A phrase often used by people who work in Customer service, which describes a person who goes into shops or phones up companies with the sole purpose of starting an argument or causing trouble.

For example, they might go into a shop and ask for a product, knowing full well the shop doesn't stock it, and then kick up a fuss when they're told "Sorry, we don't stock that".

Another example would be deliberately misinterpreting what the sales advisor says or taking it out of context, then complaining to the manager about rude staff and bad customer service.

I used to work in the Customer Services department of a mail order company. A woman phoned me to slag off anything and everything about the company, and then started with the personal insults directed at me. After all this, she was still pretty taken aback when I dared to disagree with her. Personally I don't care if you're the customer, I still think you're wrong you bitch! She accused us of being misleading, when she was clearly a very intelligent woman and could understand our catalogue perfectly. She just had too much time on her hands.

Several minutes later she faxed over a letter of complaint, accusing me of saying and doing things which I never said or did. Looking at the length of the letter, she would've had to type about 160wpm, which is pretty impossible. The only other explanation was that she'd prepared the letter beforehand. Of course, my boss from hell was one of those "the customer is always right" people, and believed the customer over me. I quit my job. The only good thing about the whole incident was that I got myself a new and much better job!

I threw the letter away, but I kept the woman's name and address, incase I ever think of an evil way of getting my own back.

So there you have it: stupid customers are not so bad as long as they remain polite. It's the clever ones you should watch out for.

It is fairly traditional (In British magazines, at least) to have a section of the magazine where if you get poor customer service, you write to them about it. They then 'make enquieries on your behalf' (Which could amount to faxing your letter to the company's PR department with a bit of the magazine's headed paper) and they then print the eventual results in their magazine.

Why do they do this? Well, all media wants to be percieved as 'the champion of the consumer'. And since they have the numbers for PR departments and they offer mass exposure, they can simply send off your complaint to the PR people at the company and they do all the legwork. Then when Mrs. Jones gets a replacement for her faulty kettle and a $15 Sears voucher to compensate her for the cost of premium-rate customer services phone calls, the magazine comes out shining, the company has a forum to say how unusual cases like this are, and Mrs Jones gets a new kettle.

Clever, eh?

Hello Everyone...

A professional complainer is one who knows how a complaint will be effective against a person or organization... He's the person who creates a situation out of nothing which will ultimately result in an argument which would be forwarded as a complaint.

I work for this retail outlet for clothing. There were only two persons in the showroom at that time as the other had gone for lunch, one was doing the billing and I was attending to another customer. He asked the one in the billing counter to help him purchase and the guy in the counter told him to just make trial from the samples displayed... and this guy starts shouting at top of his voice that is there nobody to help us. I had to leave my present customer whom I was attending and went up to him and told him how can I help you and he says I dont want to waste my time here... I tell him to make a trial and he starts telling to give the sizes 22, 24, 26... I thought he already knew his size and gave him the new clothes, then he gives the new clothes to his son and tells him to go make a trial... I told him that the trial samples are already displayed here... again he starts showing... then he asks if the clothes can be stitched... I tell him that as per company rule, they have to go to another branch to give the measurement... Again he starts shouting you take the measurement here... I tell him again that as we do not have tailoring facility here, we cannot take. He then asks my name and my colleagues name. He calls his wife and tells her that these guys are not helping us in the store and behaving with us rudely and tells her to make a formal complaint on the internet.... The other customers in the store who saw all this were really pissed off of him... I don't know what he wanted to do... Then he asks my managers name and calls her and complains again... He tells here that we are also refusing to take measurement here... crazy stupid idiotic customer... He only got convinced after my manager said that tailor measurement is only in the other outlet...

These type of customers just a pain... have to be careful and have lot of patience... cos this guy is going to screwup your day...

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