Based on a telephone conversation

A lady promoted a software to my work place but did not exactly quote the terms and condition. I was conveniently put in charge.

Over the telephone, I told her that we have about 21 people confirmed, but still awaiting confirmation from some others. I asked her some questions and she told me the software is best for office use. Well, our computers in the office are quite run down and we asked her since the software would be ours, can we also use it at home? She said only for single PC use and best be installed in the office. I told her I needed to make the T&C clear to my colleagues as many of us thought that it was a shareware kinda stuff. The discount offer for the software still stands if there are more than 10 ordering. She also asked me to email her the order the next day so that she could process it and for the order to be created under my email so that any updates could be sent to it.

Being the rep, I had to make this condition clear to my colleagues so that they will not be misled. About 8 canceled, including myself. So I passed on the ordering to another colleague. She then emailed her the final list and the lady replied that she went ahead to order for 21!

In the first place, she did not accept my order over the phone (I thought we had a casual conversation cos she wanted an email and she even told me that we might have to wait up to a week for the products) and then, asked for an email to be sent to her with the names. I really cannot comprehend why she went ahead to order without the email that she insisted and after telling her I had to make it clear to my colleagues! In the end, she told me that she will have to cover the loss for the other 8 sets and it made me look very guilty. In the whole conversation, she stressed that she would have to pick up the losses but was not interested in hearing the reason why the orders were canceled until I finally had a chance to ask her when she paused for breath, "Would you like to know the reason why the orders were canceled?"

She finally realised or not realised the miscommunication. As a business person, I pity her, but there's really nothing much I can do. If she really wanted to take my orders, she should have waited for what she insisted, an email, before ordering the exact copies. Sigh.