Some customers are so focused on squeezing out every possible discount that they lose sight of the bigger picture.
So, what would you do if someone insisted on nitpicking every price and demanding discounts, only to end up paying more after all their efforts? Would you let them keep digging their own hole or step in to stop them?
In today’s story, a lumberyard employee deals with a customer just like this. Here’s how it played out.
I worked at a family-owned lumberyard about ten years ago. For background, most of the prices for in-store items were set by our supplier and were a bit higher than local competitors.
If a sale was over $10, we’d give them a 10% discount. The discount was entered manually, and we’d be pretty lenient with our regular, enjoyable customers. The $10 mark was merely a rough number.
One of our regular, annoying customers came in. He comes up to the counter with a couple of small items. The total came to $5 something. I give him his total, and he pays.
The customer really wanted that 10% discount.
Then, he looks over his receipt. Then he looks at me and says “I get a ten percent discount”. I explained that the computer only allows it if the total is over ten dollars. (Total lie, but this guy is a known jerk, so even at 9.99, he can **** off). He says, “Oh ok, then I’m going to keep shopping”.
I punch up a return for the items he has already paid for, give him his money back, and he keeps shopping. He comes back a few minutes later with a couple more items. I punch him up again. Now it comes out to $11 something. He gets his discount.
He pays and checks his receipt. Then he says, “This item was a different price in the hook”. So I go check. Sure enough, one of his items is ten cents cheaper on the hook than what is scanned. The second item he purchased was hung right nearby, and I noticed that one was 30 cents more than what it scanned. I chose not to say anything right there.
Little did he know, he had gotten the better end of the original deal.
I returned those items, rescanned them, and edited the prices to match the hook prices. He’s grinning ear to ear while I’m doing this. Then I look at him and tell him he owes me another 22 cents or so.
He asked how, and I told him that when I updated the prices, one item was cheaper, and the other was more expensive. He says, “Oh, okay.” He smiles, pays, doesn’t check his receipt, and walks out the door.
The guy spent an extra $5 to save $1.
Yikes! Petty customers can be hard to deal with.
Let’s see how the readers over at Reddit relate to this situation.
This is a great point.
As this person points out, as long as they were items he needed, he got a good deal.
Here’s someone thinking about it in terms of the time value of money.
Well, that’s an interesting point.
Sure, his approach could’ve been better, but $1 is a $1. With prices constantly rising, it was probably smart to spend more now to save money later.
If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.
