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In our store we used to have consulting hour two days a week, on Thursday and Saturday between 10 and 11 am. People could come in with light fixtures and simple appliances that had problems and my father would try to diagnose the problem and if it was easily and quickly fixed he would do that. Unless it was really busy he would help all the people that came in before 11 am.
We cancelled the consulting hour when the pandemic started since we only can have 2 customers in the store at the same time. A couple of weeks ago we start consulting hour 2.0; four mornings a week, people can now make an appointment, have do it four mornings a week, one person a day. They have to make the appointment either be phone or in person in the store, it's at 10 am, they must come alone with one item. We set the rule for making appointments by phone or in person and not via Facebook because I'm the one taking care of the Facebook page and when I'm not in the store or living room I haven't got access to the store's online calendar.
Yesterday I got a FB message from someone who bought a second hand light fixture and she wanted to have warm light. The picture she send was taken from at least 5 meters distance, but from what I could see it has fluorescent tube. I told her I would need to know how much watt the tubes are and their length to check which are the warmest tubes available. I also noticed no ballast, and no space to have one inside the light fixture. So I told her that and recommended her to make an appointment by phone or in person for the consulting hour, that she could bring the light fixture and we would be able to check for a ballast and advice on light colour. I just realize now that she probably doesn't expect the light fixture to be bright, but it has six or seven tubes that are at least 18 watt each and dimming is expensive for fluorescent tubes. I also gave her the phone number.
I immediately get a message back asking if she could come on Wednesday morning. Sigh. I explained to her that she should call because I didn't have access to the calendar. I was actually in the living room, so I did have access. But we know from experience if you make an exception once for a customer they will always expect that. She wrote back she would call. This was about half an hour before closing time.
Ten minutes past closing time she calls, my mother picks up. My mother already had had several difficult customer on the phone today and she knew about the FB exchange I had. So she told the woman to call back after 10 am in the morning to make an appointment because the store was closed, the phone was patched through and she didn't have access to the calendar (she did, but was fed up).
I'm expecting her to call this morning either slightly before 10 am or right on the dot. A lot of customers call in the fifteen minutes before the store opens, probably expecting us to have more time and no interruptions of customers in the store. I find it annoying, my mother and I always tell them to call back after opening times, my father will help them.
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