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We own a specialty repair business. It is a dying trade and so we are busy. We have been in business for nearly 50 years, third generation. We are good and knowledgeable at what we do. I believe we are around 1 of 6 shops in our State that can offer the level of expertise and service that we do.
We did a repair back around Thanksgiving. Normally, the customer picks up their own items. However, this customer lives around 30 minutes away and is in her 70's so we offered to deliver it free of charge as we had another stop in that direction. Normally a house call to her area is $175.
She has contacted us twice to come back out to her home. We went both times free of charge and both times found nothing wrong. She was not taking care of the item in the proper manner and we advised her of that. We did not charge her for the stops, again we tried to toggle them on existing stops in that area.
Today she calls and is irate. She is screaming how she paid $450 and the item was not functioning correctly and she was insulted we suggested she was not fully understanding how to take care of it. She additionally started the conversation with "don't make me take you to small claims court." I point out that she has a year warranty and that we generally never go to the customer's home, we did so prior to be helpful...no one is refusing to honor her warranty or assist. I advised that customers generally bring their item back to the shop if they are having issues and we can re-test, re-examine. She carried on she was not driving 30 minutes to the shop and I explained we have customers driving 3 hours to bring things to us.
This went on for a good 5 or more minutes of her making insults (ie, "other shops could do a better job" or "you people don't know what you are doing") before I simply said we are done for today, the options are to bring it to the shop or wait until we are in your area which may be a week or two. I advised her threatening, talking aggressively, or making insults is not going to engage us or encourage us to respond or help any faster. As we went to hang up I heard her say "you bitch."
I immediately called her back and informed her that I heard her comment. I told her she was no longer welcome to call our business. I told her I was not going to put up with her hostile and now verbally abusive behavior over something so trivial. I suggested she find another shop to help her (BTW, there is not one for at least 90 minutes).
Have you had similar encounters and how did you handle them?
Any thoughts on how the warranty is handled if you are no longer willing to see the customer due to their behavior?
As a small business, my other partner said "great, now we just have to wait for the negative review." But my position is, why do we as a small business have to tolerate piss poor behavior from customers, why is it wrong to put your foot down and say "no more, we are done".....
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