NO RETURNS?!

It's amazing the...odd...things people do when they don't get things their way. Or when something inconveniences them.

So for the past...idk two months? or so.
My store hasn't been accepting returns on products from customers.
The only thing we will allow is the return of animals we've sold if they end up dying or the customer decides they don't want them within the two week return policy. 

Like I said. We've had this policy in place for two months now.
And yet we still get customers wanting to return things...because customers can't read the signs we have posted everywhere saying that we're temporarily not accepting returns. 

In any case.
We have been waiting...for like the past week or so for word from Corporate on when we can start accepting returns again. From what I hear from management, we should have had a decision on the situation like a week ago.
And yet we've heard nothing.

Which is frustrating to us and to customers because they want to know when they can return things and we have to tell them that we don't know yet. We're literally waiting for the word to drop any day now.
It just hasn't happened. 

And for the past couple of days we've had to field a bunch more calls with people asking if they can return things yet.
Because today my state went to "yellow" on it's Red/Orange/Yellow/Green meter which with our state in the 'yellow' it means that all businesses can open back up. Of course with the rule of like staying six feet away, wearing masks, keeping things clean etc still in place. 

But apparently people took that to mean that we're now accepting returns to the store. 
We're not. 
Policy hasn't changed yet.

And even if it has it might be different with each city that our stores operate in.
Like not each location has to take the same measures. Even within the state I know there's some sister stores of ours that are having to be a bit more extreme in their measures than we are here. 

So like...i don't know? Fifteen to Thirty minutes before closing the store.
I get a call from a customer asking what the status of our return policy is.

But before I could answer they went into this rant/explanation that they'd been shopping at our sister store in the valley yesterday and if they had known that they couldn't make returns they wouldn't have purchased the products they'd purchased (a whole $40 of stuff) because they'd bought them originally just to see if they worked/were right and now the customer wanted to return them and they hadn't even left the bag or anything and it had only been like 24 hours but when they went in to return the stuff the workers at the sister store had 'brushed them off' and were 'rather rude' about it. 

-I was by this point trying to figure out if they were gonna ask if we would accept returns at our store since our sister store refused to do it. 

And under normal circumstances yes you can return product to our store even if you purchased it from another location (the exception being animals).
But right now. We're still not accepting returns.

Which I managed to tell the customer while they were in their rant.
"You aren't accepting returns."
"Yes." was my response. 

But the customer was...I supposed miffed or even furious at the other store because at no point where they informed via being spoken too or by sign that there were no returns at this time. 

They were like "There was no signage posted whatsoever!"

....Having not been to the sister store anytime recently. I have no idea what they are and aren't doing there. For all I know they do have signs posted, the customer just was being a typical customer and didn't read the sign. Though from how upset they were I am guessing that they did look around to see if there were any signs posted and didn't see any to prove that they had no idea they couldn't make returns.

And I was like "Huh, well we have signs posted all over our store"
To which the customer was like "Well that's good BUT your sister store DIDN'T" and went on to rant about how corporate needed to do something or that MY store should call the Sister Store and tell them to put out signs. 

Which *shakes head* even if that was something we did...there would be nothing I could do because I'm not a manager so I don't have any pull or authority whatsoever --which is funny because the customer never asked if I was a manager, they just assumed I could call the other store and tell them to put up signs--I did tell my manager on duty about the phone call, but we didn't call our sister store because it was closing time and we were trying to get the current customers in the store checked out with their purchases. 

What I don't understand...is if the customer was so happy about the service they received at the other store...why didn't they ask to speak to the management at that store? Or like call that store to speak to the manager.
Because again...there's nothing my store can do to control what the other stores are doing. 

I'm pretty sure the phone call to us started out as a simple call to see if we accepted returns in our location yet and then devolved into a rant against the other store. 

In any case.
The customer wanted to know when we would be accepting returns because they didn't want to be out the $40 they'd spent. 
To which I told them that under normal circumstance they have 60 days to bring back product with a receipt. So they just needed to hang onto everything for a little bit longer because we are expecting the go ahead to do returns any day now. 

And the customer was just like flabbergasted that we had no idea when we would be doing returns. They were like "Corporate didn't have a plan in place already for when things went to yellow?!" 

Apparently the customer didn't fully realize the concept of 'corporate' because like...we're not just a locally owned mom and pop store. No, we're a nationwide company. 
And I had to inform the customer that because our company is nationwide, corporate has to take into consideration how the nation as a whole is doing in the pandemic before doing any policy changes.

So even though my state went to yellow and can open all businesses back up...there are other states still under stay at home orders. So like...I'm pretty sure that when we can start returning products will depend on when it's decided that returns can be accepted everywhere.

I could be wrong though. Like we do have regional managers and such...but I'm not quite sure where in the chain of command people have the ability to make policy related decisions for smaller areas than the entire country. 
In any case. Just because we're yellow doesn't mean that we can accept returns. We have to wait for official word that that policy has changed. 

But yah.
That was a 'fun' conversation to deal with towards closing time. *exhales*
Hopefully we can start accepting returns sooner rather than later.
Because the customers are definitely becoming more beastly as things begin going back to 'normal.' 

Until you next see these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi