They say, "The customer is always right (in matters of taste)," but in other areas, let's be real—sometimes they’re really, really not. What’s that one customer story that still makes you cringe or laugh in disbelief?
What's your worst experience with a customer?
byu/GoodTimesDaily inEntrepreneur
Posted by GoodTimesDaily
5 Comments
“… in matters of taste”
I had a customer that tried to tell me they rejected parts out for non conformance but wanted to keep them and not pay for them. The main non conformance on the inspection report was for hardware installed, something called a helicoil. The quality manager had apparently never read the spec for these because he was inspecting these in a way that is explicitly noted as a way not to check in the mil spec that was called out on the prints. At the end of the day, I eventually got my money but I will never work with anyone involved with that fiasco ever again. All in all they owed me a little under 30k in parts that were going into satellite prototypes and I eventually got my money. This whole sector of customers is very scary because they’re pushing very hard and very fast with venture capital money so they have a ton of money and are rushing everything as fast as possible, and then their money gets low and they just start pushing out payments to vendors until they get the next infusion of capital from investors.
Online auction business – Was auctioning something off for an older lady (Karen). I expected the selling price to be in the somewhat high 4 digits and told her so. Well, she thought that that would indicate a guaranteed sale and went on to book a very expensive holiday and treated herself to some other goodies here and there…
2 weeks later, auction ends and no one bid on it. Keep in mind, my business model is commission based only meaning unless I sell, I get zero money for my time and effort invested.
Then i got a very angry call by her saying I ruined her holiday, she can‘t afford to go onto the booked retreat and appareantly also booked an (expensive) dogsitter, that she can‘t afford…
Ever since than I make my appraisals and estimations purposefully low and also put in a sentence that no sale is guaranteed. No problems since then.
Weeping and gnashing of teeth has to be top of the list for me
Never had a bad experience with a customer. Some bad reviews are the worst that has happend.
I think if you sell good products with good customer service at a fair price for you & the customer, they generally don’t get angry. Then there’s customers who just get angry no matter what.