I have a customer who has been buying from the company for roughly 5 years now, and out of the blue, they said their new company policy is they are only paying in full when their order is complete and ready to be shipped the next day. We've always taken payment upfront, or at best 50% — which I understand and prefer due to the fact that sometimes customers do back out and we get stuck with orders etc.
Anyways, this customer won't put down a deposit and when I discussed this with my boss, he asked me to essentially lie to the customer and to tell them their order is ready to get their payment and deal with everything else later. Personally, I know with the holidays, this order won't be ready until the new year, which is a 3-4 week wait from today. He kept trying to tell me that “this is my job” and if I “wanted to get paid, I need to do this” and how he knows this isn't ideal etc.
His reasoning? If this is their last order, then take their money and let this be the last order.
Well, I don't want to do this.
I think it's incredibly shitty to mislead a customer in thinking that their order is shipping within 24 hours, and for the next 3 weeks of my life, will have to make excuses on why the order is delayed. Just don't do the order and walk away if the there isn't a compromise on payment.
I'm not siding with the customer, because I absolutely prefer a deposit, but I'm also not siding with my boss because I can't get over the moral factor of being a shitty human in taking 20k from someone and giving them false information.