A female customer on a video conference says the following: “I’m calling about this purse that I bought at your outlet store. I really liked it but I noticed that there was a stain on the bottom. I went back to the store, and of course that was the only one there, but when I went up to the counter I couldn’t believe what happened! The woman at the counter took the purse, and my receipt, rang it as a return and then cut it to pieces right there in front of me! She said it’s your policy that imperfect merchandise can’t be sold, and must be destroyed. I did get the refund, but if I would have known that, I would have kept it. It was only a small stain and I really liked the purse, but she didn’t even give me a choice about what to do! Is that your policy, or was she just crazy? What are you going to do about this? You have other outlets somewhere, but now I don’t even have the stock number, and I can’t figure out how to find it online. It’s not on your website, but I was even looking at auction sites at this point. Is that really your policy? How can you waste all that money? It makes me want to not buy your products anymore. I’m sure that the planet doesn’t need you wrecking it with factories only to throw things away. Someone could have used that purse! I’m just very upset about the whole thing and the way that it was handled.”
Indicate at what point you would have given her verbal or nonverbal feedback, and what form it would take. Then, paraphrase her response, looking for the essence of the complaint. Imagine that you are talking directly to the customer as you type your response.