Long time lurker, first time poster. This is not an amazing story, but I thought everyone would appreciate a happy story for once.
I've held numerous customer service/customer facing positions in my life. In all of them I was taught to apologize to the customer if I couldn't get them what they want. Even if the reason was beyond my control (out of a product, company policy, the law!).
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago. I now work for the optical dept of a membership warehouse. A woman asked to order another pair of glasses using an Rx on file. It was expired. I apologized and told her she needed a new one from her eye Dr. She was very understanding and left. My manager approaches me and says, “You don't have to apologize you know. There's nothing you could do”. I thought that was pretty cool.
Hope you enjoyed!