Watch That Computer!

There was a story on the UPI website this week about an incident at a Radio Shack in Maryland last week, where the salesman wrote an unflattering description of the customer onto her receipt after they exchanged words regarding the 5-cent “plastic bag” tax implemented in the community around the store. If you’ve ever been to a Radio Shack you’re probably already familiar with their in-store Point-of-Sale computer system (which is called a POS for a reason), and the annoying way the clerk has to input your contact information every time they sell you anything. What you may not have realized is that the system also requires all of the same information for refunds, even if the customer is angry and wants his or her money back because a local ordinance is adding five cents to her total charge…

It’s easy to imagine the scene, isn’t it? The clerk, who couldn’t do anything about local taxes and charges if he wanted to; the customer who has had one too many things go wrong today; the increasingly unpleasant exchange, and finally the demand to just refund the whole transaction – and the refusal to repeat any of the contact information. It would undoubtedly have gone better if the clerk had entered something else into the contact information pages (even random keystrokes); the clerk should have realized that anyone who was already that irate was likely to blow up at him for such a prank, and that anyone who would demand a full refund over a 5-cent charge would probably make a huge stink out of his prank, writing to corporate headquarters and informing the media. Still, I can help reflecting that things could still be much worse…

I was transported back to an event that happened nearly 18 years ago now, when I was working in a drug store in Los Angeles. The company’s advertising slogan at the time was “[Company Name]: Count on People Who Care!” which was repeated on television ads, billboards, and at the bottom of all receipts. But one day a story turned up in the paper about someone (it later turned out to be a disgruntled employee) who had reprogrammed one of the stores’ computers to print “[Company Name]: Ask Us If We Care!” Corporate Headquarters in Chicago (and our regional HQ in Anaheim) went into overdrive trying to bury the story, but as our local paper had a circulation of a million and a half, that didn’t really work. And there wasn’t much they could do about spinning it…

Now, since that time I’ve seen a lot of unauthorized comments on receipts (and other documents), and there’s no question that our chain of drug stores got off easy in the 1994 episode – or that Radio Shack is likely to avoid any major bad outcomes from this incident, either. And it’s probably unrealistic to expect every employee down on the sharp end of customer service to behave like a perfect gentleman after some unbalanced customer has jumped all over him for a 5-cent municipal fee, especially when (as is often the case in retail) he’s only being paid minimum wage. I call this story to your attention because this customer is still out there, along with thousands (or millions) of others just like her, and sooner or later one of them is going to pick a fight with someone from your company, too…