Confessions of a former pornstore clerk - Part 3 - The Angry Customer
Customer service is a staple of any successful retail store and part of being good at customer service is being able to deal with a dissatisfied or angry customer. You would think that running an adult video store would really cut down on complaints but in reality that was far from the case. When I started working there, I never would have anticipated that people would be angry that Snow White and the Seven Horny Dwarfs didnt feature real dwarfs or that novelty products such as Penis Power Grow and Black Stud Prolonging cream didnt live up the claims on the packaging. While this made my job tough at first, after a while I got used to dealing with the angry customers and it turned from a chore to the highlight of my shifts. It became a bonding experience for the staff and gave us all some common ground and a easy topic to talk about during out shifts. Two stories always stood out for me.
The first was Steven Seagal, he was a regular who was permanently angry about everything; he was or most reoccurring problem customer, every movie he bought, he falsely claimed was damaged or missing a scene. He did this in the hopes that we would allow him to exchange these movies for other dvds that he hadn't watched yet. This in itself wasnt that strange, lots of people like to try and cheat the system, but he attempted to use our sale movies like a rental section (he was banned from the rental section after returning his rentals soiled.. No better way to piss off / gross out a porn clerk then attempt to return a rental covered in cum *shutters* ). This alone didnt really distinguish him from the masses, what made him stand out was his back story.
Steven was an alleged amateur porn star (in between trying to scam us, he would talk excessively about the movies he was in and how many porn stars he had slept with) whos claim to fame was sharing a name with a somewhat famous action movie star from the 90s. He also has Steven Seagal's signature greasy pony tail and talked and dressed like his name sake.. in short he was a hard customer to forget! He became the in-store joke and one of the people I had to warn my employees about in training (like the masturbators or the shoplifters), sadly not all of our angry customers were as harmless as Mr. Seagal.
My other memorable angry customer only came to the shop once, but that was more than enough.
A very stocky man from New Brunswick had been in that day browsing our porta-pussy / Pocket vagina section. He was about 56 or so and Id say about 300 pounds. He seemed nervous and was covered in sweat. He kept looking at my female co-worker (Crystal) as if she had seven heads, each of which breathing fire. It wasnt uncommon for men to be scared of the female staff so I had her go put away rentals and helped the man pick out his date for the night. He bought knock-off fleshlight and seemed happy enough with the price, before he left I battery tested it for him and told him about our no return policy.
About 5 hours later, just before close he returned to the store enraged. He walked up to the counter and proceeded to call me a "fucking prick" who sold him a defective product. I politely pointed out that we have a no return policy and asked how the product was defective. He replied that I was a "fucking prick" and he wanted his money now and that he wouldnt move from where he was until I gave him a refund. I stared at him for the next 5 minutes as he stood there; shaking, silently staring back at me, then I started to tidy the counter and asked Crystal if she had put back the rentals for the night. He then slammed his fist on the counter and demanded that Crystal call the manager, Crystal tapped me on the shoulder and said this customer would like to speak to you boss, and he started calling me a fucking prick again.
At this point I tried to reason with the angry man who kept swearing at me. I told him that we had gotten off on the wrong foot but that swearing at the staff was not ok. I told him again that all sales are final but if he could explain how the product was defective, perhaps I could figure out something we could do for him. My words had little effect on him, as all he would say is that he wasnt leaving until he had his money, so I nodded to Crystal who picked up the phone. I told him that we had to ask him to leave as he was causing a scene and that we would have to call the cops if he didnt leave. This calmed him down slightly and i again told him that unless he wanted to make a new purchase or tell me what the defect was, then our business was done and he would have to leave. He looked at us, picked up his vagina and walked to towards the door, turned around abruptly and threw the sex toy at our heads while screaming that it was too big for him and that we should both die and stormed out. I would have felt bad for him if he had been nicer about the whole thing, poor guy was too small downstairs to use the product he bought! But its hard to feel bad about someone who throws a used sex toy at your head.. Lucky for us he had put it back in the box.
We closed that night around 11:30pm and I walked Crystal home. It was pretty much standard policy for me to walk the ladies home after we had a sketchy night at the shop, and having a used fake vagina tossed at your head typically tends to wig a person out. She lived 3 blocks down from the shop so I dropped her off and continued on my way. After I was just out of eye sight of Crystals place, I noticed I was being followed. The angry man from New Brunswick was back! Turns out that he had went to bar in the area to drown his sorrows, watched as we left the store then decided to follow us to have another confrontation.
My first thought was that I was going to have my ass handed to me, but at least he had gone after me and not Crystal. My second reaction was to slip into my best customer service persona and see if I could talk myself out of this. He had about 150 pounds on me and I`d never been a fighter but I am about 6`2 so I was hoping that I might at least look like someone who could fight, which might give me the some leverage in talking this out. With my game plan in mind, I turned and walked back towards him, hoping to reach him in a well lit area and asked if I could help him with something. I could tell as I got closer that he was more then just a little drunk and when I stopped in front of him, he attempted to grab me by the shirt but ended up missing, his momentum carrying him into a head first fall into the street. I helped him to his feet and he told me that I was "going to give his the money now or else" I smiled and politely replied that the store was closed but I would make sure he got his money if he gave me a way to contact him tomorrow.. He gave me his full name, address and phone number. I shook his hand and walked back to the store, called the cops with his info, filed a report and walked home.
Moral of the story, one size doesn`t fit all.
Customer service is a staple of any successful retail store and part of being good at customer service is being able to deal with a dissatisfied or angry customer. You would think that running an adult video store would really cut down on complaints but in reality that was far from the case. When I started working there, I never would have anticipated that people would be angry that Snow White and the Seven Horny Dwarfs didnt feature real dwarfs or that novelty products such as Penis Power Grow and Black Stud Prolonging cream didnt live up the claims on the packaging. While this made my job tough at first, after a while I got used to dealing with the angry customers and it turned from a chore to the highlight of my shifts. It became a bonding experience for the staff and gave us all some common ground and a easy topic to talk about during out shifts. Two stories always stood out for me.
The first was Steven Seagal, he was a regular who was permanently angry about everything; he was or most reoccurring problem customer, every movie he bought, he falsely claimed was damaged or missing a scene. He did this in the hopes that we would allow him to exchange these movies for other dvds that he hadn't watched yet. This in itself wasnt that strange, lots of people like to try and cheat the system, but he attempted to use our sale movies like a rental section (he was banned from the rental section after returning his rentals soiled.. No better way to piss off / gross out a porn clerk then attempt to return a rental covered in cum *shutters* ). This alone didnt really distinguish him from the masses, what made him stand out was his back story.
Steven was an alleged amateur porn star (in between trying to scam us, he would talk excessively about the movies he was in and how many porn stars he had slept with) whos claim to fame was sharing a name with a somewhat famous action movie star from the 90s. He also has Steven Seagal's signature greasy pony tail and talked and dressed like his name sake.. in short he was a hard customer to forget! He became the in-store joke and one of the people I had to warn my employees about in training (like the masturbators or the shoplifters), sadly not all of our angry customers were as harmless as Mr. Seagal.
My other memorable angry customer only came to the shop once, but that was more than enough.
A very stocky man from New Brunswick had been in that day browsing our porta-pussy / Pocket vagina section. He was about 56 or so and Id say about 300 pounds. He seemed nervous and was covered in sweat. He kept looking at my female co-worker (Crystal) as if she had seven heads, each of which breathing fire. It wasnt uncommon for men to be scared of the female staff so I had her go put away rentals and helped the man pick out his date for the night. He bought knock-off fleshlight and seemed happy enough with the price, before he left I battery tested it for him and told him about our no return policy.
About 5 hours later, just before close he returned to the store enraged. He walked up to the counter and proceeded to call me a "fucking prick" who sold him a defective product. I politely pointed out that we have a no return policy and asked how the product was defective. He replied that I was a "fucking prick" and he wanted his money now and that he wouldnt move from where he was until I gave him a refund. I stared at him for the next 5 minutes as he stood there; shaking, silently staring back at me, then I started to tidy the counter and asked Crystal if she had put back the rentals for the night. He then slammed his fist on the counter and demanded that Crystal call the manager, Crystal tapped me on the shoulder and said this customer would like to speak to you boss, and he started calling me a fucking prick again.
At this point I tried to reason with the angry man who kept swearing at me. I told him that we had gotten off on the wrong foot but that swearing at the staff was not ok. I told him again that all sales are final but if he could explain how the product was defective, perhaps I could figure out something we could do for him. My words had little effect on him, as all he would say is that he wasnt leaving until he had his money, so I nodded to Crystal who picked up the phone. I told him that we had to ask him to leave as he was causing a scene and that we would have to call the cops if he didnt leave. This calmed him down slightly and i again told him that unless he wanted to make a new purchase or tell me what the defect was, then our business was done and he would have to leave. He looked at us, picked up his vagina and walked to towards the door, turned around abruptly and threw the sex toy at our heads while screaming that it was too big for him and that we should both die and stormed out. I would have felt bad for him if he had been nicer about the whole thing, poor guy was too small downstairs to use the product he bought! But its hard to feel bad about someone who throws a used sex toy at your head.. Lucky for us he had put it back in the box.
We closed that night around 11:30pm and I walked Crystal home. It was pretty much standard policy for me to walk the ladies home after we had a sketchy night at the shop, and having a used fake vagina tossed at your head typically tends to wig a person out. She lived 3 blocks down from the shop so I dropped her off and continued on my way. After I was just out of eye sight of Crystals place, I noticed I was being followed. The angry man from New Brunswick was back! Turns out that he had went to bar in the area to drown his sorrows, watched as we left the store then decided to follow us to have another confrontation.
My first thought was that I was going to have my ass handed to me, but at least he had gone after me and not Crystal. My second reaction was to slip into my best customer service persona and see if I could talk myself out of this. He had about 150 pounds on me and I`d never been a fighter but I am about 6`2 so I was hoping that I might at least look like someone who could fight, which might give me the some leverage in talking this out. With my game plan in mind, I turned and walked back towards him, hoping to reach him in a well lit area and asked if I could help him with something. I could tell as I got closer that he was more then just a little drunk and when I stopped in front of him, he attempted to grab me by the shirt but ended up missing, his momentum carrying him into a head first fall into the street. I helped him to his feet and he told me that I was "going to give his the money now or else" I smiled and politely replied that the store was closed but I would make sure he got his money if he gave me a way to contact him tomorrow.. He gave me his full name, address and phone number. I shook his hand and walked back to the store, called the cops with his info, filed a report and walked home.
Moral of the story, one size doesn`t fit all.
VIEW 9 of 9 COMMENTS
anyway nice story xD but yeah customers sometimes aren't easy but I think if someone said a vagina was too big for them with me near I wouldn't be able to keep myself from laughing x) my humour sense is just too twisted xD