Dirty Tricks

Greetings gentle readers,
It's been an eventful week in Customer Service Land, with Queen Kat's Krafty Kustomer's attempting to pull out their best "dirty tricks". Dirty Tricks can be defined as those actions customers take to attempt to REALLY piss you off when they don't like your answer or service. Case in point: I was holding a customer accountable for a $30 bill recently. After several painful and long conversations, the customer reluctantly agreed to pay, but decided to do so as annoyingly as possible. So, they entered my establishment, and presented me with a jar of pennies - $30 worth. Now, this could have pissed me off, but I decided I would play along with the customer, since he had initiated the game. I accepted the jar of pennies, and proceeded to count them, very, very slowly, in front of the customer prior to issuing a receipt. Oh - and did I mention I got distracted on a few occasions and had to start over? Pity.
One reader wrote in with a story about how a parent entered her store with her two whiny, foul-mouthed, and general ill-behaved children. After several minutes of harassing other customers, the older child stuffed a toilet with toilet paper and rolls, resulting in a $500 plumbing bill for the shop owner. The kicker? The oblivious parent called to demand a $.10 refund for having been "overcharged" at the establishment. The shop keeper's smart response? To tape her $.10 to the plumbing bill, in the event that she ever came to collect her "debt".
The lesson here? Dirty Tricks don't work. They really just give those of us in the 'Biz fodder for great stories, and well, blog posts. They provide us with amusement, and frankly, give us a reason to laugh. On second thought, keep the dirty tricks coming! *Winks*.