But You Have It Online!

We had a customer come into the store today looking for a specific kind of prescription food that comes in a can.

However, upon showing the image on their phone to my manager, my manager stated that we didn't have that specific kind in our location.

To which the customer stated that they had purchased that food from us before.
But upon looking at the shelf, there was only dry dog food of the type that the customer needed.
Not wet.
There were no locations for the wet food either. No empty spots. 

So the customer ended up leaving the store empty handed.

Only for them to call back a while later.

Which is how I came into the story, because I'd only been briefly aware of the situation as I'd been by the manager when the customer originally approached.

But the customer on the phone stated that they were looking at our website and that our website claims that we have the product in stock and so they wanted me to double check and see if we had it in the store as the customer had been in the store earlier and had been told that we didn't have it.

So, dutifully I went over to the wall of prescription food to look.

And yep.
No food.
We had it in the dry dog food.
but not in the wet.

The customer wasn't happy to hear this at all.

They were like "BUT IT SAYS YOU HAVE IT ONLINE!!"

Like....yes? But guess what?
Not everything you read online is true.
And it's possible that there was an error somewhere on the website or in our system to indicate that we have the product...when we don't.

After all there was no sku for the product on the shelf. No places where it could be.
Plus we did a reset recently.
So the customer's "But we've bought it from you before!"
Could apply to them buying from us (or from a different location as different stores carry different types and amounts of dogfood due to the store's size) before the reset happen.

The customer's spouse came on the line then and was like "Why would your vet" -as they'd gone to the vet that partners with our store- "prescribe us a prescription you don't sell?!" 

....Because not all stores sell the exact same types of prescriptions?
And again we could be out.

They both were like "So why aren't you carrying it!?"

There could be a thousand reasons.
Like maybe we never carried it, maybe it's on recall and we can't get it in, maybe we're going to start carrying it but we haven't received any, maybe there's a shortage at the factory that makes the food, maybe the vet wanted you to buy directly from them and not from our store....

Honestly.
Who knows.

But I ended the conversation feeling rather irritated.
Because like....dude. Just because the internet told you it was there doesn't mean it is there. Especially when I'm standing right there looking at our shelves and don't see it.

*exhales*

-Sarnic Dirchi