacement batteries - but when I told her how long it usually takes to ship them out (which really isn't long), she was indignant. She basically DEMANDED that we have a box of brand new batteries on her doorstep tomorrow. Yeah. Right. I don't know how many times I uttered the phrase "I'm doing all that I can, ma'am" to her - but apparently not enough to get it through her thick skull. Refer to my last entry, where I clearly stated that I am a PEON in this company. I'm not a supervisor. I don't have any power. None whatsoever. And this woman has the audacity to demand of me that I get those batteries to her house TOMORROW? That's rich.

The point of this whole post is to ask one simple question: Where does this sense of entitlement come from? Seriously, I've been puzzling over this for awhile now. What makes a customer think that by buying your product, they then have the right to call up customer service and act like a complete tool, demanding completely outrageous things? And expecting a huge company to drop everything and forget about all other customer orders ahead of yours and kiss YOUR butt?

This post isn't at all to say that when someone buys a product, they shouldn't expect superior customer service. I'm just saying it doesn't give you the right to call me up and cuss me out when you're having a problem with it, or to expect me to be able to work miracles. I'm not in the miracle business - sorry to disappoint.