I have worked in some form of customer service for most of my adult life. Sometimes it’s a side version of customer service like when I worked as a tour guide for a movie studio or I was a helper at a children’s art studio. But I have almost always worked with customers directly and have been the person to whom their compliments or complaints are directed at.
Sometimes there are some stories that are amazing and I will never forget them. Once I answered a call from a customer who was at the dinner theater show that past weekend and had a heart attack during the show. One of the actors knew CPR and started it immediately while someone else called 911. Because that actor started CPR so quickly, the customer was able to be revived and they were able to have a necessary operation and they were going to be ok. They called in because they wanted to thank the actor that saved their life. I will never forget that call and being able to share that message with the owner of that location.
Obviously, it’s better when you get compliments but sometimes the complaints are so crazy that they just make your day. I remember in a job years ago where a customer claimed that when they installed something over a decade before, it killed their cat and they were promised free service for life. They paid every month and said they believed they would be refunded when they canceled. They really were trying to convince me that they paid thousands of dollars over a decade even though they believed they were supposed to never pay and that they would be refunded. That is one of those stories that I will always share when people ask me about crazy customers.
At another job, a customer was trying to be refunded for something that was non-refundable. We’ve heard dozens of excuses, but what this customer did made me feel disgusted once we figured out what happened. He said that his child was shot and he needed to be refunded to have the money back. I don’t know if he got his money back or not, but a higher-up let us all know not to engage with this customer again as it was discovered they lied about the shooting and they might not even have a kid.
I don’t work directly with customers as much as I used to. I only have direct customer contact at my dinner theater job now since my social media job is more about data entry and systems and I don’t directly answer customers. So I don’t have as many crazy customer stories as I used to, but I still get them from time to time. And we had another one this week.
Without going into too many details, there was a group at the dinner theater that was not happy because they felt like our show was trying to stop their fun. But the way they were having fun was by using water guns on the actors. The actors asked them to stop or they would need to leave. To me, I couldn’t imagine going to a show and using a water gun on a performer to get them wet. I have no clue if anyone who wasn’t an actor got wet, but I would think it would be possible. And if I was at a show where I dressed up and someone got me wet, I’d be upset. So the entire situation doesn’t really make sense to me. But I think most of us had a laugh because we do have a policy of no weapons allowed at the show and now we feel like we need to add a section about no water guns as well.
Even with the crazy customer situations I’ve been in, I know I’m lucky compared to some people who work in customer service. The negative stories are so rare compared to the positive stories or the boring situations (like just needing to help a customer find something on a website). And most of the time, I have not worked in a location where I am face to face with customers or they can come to see us directly. I’ve had one situation at my old ticket sales job where someone came to the location to try to find us as they were unhappy with a policy, but that’s the only time I can remember something like that happening.
Sometimes, you just need crazy situations to add some variety to your work day, especially if the days blend together. And I think I will always appreciate the crazy stories that make me smile even if they might be a bit stressful at the moment helping the customer.
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