Blue and Black

Often, our goal at work, is to do what we can to make the customer happy.
Especially if they're struggling to find what they came into the store to purchase.

Usually if it's not on the shelf when I go to help a customer find the product. I will offer to go look for it elsewhere.
Either up above in our overstock, or I'll head to the back of the store to see if extras of that product can be found there.
If I can't find it. I will offer to call our Sister Store nearby to see if they have it, or try and look it up online to see if we could order it there and have it sent to their home.

Sometimes despite my efforts....the customer still ends up leaving empty handed.

Today.
I had a customer who came into our store looking for a specific blue and black background for his fish tank.
He'd already been to our sister store, and they'd been out of the background for a couple of weeks now.
So he decided to try his luck at our store.
To which, he found the background he needed.
But we only had a small section left on the shelf.
And because it had been cut crookedly...
That meant that it wouldn't fit on his tank.
-if it had been a straight cut we wouldn't have had an issue.

Since I knew we'd been stuck with that particular piece for weeks now,
I offered to grab our scan gun and double check what our inventory said.
That way I could actually see if we were supposed to have more or not.
Because if we did have more...that would mean that it would be up in our steel. Which would mean a manager would have to use a forklift to get the pallet down so that we could look and see if it was actually there.

The customer acquiesced to me doing so.
And when I scanned the UPC for the background.
I discovered that somewhere in the store....we should have about 1200 feet of that particular background. ()_()

I didn't tell the customer this.
Instead I said I had to go check out something.
And went to my manager to ask him if he'd seen the background on the overstock pallet.
To which the manager was confident he had.
He just wasn't sure where. Though thankfully, due to our organizational efforts because of our prepping for our yearly inventory count...we could narrow it down to two pallets where the roll of background could be.

So I returned to the customer to tell him that we were pretty confident we had the background up on a pallet and that we just needed to grab the forklift to get the pallet down so we could actually see and that it would take a few minutes to grab it down.

He was super grateful for this. That we would have the background in stock and that we were going to grab it for him as he'd been trying to find this background for weeks.

I was so excited to be able to help him complete his quest.

However, when I got to the back to 'spot the forklift' (aka make sure it doesn't run over customers when it's out on the floor)
The manager had bad news.
We were in the middle of a charging cycle on the Forklift which meant....
Until the batteries for it were fully charged....we couldn't do anything with it.

Not sure how true it is, but apparently disconnecting the forklift from the charging cables in the middle of a charge would kill the battery.
O.o Again, not sure how true it was. But whatever.

Now though,
I had the unpleasant task of telling the customer this.
So I returned to him.

And told him that we couldn't actually use the forklift right now because it was charging. But that it should be ready to use in another hour or so and that we would check the pallet then. And that if he was willing, I could take down his name and number and give him a call when we were able to check the pallet and let him know if we found the background or not.

Thankfully, he was very understanding.
Really I think he was just glad to hear we were trying to get him his background and that it was more than likely in the store.
So I got his number.
And promised I'd call him before I left work,
Though if I hadn't called by a certain time that he should call the store to check in. (it gave me about 5 hours to get that pallet down)

Thankfully.
He never had to call the store.
After a couple of hours, I was able to have the managers get the pallet down, and they checked for me and found the roll.
Apparently we have 18 rolls of that particular background on that pallet. ()_() Crazy!!! lol but that basically means we should NEVER run out of that. *shakes head*

In any case.
I gave the guy a call to let him know we'd found the background.
And he was very happy to hear it!
Only he was planning to come in after I got off my shift to get it.
Y_Y So I never actually saw if he came by or not, though I suppose he did.

What I am super curious about though.
Is that when my manager handed me the roll of background, he told me to 'zero it out' at the register and to just give the background to the customer.

-We can't just give product away in the store as that messes up our inventory, so zeroing it out, meant that we would need to have the customer go to the register to have the background rung up. That way it would show that we 'sold' it and our inventory would remain accurate. But that the price would be adjusted to Zero so that the customer wouldn't have to pay anything for it. :)

Which was super awesome of our manager to do.
I mean we had inconvenienced the guy by making him come to us twice in order to get the background. So we were 'rewarding' him basically for being understanding and willing to come back because it was our fault that the forklift couldn't be used when he was there the first time around to get the pallet down for him.

But because he was coming after my shift ended....
I did what I could to tell Every. Single. Coworker. that the guy buying the blue and black background would be getting it for free and that we needed to adjust the price when he went through register.
I told the managers, I told the cashiers, I told my coworkers in the department.

So hopefully. HOPEFULLY.
The guy actually got his background for free.

But I don't know because I wasn't there to see.
I hope he got rewarded though.
I hope this act of kindness towards the customer made his day.
Because I'm really excited to think that it did make his day. :)

-Sarnic Dirchi