My supervisor and department head called me into a meeting. It was sent out in an email meeting request. I asked my supervisor what the meeting was and she smiled and wouldn't tell me. So it was a surprise.
The meeting was about a customer complaint, why this needs to be kept a mystery I don't know. I felt blind-sided. The customer /guy was odd from the very start so I had a good idea which customer it was.
He wouldn't allow me to help him but only wanted to dish out put downs. It the middle of the conversation I had with the customer he said that he had a direct phone line to our "glorious CEO". That right there is just a very weird thing for a customer to say. Is it a threat or was he planning to elevate this before the conversation even started? And I have to be reprimanded and because the customer is always right no matter what... yada yada
The sups said that I wasn't being written up or getting a formal warning for it yet all customer complaints like this get logged in our employee file. Is this not double talk.
He hadn't yet even purchased anything from us. He had no REAL history with our company yet he already needed to speak to the CEO. He had contacted the CEO on their linked-in account. I guess he felt special for thinking to do that. Someone pointed out to me why didn't he just contact the CEO in the first place.
I told my sup and the department head that some customers like to try and get someone fired just for the fun of it. They told me I wasn't being fired. I did tell them that it's the nightmare of working in customer service. I also told them that there are customer's who give formal thank yous to me as well. Honestly there was nothing extra-ordinary about his situation many customer's have the same situation and never need to speak to the CEO about it. The customer had spoken to my lead after he talked to me because I apparently wasn't doing enough to help him, my lead used totally different language and approach with him and he hung up on her. Lucky for her she is retiring next week
so they can't reprimand her which would also be cruel considering the guy was a jerk.
Sometimes customers really do enjoy being mean and want to be mean to someone because they enjoy seeing someone crumble. I work for a business that won't acknowledge that and takes the customer seriously.
From what I can tell the idiot couldn't reset his password or place an order yet he wouldn't let me do those things for him. So he HAD TO TALK TO THE flipping CEO and he complained about me. The meeting was supposedly about the words I used that I eventually said "What would you like me to do for you?" and after saying it a few times nicely. It eventually did come out as "what do you want me to do". So then he was able to complain that it sounded rude and complacent like I wasn't willing to help him at all.
Thank you for letting me write this out. I think I am going to re-visit again with my supervisors.
Can you believe that I am almost 40 years old and dealing with this.
