REquests from customer that make your day

[Only me]

I started a retail job in a home improvement store about 2 months ago, and overall, so far am loving it.

Now I've seen some funny things or strange things happen. Last Saturday I was working Customer Service Desk and helping out Returns, when this really really really old person came up. He had a really bewildered look on his face adn all I could think was "oh please don't ask me something I don't know". I'm still learning where things in the store are and had lot of stuff I couldn't answer that day.

He looked me straight in the eye and asked politely "Do you know where the nears Swiss Chalet is".... As a matter of fact I do. Thank Godness for customers like him, one's I can help. I was even able to offer to write the instructions since he wasn't familar with the area of town he was in.

Me me me

[Yvaine]

I love it when people request some odd thing that I actually happen to have on hand. It's happened with tweezers (they needed them to remove a watch battery, IIRC), hand lotion, a tiny screwdriver...

[RebeccainGA]

Not being customer facing anymore, I miss those little things! When I worked in the bookstore, there was nothing I liked more than an odd request that I knew the answer to, or a kid that wanted a book about a panda that eats ice cream and his friend the penguin, and I could figure out what book they were talking about. Made their day, sure, but made mine too!

[Thipu1]

Isn't it wonderful when you get a strange question and can give a satisfactory answer off the top of your head?

We had a few of those in the library. 

My favorite was a couple who were quite apologetic about their request.  They were sure we didn't have much but were interested in learning about dwarves in Ancient Egypt.  As it happened, two weeks before their visit we received a 300 page book on the subject. 

They were sure we were a magical place. 

[ITSJUSTME]

I have to brag a little here - worked in the toy dept. of a large-ish Chicago dept. store many years ago.  Some customers came in that spoke German and very little English.  Wouldn't you know, DH had studied German all through high school and I had picked up just a teensy weensy smidge of it - just enough to show them the toys they wanted.  Pherd (toy horse) Puppa (doll) even bub for baby doll (I take no responsibility for spelling these words).

Everything was working out fine until it came time to ring them out.  I did not know how to say "cash, check or charge?" to them.  We all struggled for a minute until one of the women shouted out gleefully "GELT" (money) and pulled the cash out of her purse.  They complimented me and thanked me profusely for helping them.  It made up for a lot of the less pleasant to deal with customers.

Thanks for this topic - that was fun!!!

[Blueberry]

A customer came into a store looking for a book. It was his daughter’s favourite, but there was a house fire and all they salvaged of the book was about the middle. He gave me the middle and asked me if there was any way I could find out what book this was (this was a very old book, there wasn’t a title or author on every page like some nowadays).

I had actually read this book before and it was a favourite! So I took the pieces from him, went to the section and came back with an intact newly released edition!

My staff all thought I was magic. So did he. 

[andi]

I love those customers - I work customer service for a large retail outlet that deals with home decore items and in the last 2 years I've had many more positive encounters than negative.  I do love being able to help with some little thing outside my "realm" though - like when I'm able to take e-h*ell advice to our brides or guests.  Makes me smile (and I've referred quite a few people here too)

[MummySweet]

More than 20 years ago I worked on a hotel front desk near the Minneapolis-St.Paul Airport.    We had a very nice group of guys in from the Southwest and Texas.   They were looking for something to do and I asked what types of things they might be interested in.  One of them piped up that he loved rodeos, but sure wasn't going to find them in "these here parts."      Wouldn't you know?  There was a rodeo going one that weekend in a town about 45 minutes away from the cities, and my friend's dad was the organizer.     They got an on-demand Minnesota Rodeo!   

[Quiltin Nana]

My story is kind of the opposite, where I as the customer helps out the customer service.

My husband and I like to travel.  We try and go to different places each year.  Our son is a volunteer firefighter in our local area and when we travel we go to the nearest fire dept and buy him a t-shirt.  Most fire departments sells t-shirts as a fundraiser.  He is amassing quite a collection.

Usually when we ask the concierge desk where the local fire deparment is, they always look bewildered at the question.  We explain our quest and they seem very surprised that fire deparments do this.  Sometimes the nearest fire department doesn't sell t-shirts, but usually we've been able to find the next closest and they do.  When we've been successful, we always go back to the concierge and let them know where we've been able to find the t-shirt.

They are always happy to make a note so that they can answer this question sometime in the future. 

[BeagleMommy]

When DS was about 5 we went to DisneyWorld.  We were on one of the shuttle buses to get to a different part of the park when a family boarded the bus speaking German.  In very broken English they asked the driver how to get to a specific part of the park.  Unfortunately, all the driver did was speak loudly and slowly  .  I had completed a survival German course three years earlier when we were considering working there (government job).  I said (apologies to Deutschland if I misspell anything) "Entschuldigen zie, bitte.  Gehen zie auf autobus drei und fierzig fur MGM Studio."  I received a chorus of "Felen dank" from the family and the whole bus applauded.

DS said "Mom, that was cool".  I think it was the last time I was cool in his eyes.

[Tea Drinker]

It's fun having the one bit of information someone needs.

Some years ago, I was in Boston for the weekend, for a social convention. My gym has branches there as well as in my home city and a couple of other places, so I had walked over to the nearest branch for a workout. On my way back, a car pulled over and the driver asked me how to get to Boylston Street.

I told them, they said thanks, and never knew that that was probably the only place I could have directed them to--the gym I'd been using was on Boylston Street.

[Onyx_TKD]

When DS was about 5 we went to DisneyWorld.  We were on one of the shuttle buses to get to a different part of the park when a family boarded the bus speaking German.  In very broken English they asked the driver how to get to a specific part of the park.  Unfortunately, all the driver did was speak loudly and slowly  .  I had completed a survival German course three years earlier when we were considering working there (government job).  I said (apologies to Deutschland if I misspell anything) "Entschuldigen zie, bitte.  Gehen zie auf autobus drei und fierzig fur MGM Studio."  I received a chorus of "Felen dank" from the family and the whole bus applauded.

DS said "Mom, that was cool".  I think it was the last time I was cool in his eyes.

It's great that you were able to help, but I'm not quite sure what you expected the driver to do. If he didn't speak German, then there's not all that much he could do, unless it was possible to communicate the information through gestures instead of giving them verbal directions. Trying to speak slowly and clearly seems like a good start, especially since their "broken English" indicates that they do have some knowledge of the language, however slight.

[Jocelyn]

I would think that a bus driver at Disney World would have maps of the park, and he could have asked if there were anyone on the bus who could help. For that matter, I'm sort of surprised that DW doesn't have a central office with interpreters which can be accessed by radio. It seems like it would prevent all sorts of tragedies, from lost children to medical emergencies.

I used to ride a bus to campus, and there were a couple of African men who also rode the bus, one of whom got on before I did, and the other got on a couple of stops after I did. So they would greet each other and start conversing in French. One day when they weren't on the bus, the driver told me that he felt very uncomfortable about it...because he spoke French, and he thought the men were assuming their conversations were private. We agreed upon an intervention...the next day when the second man boarded the bus, both the driver and I greeted him with a cheery Bonjour! The two African men, after that, would greet us in French...but they also held their mutual conversation at a lower volume. 

[Sharnita]

Not where I worked but neat to see - I was eating with my mom in a restaurant where there are a lot of German-Americans working.  A German tourist came in to eat and he had the stereotypical backpack, etc.  He spoke with a pretty heavy accent and from where I was sitting I couldn't tell how much English he spoke.  The hostess excused herself for a moment and I figured she was getting a German speaking waitress who could more easily understand him.  I was kind of right.  She found a German speaking waitress alright - and the woman sat with him through dinner, conversed, kept him company, apparently answered any questions he had about the area - all in German.  I think she probably sat with him for close to an hour, talking and keeping him company.

[Jocelyn]

The other day one of my co-workers made a cake, but for some reason didn't bring a cake server with her.
I was pleased to announce that I had a cake server in my office.
About an hour later, my boss came by and said, 'I was trying to wipe the frosting off the server, and...' demonstrating that the handle and the blade of the server had irretrievably parted company.
No big deal...it had been left by someone at my previous job, and I was the only one who'd bite the bullet and wash it, so it wasn't as if he'd damaged an heirloom.