Sometimes, just let them have the last word

Today’s small-business lesson comes courtesy of an awkward customer, my delivery website page and what felt like 427 emails 😔

Customer places order.
Customer doesn’t read all the delivery information.
Customer’s angry as gift didn’t arrive.
Customer decides their interpretation of the delivery information is, in fact, the delivery information.
You explain.
They disagree.
You explain again.
They disagree again.
You apologize for the 8th time, you’re sorry they miss read it.
They disagree, but this time with a deadline and a threat.
You explain again. They reply with another three threats and another deadline.

And somewhere around email number 427, you realise they’re not actually looking for a solution.
They’re looking to be right and to have the last word (yes…it was a man) 😮

Sadly, threats seem to have become part of the everyday vocabulary of the online shopper.
So, in business, I’m always evaluating which hills I actually want to die on.
This wasn’t one of them.

And you quickly learn that if a man just wants to be right.
who am I to deprive him of his moment 😉

So you agree to pay his return postage.
You agree to give him his outgoing postage back.
You even agree to refund him.
And I sweetly tell him – I’m quite content to leave you with the last word, as it appears more important to you than it is to me.

And when that final little email arrives, containing one last triumphant sentence designed to establish that they were right all along…

Don’t open it. Just pop it in the bin 😬

Let them have that last word.
In private.

…So that was my morning!