So normally, I wouldn’t post about some “out of control customers”, or people giving me grief about something dumb, but today I feel like sharing some of my more choice stories, one being from today. I will not include anyone’s name or domain, to protect the ill-witted, and my job.

First story that comes to mind when I think of an “out of control customer” is a post that was made on lunarforums.com some time ago. I do not remember the specifics of the thread, but I think it had something to do with getting a trace route because of a assumption that he made about the network. This post made us laugh when we read it then, and from time to time you will hear someone yell “I’m {customer’s full name}, {insert claim he makes below}”

Do you know who I am? Do you know who you are talking to? I don’t think you do, sir. Let me drop a little knowledge on your feeble bones. I am {customer’s full name}. I own a condo. I get more booty in a single week than you have in your entire life on earth. I make up to $400/week working from my home. I think I am more than qualified to “jump to conclusions”, as I have expertise in this field, much like every other field that has ever existed. Remember this the next time you talk back to {customer’s full name}.

Moral of this story: If you act like a fool, they all ARE going to laugh at you!

The next one that really sticks out in my mind happened two weeks after shared supported stopped having phone support on the weekends. A shared customer called into the Dedicated support line, while it was just me and two manages, and I was the only one on phones, as one was working on backups and the other was working on training material for our staff. I kindly let them know that shared support no longer had phone support on the weekends and that he would need to submit a ticket to the shared support. He began to get irate, telling me that it was “f**king bullsh*t” that shared phone support was closed on the weekend and he demanded that I help him right now. When I told him the only help I could provide him was to help him send a ticket and I requested that he stop cursing at me, he cut loose on me calling me a “Useless f**king piece of sh*t”. I gave him one last shot to calm down letting him know I would disconnect the call, at which point he told me to do something lewd to a member of my family. I disconnected the call, as I had warned him. Shortly after I disconnected, he called back, yelling “IF YOU EVER F**KING HANG UP ON ME AGAIN, I’M GOING TO F**CKING GUT YOU LIKE A FISH!!!” and he hung up. I think he realized that I had the ability to record the call. Since I had two managers around me, his account was canceled on the spot, and he was notified via ticket as to why. The moral of this story: Don’t treat the support staff like crap, or you might find yourself out on the street.

The last customer was one from today, who I believe was just looking for someone to blame as he is having server issues, and I don’t believe he has backups. Since I am a supervisor now, I deal with a lot of people who yell and scream at the JSAs but are calm when they speak to a supervisor (most likely because they have had issues like the last guy). This was not one of those guys. He began right off accusing me and the company of bad practices cursing all the while, and when he would ask a question he wouldn’t wait for an answer before yelling some more. This guy was so angry he got mad when I called him “sir”, claiming I was disrespecting him. I continued to let him yell until he burned himself out, at which point he slammed the phone down to hang up. He called back later, and I got the call directly this time. He seemed a bit calmer this time but it only lasted momentarily, he began to blow up shortly into the call as wanted to know why we don’t monitor his hardware. When I explained to him that the service he is paying for monitors the services on the server, he began to argue. We ended up right back to where we were the prior call, and he ended up banging the receiver on the counter, at which point I disconnected the call. Moral of this story : You can’t please everyone… :-/

So what about you? what are some of your customer horror stories? Post them as a comment below.