How do you make a customer happy?

[byronm]

I've reached a difficult phase of our startup and its really something i feel i should "ping" the community on.. after all, who better to hear from than the horses mouth itself.

Anyway, i've had a string of harsh reviews on reseller ratings. One in particular from a customer that canceled his own order, wanted to re-order and then was upset that the price changed/went up and frankly i just stopped responded because it felt like i was being framed/held ransom to something that was out of my control and a huge waste of time for myself and my employees.

Anyway, check out reseller ratings and lookup my company. Its the LONGEST review. I'm just hoping for some feedback in what people expect and if i'm wrong, i'm wrong - i'll be the first to admit it.

I'm sort of blown away that people take my personal attention, post my name, my personal responses and then finally hold it against me when i cut the rope and end the game (because thats what it turned into)

On a very similar note - what could i do to make people more happy? We're hirring more people on the phones - i know thats problem number one but its amazing how thankless it is. For example last month we shipped out 500 orders and only about 17 of those customers reviewed us and over 450 of those orders were picked, packed and shipped to their door within 48 hours.

I've gotten some kudos but just want to hit up the community and see if i'm barking up the wrong tree. Is everything about absolute cheapest price now and service/quality/packaging and shipping is all taken for not?

thanks

 

[Gothgar]

at least you don't have the default avatar any more...

 

[hiromizu]

Um what company??? How did you establish/end communication with said customer?

 

[Tobolo]

Doesn't seem like you are out of line, although yall's stories are way different.

On a side note, I was just comparing processors on your site and I have to say that you have WAY to much going on. My eyes hurt trying to focus on anything. Needs a clean up. Just my op.

 

[shoRunner]

welcome to retail, your loudest customers and the ones the will review you will almost always be the pissed off ones, because they think if they throw a little temper tantrum they'll get what they want.

 

[waffleironhead]

Its a simple thing called communication. You failed and now this is the result.

 

[SKORPI0]

Link 8.25/100 - 20 reviews

 

[kranky]

You can't look at the small % of people who leave positive reviews as "thankless". You'd be surprised how few people even know of resellerratings. The unhappy people tend to go out of their way to badmouth someone.

You might try putting a note in your email invoices - something like "We hope we've totally satisfied you. Please consider leaving a review at resellerratings.com" (Make it a link to your page there.) If you genuinely believe most customers are pleased, that might help generate more reviews.

I laugh at how often I read about an unhappy customer (here as well as on resellerratings) and the whole problem was sparked by the customer who wanted to cancel an order or change it after it was placed. If I was in that business, I would not allow cancellations or changes unless the order hadn't shipped in 48 hours. When you click "Submit Order", you bought it.

 

[KK]

maybe give them an incentive for posting a review at reseller ratings, whether they leave a positive or negative. That should gain you some more feedback.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Originally posted by: KK
maybe give them an incentive for posting a review at reseller ratings, whether they leave a positive or negative. That should gain you some more feedback.

Yep. Send an email after they've received an order, thanking for ordering thru you and provide some kind of small incentive for providing feedback on resellerratings.

 

[Baked]

You should just hire a White person for customer service.

 

[halik]

Honestly,
stores like yours are dime a dozen, so unless you've got the lowest price on pricewatch your reseller ratings won't matter anyways.

 

[byronm]

Originally posted by: Capt Caveman

Originally posted by: KK
maybe give them an incentive for posting a review at reseller ratings, whether they leave a positive or negative. That should gain you some more feedback.

Yep. Send an email after they've received an order, thanking for ordering thru you and provide some kind of small incentive for providing feedback on resellerratings.

We provide this right now. 3 primary emails go out for each order:

* Customer Orders - Order Confirmation
* Shipping Confirmation - Tracking Details
* Thank You email - delivery confirmation

All 3 have a link to resellerratings review. Third one usually contains a coupon for a discount on your next purchase as well.

Technically we can't offer any incentives to get reviews in RR and i wouldn't want to get into the business of creating a false impression of our business

 

[byronm]

Originally posted by: halik
Honestly,
stores like yours are dime a dozen, so unless you've got the lowest price on pricewatch your reseller ratings won't matter anyways.

Unfortunately (And fortunately) Pricewatch doesn't allow any new merchants right now.

As far as RR goes, it seems its very important to some - would people disregard the ratings just to take a chance on the lowest price?

 

[waggy]

actually glad you posted it. now i sure know what company to avoid.

talk about bad communication. sounds like you need more work on running a business.

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: Baked
You should just hire a White person for customer service.

what?

 

[byronm]

Originally posted by: kranky
I laugh at how often I read about an unhappy customer (here as well as on resellerratings) and the whole problem was sparked by the customer who wanted to cancel an order or change it after it was placed. If I was in that business, I would not allow cancellations or changes unless the order hadn't shipped in 48 hours. When you click "Submit Order", you bought it.

The problem is we were just to nice. I should have just canceled the order when i saw it was from Ireland but i tried to appease someone who i know is on these type of community sites because it makes it can be bonus to get a single mention on a random tech forum/community site from a merchant trust perspective.

Basically he got mad since it took about a day to respond to his emails and even what he quotes in the review is inaccurate since he fails to mention he canceled the pre-order, wasn't even billed for it and that i had communicated to him daily almost 30+ times prior to the time when he came back and asked to re-buy/do business again because he couldn't find the CPU in Ireland and i ignored him partially because he was using the RR feedback to ransom the deal that had since expired.

I've learned i'll just politely severe ties on sour deals instead of ignoring them. A simple response to thank them for giving us a try but an honest reply that i can't help them may prevent this (all though in this case it probably would have heated it more but at least have been something i could stand by)

 

[byronm]

Originally posted by: waggy
actually glad you posted it. now i sure know what company to avoid.

talk about bad communication. sounds like you need more work on running a business.

What is bad about what you see on RR anyways? thats what i'm asking for here

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: byronm

Originally posted by: waggy
actually glad you posted it. now i sure know what company to avoid.

talk about bad communication. sounds like you need more work on running a business.

I would be happy to post the real emails here.

What is bad about what you see on RR anyways? thats what i'm asking for here

you would be willing to post the emails? go ahead.

 

[digiram]

Give them an incentive for the review. Maybe put them in a drawing for a 20.00 GC for a restaurant or something.

 

[Gunslinger08]

Sounds like the typical idiots that any company will have to deal with. Don't let it bother you. Sounds like you are doing pretty well with customer service for such a young company.

 

[rivan]

Originally posted by: digiram
Give them an incentive for the review. Maybe put them in a drawing for a 20.00 GC for a restaurant or something.

That's exactly what I was going to suggest.

Do you already use Resellerrating's exit surveys? That should certainly get many more reviews. If you're not actively soliciting reviews, the ones most likely to review will be the negatives.

 

[byronm]

Originally posted by: waggy

Originally posted by: byronm

Originally posted by: waggy
actually glad you posted it. now i sure know what company to avoid.

talk about bad communication. sounds like you need more work on running a business.

I would be happy to post the real emails here.

What is bad about what you see on RR anyways? thats what i'm asking for here

you would be willing to post the emails? go ahead.

Out of respect for myself and my former customer i would never actually post the emails.

I'm quite amazed the he posted my personal responses to RR as well as that is a violation of their terms of service.

Basically to sum up.

Order Placed, Notofication of Back order - few days - 40 emails go back and fourth about this order and other items he wants. He buys cpu locally, cancels order - signs up for inventory notification, receives notification of stocks, few days layer emails sales asking if he could do business again - we didn't respond yet - sales team had no clue who he was since his order/account had already been deleted per his request and we get tons of emails that appear legit but are fraud so i try and manually review these when i can to see if there is anything real out there.

2 days pass, i see the review on RR, surprised i ask him to revise it since i felt it was unfair he was reviewing an order that never happened and that he had canceled and that i could do business with him again (since it wasn't really sour at this point) - told him to email me personally. Respond to his email and agree and the best thing for him to do would be to have his friend receive it and mail it out if he wanted to get my current shipment without waiting for me to process the exports.

Emails exchange, they get bitter - the RR review is updated and he posts contents of our emails (that still ignore the truth of the matter) and i let it get to me and i go back and review my response and just spell out the truth. Mind you no email actually went beyond 48 hours to respond to unless it was the weekend.

Its probably a chain of 45 emails before the deal went sour, all responded to quickly.


If someone is good at framing the debate (especialy with the mantra the customer is always right) does that mean that i'm still wrong? all of the good we did is excluded and only his disappointing half of a story for an order that never happened is his full review.

 

[byronm]

Originally posted by: digiram
Give them an incentive for the review. Maybe put them in a drawing for a 20.00 GC for a restaurant or something.

I may be able to offer that.. i'll pass it by the RR staff and see if a drawing incentive isn't against their TOS. Good idea

 

[waggy]

good ot see you will not post the emails. thats a big mistake if you did.


you both blew it. good learning tool though. you should never ask a review such as this to change it. should have ignored it from the start.

BUT he is not the only one not satasifed. seems you guys need to improve how invetory works. you seem to be having it as instock when people want it and they have to wait for it.


not to mention getting a rep as someone who has t hem at one price then higher latter..