19 Stories That Prove Customer Service Is Full of Curiosities

Service and salespeople know better than anyone else that interacting with people is not easy, but it is not boring either. Because sometimes you come across quite remarkable clients. They have very specific requests, require extra work, or complain about anything possible.

• A 45-year-old client came in for eyelash extensions. From the start, it was clear: she was going to blow my mind. She looked at me as if I were her servant. I started to work, and then the woman suddenly said, “If I don’t like it, I won’t pay!” Okay, with shaking hands I start doing extensions, and she meanwhile talks about how she got her eyelashes extended for $150. I find it weird, why after having eyelash extensions for $150, people go to beginners for $6? I never agreed to do any more procedures for her, she is a very contradictory person. © margo_lashlove / Threads

• One time a bride booked makeup and hair for just her and her mom, and surprised me with 5 bridesmaids, 2 aunts, and the groom’s mom as well. I work in a salon not affiliated with the wedding company during the evening and this was a noon wedding so I had planned on doing the 2 faces and going home to eat, poop, and get ready for my other job. Instead, I got in a lot of trouble at the salon for being an hour and a half late. I was newer and dumber back then. I now require a trial so I can get all the info and make sure the bride is right and at least talk about a game plan for the girls, and make sure she knows I charge double for surprise additions. © peachbot / Reddit
• I used to work as a sales assistant. Once a customer comes in and asks me to choose socks for her. I ask about the color, and she says she wants socks to match her eye color. Confused, I explain that I’m having trouble finding something to match. I offer her a bunch of socks and she pulls out red socks. © Work Case / VK
• We have a client who only comes to our salon to have her eyebrows done. She drinks 2 cups of coffee, nags the tech about every hair, doesn’t say hello, doesn’t say goodbye, yells on the phone like crazy during the entire procedure, and every time asks for discounts in honor of some non-existent holidays. We love her. © nina_krup / Threads
• I work in a bank, dealing with mortgage foreclosures. Once I get connected to a client from the hotline. I tried to identify her, but she is not in the database, as there have never been any arrears. I ask her what the problem is. She replies that her flat is ready, but she doesn’t like it. And the location is not the best. In the end, she says that she won’t pay anymore and asks where she can bring the keys to. And then adds that either we take the keys, or we will not see her again. I have never seen a simpler client. © Working Case / VK

• Yesterday I was in a shop of a rather famous brand. I found some great trousers, and the price tag said “0.” I tried them on and ran to the checkout. The shop assistant said that she couldn’t sell them: the sticker maker had made a mistake. But I am a lawyer and clearly explained that she is obliged to sell them to me. They had to call the manager, but eventually sold them for 1 coin. © Work Case / VK
• My first job out of college was working for a computer firm at their customer assistance center. A frequent call was from frustrated customers who didn’t understand why their cup holders kept disappearing. They were talking of course about the CD tray, a rather “advanced” piece of technology available on the Apple desktop computers in the early 90’s, that would disappear as part of the computer shutdown sequence when you’d power it off. © Andrew Marks / Quora
• I used to work at this light shop. We had this one woman come in with a newspaper clipping with some promotion on it, walked straight up to the counter, pointed to the clipping, and said, “I want this, at this price.” Turns out it was an advert for a completely different store, we didn’t even sell that product (it was their brand) but trying to explain this to her was like trying to defuse a bomb. She just started losing it and threatened to call the police for discriminating against her for not selling this product that we don’t stock at the price she saw in the newspaper. Eventually, she went outside to call some consumer fair trading hotline to report us for our ’illegal’ practices. We watched her through the glass while she was on the phone and you could see it finally dawning on her. She just stuck her head back in to say “You’ll be hearing from them soon.” We never heard from her again thankfully. © Ahingadingadurgen / Reddit
• I work in a beauty salon. A girl came to us, sat down resolutely in the chair, and said, “Cut my hair short!” She shared that she had broken up with her boyfriend and wanted to get rid of her long hair and her past. I tried to talk her out of it, but she insisted, and the customer’s wish was the law. So I gave her a bob. She left. And today she returned and said she wanted to have her hair extended because she’d made up with her boyfriend. The girls and I laughed a lot. Now I delicately check with each client who comes for a bob, whether everything is all right in their personal life. This way we know if we’ll have to reverse the haircut later. © Caramel / VK

• I worked part-time in the summer in a large shopping mall and promoted a virtual reality helmet, playing a zombie game to everyone. Once I put the helmet on an overly emotional girl and then was running after her, while she squealed and ran away from non-existent zombies, knocking down passers-by, crashing into an ice cream stall, and attracting a lot of attention. After that, I had a huge queue of people who wanted to see the same thing as this screaming young lady. © Overheard on Telegram
• When I was 8 years old, my mum was selling fish. One day a customer comes up to her and asks if the fish is fresh. Mum says, “Yes! It’s alive!” The customer asks again, “It’s alive, but is it fresh?” Mum wonders how live fish can be stale. And then the customer says, “Maybe it’s rotten and is just twitching now, choking on the smell.” Mum was stunned. Work case / VK
• I work in a pizzeria. A customer calls and orders a classic Italian pizza but without dough. She says she likes all the ingredients except the dough. The manager thought it was a joke at first, but when she said she wasn’t joking and started insisting, we all froze. The woman ended up declaring that we had bad service. © Overheard / Ideer
• I work in a flower shop on night shifts. At about 4 a.m., a girl, about 30 years old, stops on the doorstep and does something on her phone. I ask if I can help her. She doesn’t say anything. I ask again and there is silence. I’m a little confused, but I decide to wait. About 5 minutes pass, the girl is still standing, looking at the phone and being silent. I ask again, “Can I help you? Maybe something happened?” And then she says, “Am I disturbing you?” Then she turns around and walks away. © bnrb / Pikabu

• I work as a waiter in a family cafe in the summer. A woman with a child comes in and asks a wonderful question, “We were on holiday here last year, and we lost our sand trowel. Have you not found it?” I wanted to answer that we found it, but we will not give it back because we play with it ourselves. © Work Case / VK
• Worked at a party store that sold costumes at Halloween. Had to call the cops over 2 dads fighting over the last Batman of a certain size on the 30th. © mrcarlita / Reddit
• As a photographer, I’ve seen a lot of things. One particularly memorable one was when I was shooting the wedding of a couple who were saving money on everything. During the celebration, the newlyweds came up to me and demanded, “Where is our gift?” Since when do photographers come to weddings with gifts? Is this a new rule? I laughed off, but I could tell they weren’t happy. At the end of the evening, the time of payment, the groom says to me, “We won’t pay you the full amount because you came without a gift, and we counted on it.” I was shocked but decided to do the same thing they did. When they asked me where the rest of the photos were, I replied, “In the same place where I got my full payment for the work!” © Overheard on Telegram / Telegram
• I work in a clothing store. A man came in one day and asked me to take the coat off the mannequin. I tried to explain that we couldn’t touch the samples, the showcase was locked... But the client was that type of person who it’s best to yield to than try to explain anything. So I went into the showcase and took out the coat. He takes a photo of it. Then he sends it to his daughter. She doesn’t like it, so he leaves. And I’m standing there thinking: why couldn’t he take a picture of it when it was on a mannequin? © Working Case / VK

• Once, as a chef, I got an order for steak, with a side of garlic cloves — burned. I cooked the beef well done, extra charred, and deeply browned the garlic cloves. It came back. The waiter said, “The client said burned, and he meant BURNED.” I took the steak and threw it back on the grill until it was essentially the same texture as a charcoal briquette, and fried the garlic until so black that all I could smell was the acrid odor of burnt garlic. I re-plated the dish, and out it went. 5 minutes later the waiter came back, “The client asked me to pass on his compliments to the chef.” © ChrisKaufmann / Quora
• I’m a realtor, and I’ve got a client. She doesn’t care about the size of the flat or the neighborhood. The most important thing is that the flat should be on the top floor. The request puzzled me — people usually don’t want the top floor. When asked why, I got a brilliant answer — the woman seriously believes that water in the house flows from the top floor to the bottom floor. So, if she doesn’t live on the top floor, she’ll have to wash in “dirty, used water.” © Overheard / Ideer

And here are a few photos that prove service can be incredibly heartfelt.