How do you get a furious customer to plug in his new terminal when he is convinced that he already did? You can try to reason and potentially lose a million-dollar customer, or you can offer up a big, fat lie and save yourself a ton of grief. Evidence suggests the latter is the preferable approach. This is the story of A.S. and his colleague.
Back in the early 1990s we had a customer who ordered a new VT220 terminal. There was nothing strange about this order and we went by the book; we received the terminal, tested it and shipped it to the customer once we were sure everything was turnkey-ready.
However, a few days later the customer called to complain. A colleague picked up the phone, but I could hear every word from where I stood across the room.
"Your stupid terminal is broken!" the customer bellowed.
Reeling from the equivalent of pressing his ear to a police siren, my colleague tried to understand what the customer was talking about.
"The terminal is DOA - Dead On Arrival!" the customer clarified. "I flipped the 'on' switch and nothing happened, and I need to have this thing up and running TODAY! Now, what are you incompetent fools going to do about it? "
Scrambling to avoid another verbal onslaught, my colleague quickly tried to assess the situation. He asked if there was any indication of damage during shipment, to which the customer replied the box was perfect. From what we could hear, the problem seemed to be that there simply was no power to the terminal.
Since we had tested the terminal before shipping it and it worked fine, my colleague had to ask the obvious question: "Is it plugged in?" Insulted, the customer barked back: "Of course it is! Do you think I'm stupid?!"
After several other questions it was clear that we had to somehow persuade the customer to check the electrical connection again. The challenge, of course, was to avoid infuriating the customer further by questioning his ability to plug the terminal into a power outlet. That's when my colleague got an idea.
"Those terminals are sometimes shipped with reverse polarity plugs," he said. "In that case, you have to turn them over to get the terminal to work."
VT220 terminals only come with standard three-pronged plugs. But as the customer "checked the polarity", we heard a familiar "beep" as the terminal was plugged in. Ta-daa!
We were very curious to hear what the customer would say when he got back on the phone. But rather than admit his error he concluded: "Yup, that was the problem. I turned it over and it works fine."
Lesson learned: When the round peg won't go into the square hole, hand your customer a hammer and praise him for his troubleshooting skills.
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