Can you ever win an argument with a customer?

It's an old cliche, but the customer is always right, even when they're wrong!  The reason I say that is when you run a business there is no mileage - let me repeat that, no mileage - in arguing with a customer.  If you do,then all that happens is that they take their business elsewhere, but they tend to do much more than that.  Do something well in business and the customer is likely to tell a friend, treat him or her badly and they'll tell all of their friends...repeatedly... and in the modern world they're likely to use social media to tell the world about you.  Argue with a customer?  Not if you've got any sense!


Now to the ongoing saga of the University of Winchester shop and its reluctance to to stock newspapers.


You might recall that I complained about them stocking so few newspapers that they'd regularly run out by 09:00, and about the fact that the shop manager couldn't be bothered to pop down and discuss it with me.  Here is the reply that I received.


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Thank you for your e-mail. Unfortunately my assistant manager was occupied when you wanted to discuss the issue with the newspapers but I am hoping I can answer your questions. We do not get sale on return with regards to our newspapers and it is only a service we have in place as we do not make any profit on them. We have monitored the sale of the newspapers and have found we are now stocking the right amount to prevent the write offs. However I am happy to set up an order for you  for the newspaper/s you require on the days you require if you pay a week in advance. Please be advice though that there are circumstances that newspapers may not be delivered due to factors such as severe weather or our supplier running low on stock or the delivery boy being off ill, to which then we would refund you the amount of those newspapers that we were unable to obtain for you.

If you could get back to me ASAP with how you would like to proceed.

Kind Regards,
Lynn Morgan | Retail Manger
Winchester Student Union

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Never one to give up, I replied:

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Lynn, thanks.

I won't ask why you don't get papers on sale or return, or make a profit on them - I'll just say that most newsagents do both of those things!

 However, your point that you've monitored sales and found that you are stocking the right quantities to avoid write-offs is bizarre. If you order no newspapers, you will have no write-offs - why not do that? If I 
was trying to buy a Times / Guardian / Indie at midday then I'd understand, and think I should buy one elsewhere before I come in.  However, you're often out of all of those papers by 08:45 (you were on Tues, Wed and Fri of this week - I bought the last one at 08:40 today!):  that's before most lectures start ,so what you're saying is that you know  that the majority of your potential customers - the ones who come in after  08:45 - won't want to buy a broadsheet paper. Let me suggest that some of them look in the window, see you're out of stock yet again, shake their  heads in disbelief, and don't even bother to come into the shop. How  would you prove to me that I'm wrong in that assertion? No, I won't order a paper because, as a journalism student, I tend to buy different papers each 
 day - and I know a number of other journalism students who are just as  frustrated as me by the crazy lack of quality papers in your shop.

 Finally, when a customer asks to see the manager of the shop, it is, in my  opinion, totally unacceptable for that person to come on the phone, ask  what it's about, and then say that they won't come down to speak to the 
 customer. I know you run a Uni shop but it's still part of the real  world - retail doesn't work that way. 

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I copied the note to Lynn's manager and his or her manager, and the elected President of the Students Union, but heard nothing.  I chased it and eventually got this from someone describing himself as the General Manager of the Students Union.  

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Dear Mr Boag, 

Thank you for your observations and comments regarding our retail provision. It is always nice to hear pleasant constructive feedback from our student members. However I apologise that we are unable to resolve the crux of your issue, the heightened stock holding of national newspapers. As has been explained to you, the supply of newspapers can either be done via a local 3rd party (in our case Stanmore news) or via a national distribution chain. The latter requires extremely high stock turnover as there are high minimum orders involved. We simply cannot make these minimums and thus we supply a handful of papers from a local newsagents, the cost to us being just a few pence less than the retail cost to you. Under these conditions we only stock enough papers to ensure that we sell out. 
It seems that the offer of pre-ordering was untenable to you so I can only suggest that you utilise another newspaper retailer if our store is unable to fulfil your needs.

Regards and thank you

Andrew Hodgson | General Manager
Winchester Student Union 

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Is it me or was there an attempt at sarcasm somewhere in there?  I wrote back to Andrew asking if he was a paid employee or an elected officer of the SU, but surprise, surprise, got no reply.  Equally the President of the SU hasn't bothered to comment on it.  It occurs to me that maybe they could get the papers from their local newsagent and, since that shop will be working on a sale or return basis with its wholesaler, maybe return the unsold one to them later in the day?  If I can think of that you wonder why they didn't manage it?  

It's worth a trip to the shop to see the fine selection of restrictions they place on their customers - from memory they include the statements that they don't take £50 notes and, oddly, only take Scottish bank notes from one of the Scottish banks - present legal tender from Clydesdale Bank or one of the others and they won't take your money.  If they had ever grasped the plot then by now they've totally lost it - retail is about customer service, or have I got that wrong?  

You'd be hard pushed to find a better way to really hack-off a customer, but if you find a more spectacular example of lousy customer service, post a comment and I'll gladly write it up.