Some Customers just don't understand

[McBaine]

For those of you in the retail business will understand. Anyway, customer comes in wanting to know if we have any left hand guns. Unfortunately for him we didn't. Asks if we can order them, yes we can. Then he asks is it the same price for what we have on the shelf. I said no it's a higher mark up. Here's where the trouble began. He goes on it shouldn't matter if we order 1 or 50 guns. I tried to explain that it was more labor intensive to get one gun just for him, rather than say 50 guns for the whole chain. He would just cut me off saying it's not. Anyway they walked off saying we should improve our business practices and my customer service. Some people just don't want to listen.

[Tagster]

Instead of telling him it is a higher "mark-up" tell him there is a higher cost from the manufacturer, or that you will have to order it separate and therefore pay more freight...

None of my customers want to hear that I am going to mark something up more, however, they all understand that it may cost more.

Tag

[McBaine]

I told him that too, and still cut me off. I would appoarch it differently if I had to do it again.

[Tagster]

You are right...there are some people that just don't get it.

Tough situation...

[Water Ready]

How bout this . You did good the way you handled it, and most likely, he had shopped you anyway, and had been on-line, and was having no success. Sooooo, he had to vent, on something out of your control.
300,000,000 million people in the USA. You will NEVER please them all. But good customers,(and there is many)will always come back. Never be bitter, and always learn a little more from the bad ones to "really take care" of the rest.
Happy Huntn'

[nobrownline]

In a way he was right. You make him pay up front and you get interest from his money until his gun arrives or until you have to pay for it.Then that gun does not sit on your shelves waiting and costing you money.For every day that gun sits there you make less profit.It takes the same amount of labor to order 1 as for 1000 it all on the phone.You would have made more on his gun by eating the bulk discounts that you recieve on lots of 50 because it was not doomed to sit on your shelves

[McBaine]

Thanks, it never progressed to the point of a shouting match or anything of the sort. I basicly wouldn't budge from telling them they had to pay more for a gun that I didn't carry. Everything was kept very civil. It just got under my skin when he called me a lier for saying that there was more overhead in buying one gun for him rather than say 50 for the company. Worse thing that happened though was that they will be getting the gun somewhere else. The customer is always right, except when they are wrong.

[McBaine]

For us, we require full payment of any special order before it's ordered. But he is very wrong in the overhead cost of the ordering. We have only 1 person who buys all of our guns for us. Going via single gun there are 5 people that handle the purchacing of the gun before it gets to him.

[Water Ready]

You Did good!!!!
Tiiiiiiimmmme tooooo leeeeeeettttttttt iiitttt gggoooooooo!
Bad Day, Grumpy customers--------Find your happy place! Then wake up tomorrow, and do it again-------better!
:smile:
Happy Huntn'

[McBaine]

lol ok...I'll let it go. I'm still sidelined from tearing my calf though. It will be 3 weeks before it's all better. I'll blame the vicodin for my grumpiness.

[Don Becker]

How 'bout something like this. I've been on both sides of similar issues.

"Sir, I understand how that might make you feel and I agree it really doesn't seem fair. It that old supply and demand thing. We have very little demand for left handed rifles just like we have very little demand for right handed Remingtons chambered in .308 Norma Magnum (or, some better example). We are charged more for special orders and as much as I might like to do something different, I'm required to pass that cost on. Here's my card and I've written our price on here. If you can't find a better price, please come back and I'll be happy to place your order for you and see what I can do to expedite the order for you."

Don

[McBaine]

More than happy to do that, and have done it numerous times.

[Fish Wheels]

While I don't agree with the customers attitude and understand the special order requirement, I have to beleive part of his frustration was that noone ever carries left handed rifles. 10% of the population is left handed and it sucks to have to special order every rifle. If stores would just carry a few in the most popular calibers I'm sure they would sell and we'd have a lot of happier left handed hunters.

[McBaine]

I fully agree with that. I know we could, and have sold them. I haven't heard why we don't carry more of them. I'm sure if I ask it would go something like we sit on them to long to make it worth while. The space would be better used for higher moving guns. I don't try and explain or understand their thinking. Makes my head hurt. lol I do know this year we're going to be carrying a larger variety of guns than we ever have in the past. We just brought in a bunch of Tika T3's and a few more Sako's. I wished we'd carry Kimmber's though.

[Bull7x6]

This sounds like an opportunity to pick on wrong-handers... after all what are they gonna do? They're outnumbered, obviously they can't find guns...and ummm...they're outnumbered??

Oh nevermind, thought I was going somewere with that line of thought...


I've found extreme patience is about the only way to get thru that kind of consumer, sounds like you managed. Despite the post incident frustration.

[Radke]

many years ago I worked for Safeway as a checker/bag boy. What I found is that there are a number of people out there whose only purpose in life is to gripe and complain, usually to someone who isn't in a position to openly express their feelings (read: tell them where to stickit). It sounds like this person was one of the delightful amoungst us.

[Get Bit]

You just have to go overboard to show kindness. That way you are never going to get burned.

Get Bit