'Tell us about a time when you failed' & 'Tell us about a time where you dealt with a customer who had unrealistic expectations'

 

1. Tell us about a time when you failed.

Admitting you were wrong is a strength, but choose a minor thing you messed up on.

Maybe something like accidentally misquoting the price of a product a little or forgetting a side on a customer's order. 

Turn it around and say what you did to fix it. What did you learn and how did you prevent it from happening again in the future?

You can even say something along the lines of ‘I think failure is something we can learn from. We all have moments where we fail, but it’s not a true failure if we get back up and learn from it’.

I always try to say the incident was during my early days of training at the job, but of course it can be any example you want!

2. Tell us about a time where you dealt with a customer who had unrealistic expectations.

For this question the employer wants to know that no matter what you will ALWAYS stay within company policies and guidelines. Share that you try to prevent these misunderstandings by having clear communication with the client on what they can expect. I worked in sales for 2 years. We always tried to share what options were available to clients, however we held firm on things we simply could not do.

Real Life Example: Back when I was working at Enterprise Mobility (where I rented out cars), I had a client looking to switch out a rental he had. It was the heavy rain season. He wanted a large truck that was also an all wheel drive.

During times of rough weather conditions our four wheel drive vehicles got rented out fast. I checked the inventory after clarifying I could not guarantee stock. What I had was first come first serve. I was unable to find an all wheel drive truck. I told him we did have an all wheel drive RAV 4 and we also had 2 wheel drive trucks available. I even checked the inventory at neighboring Enterprise branches. All the all wheel drive trucks were booked.

He became frustrated and told me neither would work in the snow. I apologized, but told him that was all we had at the moment and he was welcome to come in person to see what we have. In the end he came to the branch in person to confirm what I had said over the phone and switched into the Rav 4.