How do you understand this?

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A: Hello, I'm calling because yesterday I bought 1,000$ worth of equipment at your store, and since the TV screen doesn't work, I was told to return it today. But the elevator doesn't reach your floor, I'm on the floor above you and need help carrying the screen down the stairs. I'm at the door of Barnes&Noble.
B: But we're a store.
A: I know that. I bought there yesterday. But I need help.
B: But say where you are.
A: At the door of Barnes&Noble.
B: But we're all working.
A: Listen, it'll only take someone a minute to come up the staircase and down again. I'm a good customer, $1,000 just yesterday!
B: But I asked, where are you.
A: I'm at the mall, one floor up, third time I say it. Barnes&Noble door.
B: And why do you need to return the screen. It's not clear.
A: I told you, it's not working! I was told on the phone to bring it back!
B: See madam, you have to bring the screen to the store yourself, that's how it works.
A: (Yells)
B: Now because you yelled, we won't help you. Bye.

I understand this as they don't think they need the business. Absolutely incredible.

I asked because when I lost it, they made me stand for like 10 minutes in the middle of the mall and yelled at me that either I apologize for yelling or they won't help me carry the screen down the staircase. When I called their national customer service, they told me also to apologize to the store staff or else I'd get no help. I wanted to send a letter to their national management, but their national Customer Care refused to give me the email address or phone number of the Management.

(I was lucky that one employee at the store took pity on me and carried the screen and made it work and packed it back in a way I could take it back by myself up the stairs. I wrote a letter commending him, and complaining about the others, but I'm sure it'll get lost in cyber space. I wrote also that if I don't get a reply from their Management, I'll tell everyone not to buy from them.

I hate it when people make me lose it, then say that the reason they won't do their job is that I lost it.

That sounds annoying. Those staff sound like complete idiots. Maybe in the future you should use the 'please', 'thank you' and 'sorry' a bit more? Also trying to keep your voice in a friendly tone usually helps in those sorts of situations. I think you have to control your temper by anticipating the uselessness of retail staff (no offence meant to anyone on this website).

No great mystery.

Customer service is a dying art.

Try and get ANYONE to go beyond the minimal duties expected of them in the workplace. You want them to help carry a product to their door?

They are happy to help when you're spending money and need help getting it out of their store. They couldn't care less if you are trying to return it.

That the national number gave you no help indicates it's a system-wide attitude problem.

Ask someone...anyone else to help you get the item to the store. Offer no apology. Demand a refund. Never shop there again.

They treat you like this until a good competitor chain opens a store in their same area. Then they're all lick-ass. But then it's too late, because people are so humiliated anymore that they won't buy their new attitude. So they go bankrupt, close the store, and blame it on there being a new store in the area. I've seen it happen.

By the way, this screen is amazing. You all look so big and beautifully-colored!

When I worked in a supermarket, I was always fobbing people off so I can't really complain. Someone would ask if there were any more Yorkshire puddings in storage; this meant losing about fifteen/twenty minutes while I negotiated all the heavy cages and, in the end, the customer would only complain they had to wait so long and I would also get a bollocking from my section manager for not keeping on top of my official duties. In order to avoid all this hassle, I would just say that there were no more in stock.

I work in a grocery store, and I in fact am a champ when it comes to customer service.

1. They were supposed to help you in the first place. A) Because you need help with the lifting. B) The store employees are not all too busy to help you, in fact none are too busy. Customers always come first, they should stop anything and everything they are doing at hand to help you with whatever you need. Even if they have to take the chewing down from their superiors. A lot of times if you nicely and thoroughly explain the situation to your boss about you taking the time to help the customer. And a customer's good word in will get you brownie points. C) It's the right thing to do. My courteousness is genuine; I go far out of my way not because I'm an employee, but I like to take care of the customer.
2. The employees are supposed to help you with anything you need and bow down and kiss your feet plus your a$$ if required even if you yell and treat them like s**t. You have every right to be rude to them.
3. IN NO WAY IN HELL should they have refused to give you the number to their human resources. I've seen some far nastier employees/managers hand out the number and stand there while you complain about them right in front of them. Trust me, they will get their a$$es HANDED TO THEM. if the HR hears about this.

I've worked in customer service before (huge mistake, had a nervous breakdown). They did that so they wouldn't have to help you, simple as that. One of the rules in CS is that if the customer swears or yells at you, you are allowed to give them a warning (the number of warnings varies) and then hang up on them. They tried to provoke you so that they could avoid helping you without getting in trouble.

I don't understand, when I work - anything that I do gets to the boss, whether I could've helped it or not. But in stores and such, you aren't allowed to speak to a manager ever. Employees get away with murder.

By the way, this was the branch manager who treated me like this.

I'm sorry. No one MADE you lose your temper.

I agree they weren't listening, but YOU lost it.

My ex used to go off all the time and insist that they MADE her do it. I fondly remember the day when the cops were call because she was shouting racial insults at a black man in front of the grammar school. She would insist, to this day, that he made her do it.

Did he piss her off? Yup. Still....

I'm sorry too.

It's a tactic used to make you lose it. It's called provocation, as drowbot said. Purposeful provocation is NOT the same as "pissing someone off". Asking 6 times to provide my location (2 employees 3 times each), then making me wait on the phone line, then pretending they hadn't talked to me before, then asking for the third time why I don't go to a repair shop (when I had told them several times that they themselves had asked me to come to the store and that I'd bought the equipment 2 days prior), then yelling at me and forcing me to apologize for yelling back or else I don't get the faulty equipment replaced - is provocation and abuse. Passive-aggressive. Attack. If I left, I was stuck with unusable equipment that had cost me several hundred $ and couldn't do anything about it. When you have the option of leaving (such as in marriage dispute) it's a different case. And your spouse's racial insults have nothing to do with me.

Sometimes, i think customer service people don't understand the words we are saying, even though they seem to speak the same language.

I was hanging out with one of my friends who normally uses a power wheelchair. Unfortunately, my car doesn't have a lift for it, thus when I drive us somewhere, we have to take his manual wheelchair that he can't control, so I end up pushing him around. Went to lunch one day, and the workers insisted on carrying the tray, even though we both told them that we could handle it. Quite frustrating.