Full-service restaurant checkout-dispute scripts - "we never ordered this," "my discount didn't apply," "round it down," "split the bill" - four counter disputes answered by procedure, not by arguing back

You are a cashier trainer at a full-service restaurant. Write a set of Checkout Dispute Scripts for cashiers to keep inside the register counter. Organize by the four dispute types, each with three parts:

Part 1 - "What the guest says": 2-3 example trigger phrases, colloquial, including the emotional versions
Part 2 - "The cashier responds": a response that can be read verbatim, 1-3 sentences. Requirements:
- Verify facts first, money second (pull the ticket, recompute, read back the discount lines)
- Never imply the guest is lying; never open with "you definitely ordered it"
- Any verification step comes with a time expectation ("give me half a minute to pull the order log")
Part 3 - "The line": what must not happen in this dispute type and the exact trigger to escalate (hand off to the duty manager) - conditions, not attitudes

Four dispute types, fixed - do not add or remove:
1. "We never ordered this dish" - the cause could be a mis-fired table, a duplicate entry, or a genuine lapse. Verification path: order time / table number / who keyed it in
2. "My discount / membership didn't apply" - recompute on the spot, then two versions depending on outcome: if it truly missed, refund the difference immediately; if the rule does not apply (expired coupon, wrong day), read the house rule to the guest, with the written rule text as the single source
3. "Round it down for me / give us a little off" - within authority, grant it and grant it cheerfully; above authority, the response must offer a face-saving path (never phrase "no" as a rejection of the guest)
4. "We want to pay separately / each couple pays their own" - the split policy: down to what granularity (per ticket / per table / per item), and whether an already-merged bill can be reopened

Universal closing rules (after the four types):
- Any dispute over [X] in amount: the cashier stops quoting and calls the duty manager - the cashier is not the judge
- Every on-the-spot price change or refund difference must leave a record (ticket number + reason); an unrecorded concession is one the cashier cannot explain at month-end

Constraints:
- No "keep smiling" or "warm tone" instructions - the words do the work; expression is for training class
- Promise nothing like "a free dish next time" or "meal on us next visit" - not one sentence of compensation that cannot be delivered on the spot
- Do not set rounding amounts or authority caps for the restaurant - leave them as [ ] blanks filled from the house authority table
- Five lines maximum per dispute type; nobody reads long text at a register

Why it is written this way

The four dispute types were not picked at random: they cover most register conflicts, and each has a completely different structure of right and wrong. Type 1 is a dispute about facts (ordered or not), so the response is pulling the record, not debating. Type 2 is arithmetic - recomputation is the entire answer, with one prepared sentence for each outcome. Type 3 is about authority - what matters is less what is said than where the line sits. Type 4 is process - how finely a bill can be split is decided by the system, and the script merely states the policy. With the types separated, each response can be written short and precise.

"Verify facts before talking money" runs through all four. In a checkout dispute the guest's emotion is half about the amount and half about "you think I'm lying" - a single "let me pull the order log, half a minute" dissolves both: it converts a person-versus-person clash into person-versus-record, and the very act of pulling the record tells the guest the question is being taken seriously. Open instead with "impossible, you must have ordered it" and the dispute upgrades from one dish to a full attitude war.

Type 3's face-saving design deserves a note: when a rounding request is declined, what the guest loses is face, not money. So the script turns "no" into a rule rather than a rejection - route it to authority, or offer an alternative ("that amount is beyond what I can do; let me get the duty manager to see what we can arrange"). The concession line stays a [ ] blank because restaurants differ enormously, and any number a template hardcodes gets overruled by reality.

The universal rule "above [X], hand it to the duty manager" protects the cashier as much as the process: a big dispute stuck at the register burns down the guest's patience while the cashier holds neither the power to resolve nor the power to refuse - it can only end in a collision. Handing off the judge's gavel is not dodging; it puts someone with authority in front of the guest before patience runs out. Recording every concession is the same logic - an unrecorded price change is one the cashier cannot explain when the books are reconciled.

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