Agent of the Devil?

I was reminded today about how hard it is to make all customers happy all of the time after a difficult conversation with a client who objected to a 15 minute service call that I personally performed on their network server.  I thought I was being generous by only charging our minimum for a service call that really lasted a lot longer than that.  Let's just say we "disagreed".

It brought to mind one of our most unusual customer encounters that happened early in our corporate history.

When Debbie and I first opened our computer company, it was in the retail market located in a shopping mall and we positioned ourselves to compete with Eggheads Software, the big IT dog on the block.  We differed from them in that we sold computers too and not just software.   Back then, the company was call "The Wizard's Computer Shop"  Cute, huh?  Well, I thought so anyway.  

One day, I spent hours with a woman who wanted to home school her children and was looking for a computer with educational software that she could use.  Finally, we put together a package including special order software that seemed to meet all of her needs and she took everything home to get started.

About a month later, I spotted this same lady with a look of grim determination wheeling a full shopping cart directly toward our shop.  Before I could say "Hello" she demanded in a very loud voice  "I WANT A REFUND! Take this all back!"  Why, I asked, did something break? "No!" She replied.  "I talked with my friends at church and YOU ARE AN AGENT OF THE DEVIL!"  That got everyones attention and customers started to ease their way towards the door.  Now, I've been called a lot of things in my life but that was a new one and it begged the obvious question "Why do you think that?"  Because, she replied, you own "The Wizard's Computer Shop" and wizards are agents of the devil so that makes you one too!  I asked if there was anything wrong with the computer or software she bought.  No, she replied, but I was in "cahoots" with the devil so she wanted her money back.

I patiently explained that she had registered the computer warranty so no one else would get a warranty and the software llcenses were not legally transferrable.  They couldn't be sold as new so I couldn't comply with her request.  "Besides, ma'am," I said, "You knew the name of our company when you came in here in the first place.  Why was it a problem now?" 

What to do?  This woman had come up with probably the most unusual (and may I say at least a little insulting) way to ask for a refund.  After much back and forth, I came up with an idea that she found acceptable.  I would take the used computer back "on consignment" and sell it as used and give her all of the money as I sold things.  It took a few weeks but I eventually made her reasonably happy.

I sometimes wonder if she went back to her friends at church and told her that she made one more deal with the devil (or at least his agent).

PS.  We changed the name of the company shortly after that.