I’m ringing up a lady who is buying organic plums. The regular price for non-organic is $3.99 a pound. The organic plums are (I kid you not) $6.99 a pound. In this instance, the organic produce isn’t in the system.
Me: “These aren’t ringing up. Because it’s our mistake I’ll ring these up as non-organic plums, so you’ll pay the regular plum price.”
Customer: “No.”
Me: “I can type in the code for regular plums, so these will be 3.99 a pound, instead of 6.99. You’ll still get organic.”
Customer: “No, and now I want your manager.”
My manager comes up. He tries to type in the code for the organic plums, but the code is not in the system.
Manager: “Well, we’ll just ring it up as a normal code then and give it to you for $3.99 a pound.”
Customer: “No.”
Manager: “You don’t want the fruit anymore?”
Customer: “I want the fruit, but give it to me for the organic price.”
Manager: “Just to make sure, I have offered to give these to you for regular price at $3.99 a pound. You still want me to manually charge you £6.99 a pound?”
Customer: “Yes. I want the organic plums, and I want them for the price on the shelf. That’s the price I want to pay.”
The manager shrugs and manually types in the weight and price per pound, and walks away.
The customer’s face goes from angry as she demands to be charged more, to smug after she ‘won’ her argument, to surprised, as the plums ring up for $16.
Customer: “Wait… weren’t these $0.69 a pound?”
Me: “No, $6.99 a pound.”
Customer: “I heard you say that, but I didn’t believe it. Who pays that much for plums?!”
Me: “You just did.”
With that, she looks defeated and walks away with her plums. Still the oddest customer encounter I’ve ever had.
