People are funny and in this regular series, our bathroom retailer proves it, recalling some of the craziest moments they’ve had dealing with customers.
It is all in the detail in this industry and haven’t we all learnt this the hard way. By now, you’d think we could spot ‘a crazy’ from the outset, but sometimes they fool you with their normal façade and then… BANG, they phone up to complain about their fitter (‘theirs’ not ours, we must point out) and to show us just how frustrated they are, they let out a huge roar! It’s safe to say we had never been roared at before.
When we have days like that, we try and diffuse the tension with nature’s best remedy – laughter. Even this has proved treacherous for us though, when during a recent giggle a team member almost choked as she took a huge gulp of water and then laughed.
It took a minute for us to realise she was struggling and not just doubled over in hysterics (we are pretty funny here). Even laughing needs a H&S assessment when it comes to our showroom.
Laugh at your own risk!
This next request was one we didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at… We must be the only ones who have ever had this request, please do let us know if we aren’t. Recently, a client asked us to redesign their bathroom, but they said that keeping the bath was a must, as their child was born in it. They wanted to keep it forever as it had sentimental value. Now, is this aww or eww? We couldn’t decide.
Now from bath to bed. We asked a rep to help us out recently by popping to a client’s house to sort out a constantly running concealed cistern. He booked an appointment, checked the day before, called before he arrived and, despite all of this, the client was still in bed when he rang the doorbell.
That, in itself, isn’t that unusual, but after she showed him the en suite, which is attached to her bedroom, she took her dressing gown off and got back into bed. He didn’t know whether it was an invite or a passive/aggressive way of telling him to hurry up and get lost.
In between being roared at, CPR and repurposing birthing baths, we did recently manage to close early, as it was the hottest day of the year, and we escaped for a team-building pool day at the director’s home.
It was all going swimmingly, pun intended, until one irate client called as their stone bath had been delivered early by a courier and dumped on their drive, blocking their car.
When we answered the phone and told her that we were not at the showroom but in a pool, she was less than amused. Oops!