Ever have a situation when it was vital not to laugh, but nearly impossible not to?

About 25 years ago I owned a small tropical fish store. One evening a sweet little old lady walks in because her goldfish was sick. When I asked her to describe its symptoms, she explained that her fish was constipated and needed some medicine. As you might imagine I nearly ruptured some internal organs trying to hold back the laughter.

Being a true professional I managed to keep a straight face as I explained that they do not make fish laxatives, but she was quite insistant on buying something to help her constipated fish. So after a long hard look at my merchandise, I decided that a small package of a vegetable based fish food might provide the necessary fiber (I still felt bad about selling her anything for a fish that was probably not sick other than in her mind, but at least I kept it down to 59 cents or so).

Several days later she stopped in to thank me, saying that the new food did the trick and Rover (or whatever the fish’s name was) was feeling much better. After further conversation it turns out she may not have been as strange as my initial impression of her seemed. She had been feeding Rover a tropical fish food which is much higher in protein than goldfish food, although to this day I can’t figure out how she determined the fish was constipated.

To sum this up - Even when a customer seems to be irrational, they may actually have a legitimate problem. So always treat every customer problem or complaint as a legitimate problem. Sometimes they are using your product in a way not intended, it may be a defective product, or maybe they just know something you don’t.