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Not our area on Cold Rick

I run a retail store in Queensland Australia. The other day a customer comes in and has no idea of how he would like to change 2 motors on a remote control boat down to one motor and he would still like the two propellers!

Despite pointing out to him that we are a parts retailer and not an engineering or design service I was with him for 15min showing him a few items and suggesting ideas, prompting him for some of his own ideas and then the phone rang. After the phone call I said that I was very busy and that trying to think of a design that might or might not work wasn’t really what I should be doing. That's a job for an engineer.

The customers reaction?

"There is no need for that! All I wanted was to ask you for some ideas. I was sent here by referral, thinking you would be able to help! I don’t need your card and I will be telling people not to come here!"

So simply because we don't provide the service the customer was looking for, all of a sudden we are the worst store in the world.

Do you go to Bunnings (hardware store) and ask them to design your new house for free and then get upset when they tell you that you would be better off getting an architect to do it?

If this joker was to take his design request to an engineer, the engineer would have happily helped him - for a price. This guy didn't even have a clue what he wanted to do and expected us to help him muddle through it, and if we had have obliged him, who do you think would have gotten the blame when the project fails?

I sell parts. I am not an engineer. I say so up front and we even have literature available in store explaining this point quite clearly. But still we always seem to get customers who get angry with us for being unable to provide engineering services. There are plenty of engineers around. I wish people would just learn to use the right person for the job.

Thanks for providing this site so I can release some of my frustration with these customers.

Regards
Justin