Customer yelling at me over the phone over something I have absolutely zero control over (OLP)
Why do some customers not understand when I tell them over and over that what they want is beyond my control?
I finished shopping and came back to the room to go stage. It was my very first shop of the day so I literally had like JUST clocked in less than a half an hour ago.
Everyone else was shopping as well and I heard over the desk page that OLP had a call holding on line 1. I only really answer the phone when there's no one in the room, since I'm mainly a shopper. So I picked it up and this woman was asking about the status on her groceries because when she checked, it said that it wasn't packed yet. We were a little behind, but not critically where stuff was late and people were waiting. The hour was due for noon and it was a bit over 11.
Before I even asked what the name of her order was, she literally said: "I need these groceries delivered by noon because I have clients and one's in a wheelchair"
I replied and just asked her: "Ok well, what's the name of the order?"
She had to say it multiple times and I had to ask her to repeat a lot and say it slowly because she was kind of speaking fast and it was kind of muffled over the phone, so simple letters like d and z were easily audibly confused between one another.
Eventually I had found her order in our system, and it was yellow meaning it was still being shopped. I told her that and she just yelled: "OH MY GOD!" When I went to go see batch progress to tell her how long it would take it to be done, there was only one person shopping the last of the hour (which included her order number) and they had roughly 15 items left.
The problem is, she was a 3rd party pickup, so that means regardless whether we're done or not, a 3rd party service such as Doordash or Instacart, is picking up for her to deliver. We don't control WHO shows up nor WHEN to pick up her order to deliver to her, but she was somehow acting as if I did have control over that. She yelled at me saying "I NEED THESE BY NOON."
I politely asked her not to speak to me like that but she wouldn't stop. I tried telling her: "Ma'am, even if we were done, a 3rd party service is picking up for you and we do not have control over who that person is nor when they come"
She's yelling screaming: "YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO KNOW THIS" and other things I barely remember, because I've already tried explaining to her a thousand times, and it's falling on deaf ears, she honestly was barely even letting me get a word in, and I really just wanted to get off the phone with her because she wouldn't stop yelling at me.
Thing is, I'm normally a shopper in the department, since facilitating is pretty stressful for me especially when we are behind. But my shopping pick rates are normally 190-200+ now. So when we're behind, I gotta be shopping nonstop. Can't do that when I'm the phone with her though and she's just nonstop berating me.
When I kept politely asking her to please stop yelling at me. She just screamed: "GET MY GROCERIES DELIVERED" then hung up.
I finally was able to go shop again, but I had to bring a couple orders out real quick because there were a lot at once and some were calling but we couldn't answer because I was stuck on the phone with her.
It didn't seem to matter how many times I tried to explain that we're not the ones who deliver the groceries. We just shop them, store them, and whoever is coming to pick them up to deliver, it is completely out of our control from there.
Anyways, it really should be water under the bridge, I've been trying to brush it off, but I don't know, I needed to articulate this off my chest somehow.
On a lighter note, these are some good shops I've had!!!!