Customer Service Complaints: Damaged Goods

I hate the leniency of returns in the Australian retail industry.

Customer’s try and complain if you don’t do exactly what they want in regards to their complaints and unfortunately, nine times out of ten, it becomes a case of the squeaky wheel gets the oil.

I’ve touched on it before, but I don’t understand what customers expect.

Yesterday I had a customer return to my store with some pants that he believed were “faulty”. These pants had been worn twice a week, every week, for six months and being a fine woollen fabric had worn through. He believed this was a fault of the garment; I can assure you it wasn’t.

I don’t understand what his expectations of the garment were.

I wear the same clothes every week throughout a season, which is roughly the same duration of time in which his garment had become “faulty”; they have generally reached their expiry date at the end of this time. If they haven’t…I give mine to my brother, I don’t turn around and take them back to work; I simply put it down to general wear and tear.

The delusion of garments lasting twenty years without deterioration, however, isn’t the catalyst for this rant. It was the state in which they were presented to me.

It is against OH&S laws in Australia to accept garments that are unwashed as it can spread bacteria and be dangerous to staff. This man clearly wasn’t in the know about this fact. His “faulty” pants were rancid…and I’m not talking stinky unwashed rancid. I am talking sticky, homeless people care for their clothes more than you rancid.

What did he expect me to do with them?

Upon inquiry of whether his pants were freshly laundered (they clearly were not), he misunderstood me and told me that they had been dry cleaned once. Once…in six months. Whilst my initial reaction was, how the hell do you expect your clothes to last if you clearly take no care for them (I think only my eyes said that), I remained calm and told him that he had to deal with the apocalyptic amounts of bacteria that were calling his pants home, before I could help him.

My rage is building so I think I should wrap it up as quickly as possible; here are my top tips for maintaining your clothing,

1.     Care for your garment…turns out it is just one tip. Look after your damn clothes!

If they ARE genuinely faulty, wash them before you even think of taking them back to a store you filthy jerk.