Yeah, I’m sure we’ve all heard those 5 words put together in some form at one point in our retail lives. As if the loss of one customer (who always comes back) is going to completely disrupt the flow of the store’s overall income.
The one customer who grabs a shopping cart but only puts 2-3 items in it every visit, the customer who finds something to complain about every visit yet still comes back, yeah that customer.
When I was an ASM, I witnessed my Store Manager and a customer get into an argument over what was, or wasn’t on the receipt, and what was or wasn’t charged for.
It became evident my Store Manager was right as I looked at the receipt also, but this man would not leave the store, assuring us that he was right and we were wrong. Finally my tiny 4 ft 8 SM raised her a voice and walked away and he left cussing with the words “F You B I’m never coming back in here”.
So my SM went out to leave after her shift one day, and he was still in his truck complaining on the phone with corporate, drinking an energy drink. – Well she thought it was a beer can and called the cops on him for drinking alcohol in our parking lot. The cops arrive and the man gets even more pissed off because he’s drinking Red Bull and not Bud Light and that she had called the police on him in the first place. His anger eventually goes towards the officers and they’re not having his attitude at all, they make him get out of the vehicle and search it for any alcoholic cans, bottles and whatnot.
At this point the man is furious and I’m outside smoking, dying at the entire situation. Eventually, the police and the upset man leave.
What happens next is classic. He actually starts to send his wife inside the store to buy the energy drinks on sale instead of coming in because he said he’d never come back.
So he’s not coming back inside technically but his money is still being spent at the same establishment he’s pissed off at? Yeah, that’s absolutely right. Eventually, after I’d say a month goes by, he starts coming back inside and my SM has no filter (as most of us there don’t) and straight-up says to him “I thought you weren’t coming back?” He plays it off embarrassed assuming nobody would call him out on it like that, giving the usual excuse, blaming his somebody else (his wife).
So as these upset customers continue to tell us they’ll never come back, going somewhere else, whatever tactic they try to use that in their big brains is going to crumble the foundation of the company, know that they will be returning in some way or another.
Their money will still be going into your store, just by the insignificant other perhaps? The friend next door? The sibling? The F’n child? That customer will still be shopping there at the end of the shift. The company usually takes the win whether the customer, employees, whomever, realizes it or not.
