Forum Moderators: buckworks
To both of them I replied, essentially, NO WAY. Perhaps when the problems are of my own making I can afford to be a little more generous. Interestingly enough, both of those customers have relented and are willing to accept their orders under the original terms. I thought for sure I would lose them both. At the same time I've issued a few refunds after 'demand notifications', only to have the customers tell me they would rather have they product. So why did they demand a refund? I've told them in each case that the refund was issued, and if you really do want the product, get in the back of the line.
This is all new to me, something I've observed from the sidelines and for the most part something I avoided. I detest working with customers. I also think it is unreasonable and unfair to string them along.
I know that just like Content is King to a web page, the Customer is King to an e-commerce site. Frankly, I dont mind telling them where thay can place their royal lips. As a rule, I refrain from doing so, but its tough.
It would seem that a lot of the customer attitude is based on the fact that we live in an instant society. So when they order something, they want it shipped the same day, and I cannot provide that sort of service. Maybe someday, but not anytime soon.
FWIW, I do believe in customer service, just not from me. So I have hired someone to provide a friendlier voice to our service dept.
Am I alone in my disdain of customers? And how much is too much when they think they deserve more than they get?
the Customer is King to an e-commerce site. Frankly, I dont mind telling them where thay can place their royal lips. As a rule, I refrain from doing so, but its tough.
end result is i lose a small handful of sales to awkward customers who would probably complain like hell and chargeback anyway, and i gain a lot more time through not having to deal with them
i'm more relaxed, i'm happy ........
Am I alone in my disdain of customers?
Read some of the price mistake threads (i.e. from Dell or Amazon). It's simply amazing how many people really take the saying "the customer is always right" to a whole new level.
I couldn't be front line customer service. I just don't have the patience. But, I have a hell of a lot of respect those good customer service reps that take anything and everything with a smile.
A problem we are running into though is BBB complaints, net complaints on boards, or chargebacks - I have been tempted to give in and let customers walk over us even when we are in the right. This would solve the problem of looking like an evil company. We would lose a little bit of money giving into these people but would look better to the public. We usually win chargebacks but have very angry customers. Some are just psycho and there is no reasoning with them - they just want free stuff. Most customers are reasonable so that's why we have been around for 8 years and are still expanding rapidly.
Anyway, I had this conversation with our billing person last week - she says stay the course and don't give in - I say...we may give in a little more to keep the rare crazy customers at bay.
But, it sounds like you may have a "it worked before" situation on your hands. I worked in a call center once where they would give a $2 discount if someone said that they had been waiting on hold for more than 5 minutes to place their order. Eventually, they installed technology that could track how long a customer had really been on hold. What they found was that they had customers who would claim they had been on hold for 5 minutes (and therefore should get the discount) even though their calls were only on hold for a few seconds or even if they had not been on hold at all.
Many of the customers had figured out that they could get a $2 discount if they just said they had been on hold and had no qualms about taking advantage of it. When the "leak" was fixed, the customers didn't refuse to place an order, they just figured the lucky break was over.
It sounds like your customers are the same. As you were not involved much in the CS prior to this, you don't know how they handeled it before.
But I have to say, I agree that you should not give into what you feel are over the top demands. Many people these days just want to try to get something for nothing, no matter what.
And I run my business to suit consumers like me... picky, fastidious, curmudgeons who have little tolerance for fat-cat businesses that screw up.
I talk to plenty customers. Truth is the customer is almost always right. When we lose an order, I applogize. When we ship the wrong stuff, I make it right. We've never had a BBB complaint.
And I make a ton of money
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Am I alone in my disdain of customers?
I've always LOVED most all of our customers. And I cherish the vociferous ones who let us know when we fall short.
I work in social housing where if anyone complains be it to the Queen, boy scouts or the Jamacian coast guard, no matter how over top, overstated outright lie they may be telling.
They ALWAYS get their way. Its sickening.
So its nice to hear someone saying no.
1) Too long/costly to argue with them. Often taking up executive time, Or legal costs ultimately!
2) Unhappy customers tell their friends far more than often than happy customers do (something like 8 times more often, according to some car industry studies)
3) Getting into a customer cat-fight spoils employee's day. He becomes an unproductive worker afterward.
4) Poisons the employees attitude toward all customers (you see that here). There should be a very strong attitude that "the customer is our friend."
5) Above all: In a fair number of cases, it turns out that the customer IS right and employee is wrong. I remember one case, years ago, where I was sure the customer couldn't have bought a product, which he wanted to return, from us. Turned out he did.
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I realize that businesses here vary. A site selling bibles may be more willing to give the customer the benefit of the doubt than one selling how-to books on bank robbery. Still, a liberal policy is the only smart, profitable, policy.
Not many people take the time anymore to do any ROI. For example, I'll be more than happy to pay the $5 for shipping if I do not need it right away, rather than having to go to the local store. That means, driving & time. Usually, it will take you an hour to do the trip & having to pay $5 is a lot better (to me) since my time is worth a lot more than $5 an hour.
-Corey
1) Keep sticking up for ourselves when we know we are right but dealing with the problems (lowers employee morale, etc.)
or
2) Start a "customer is always right" policy (everyone will love us and perhaps this will boomerang into more business overall)
I think I'll stick with number 1 but will seriously consider testing number 2
I agree with you. It's best to keep the customer happy, although I don't agree that they are always right.
I just grit my teeth and be nice to them.
"I remember one case, years ago, where I was sure the customer couldn't have bought a product, which he wanted to return, from us. Turned out he did."
I remember when someone was adament they bought a product from me, that I didn't even sell, and have never sold, and I nicely explained this to them. They e-mailed back saying sorry. They then e-mail me back a week later asking where the hell it was, and I told them again, but this time they insisted. I eventually managed to explain to him that it must have been a different company after I had to ask him to check his confirmation e-mails from the company in question.
the customer is not always right, though i sometimes treat them as if they are.
If a firm is lucky enough to have a person like that, there are more profitable things to use those skills for. Like making him vice-president!
It boils down to how you want your savviest employee spending his day: fighting with customers over pennies, or building your business?
The customer wants to return a product which means he is not happy with it. He has bought it somewhere else but has now come to you. What a great opportunity to win over a customer!
This has happened to me several times. I always tell the customer politly that he has not bought it at our shop so he can not return it to us.
But I also ask him why he was not happy with the product. Then I offer him another product, send some samples and product information for free or offer a discount for first time purchase. And many times I have won a good and happy customer.
Complaints are always a good opportunity. No customer will ever remember where he has bought a product when everything went smoothly. But he will always remember when something went wrong how good he was helped ... or not. And he will talk about that.
Today I received an email from a customer wanting to know why she had not received her product yet. She had ordered two days ago (On Saturday).
I answered politly that we had received her order and apologized to her that we were not able to process her order earlier because of the weekend. But that we had already processed it now and would ship it today.
She wrote an email back and apologized. She only had forgotten that she had placed the order on a weekend.
Thats the case most of the time that people just are confused or have forgotten something. If you stay polite it is easy to solve the problem. If you get disrespectful they think you want to screw them.
There are damned smart reasons why companies should have a "Customer Is Always Right" policy:
there are also some damned good reasons for a "customer is not always right" policy
1) Too long and costly to argue with them - the time spent dealing with an a***ole can be better spent adding a couple of extra pages to my site. i lose one customer (and potentially a few recommendations) but i gain extra business from the extra work i put in - and that's extra business every month, not just once
2) Unhappy customers tell their friends far more than often than happy customers do - "unhappy customers" are often unhappy no matter what you do - even if you bend over backwards for them, they'll still slag you off to their friends (if they actually have any)
3) Getting into a customer cat-fight spoils employee's day. He becomes an unproductive worker afterward. I want happy staff. My staff have a right to work without abuse, without fear of intimidation, etc. My staff have a right to enjoy their jobs. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, has the right to take that away from my staff.
4) Unhappy customers poison the attitudes of employees toward all customers. There should be a very strong attitude that "the customer is our friend, unless they p**s us off - then that customer can sling his hook.". Staff who feel they have the support of their employers are happier in their jobs and are more productive.
life's too short - enjoy it ............
Thats the case most of the time that people just are confused or have forgotten something.
But, we are talking about two different things though. Good customer service is essential. You politly answered her question and informed her when her package was coming. Good CS. But what if her email had been slightly different. What if she had emailed and complained that the order was delayed (when it was only placed over the weekend) and then she demanded that you discount the order by 10% because of the delay? Would you give her the 10% discount? 20%? 50%? Free? Some customers will go that far.
Over the top demands by customers are on the rise b/c out and out dishonesty is on the rise. Certainly you should take good care of your customers, always, always be polite, always correct and appologize for an error that might possibly (even a little) be your fault. But there is a point when you have to say stop.
In building a highly successful operation I too had to swallow plenty of pride and silently endure some insults. Do you think I love every employee, every supplier, every landlord, every tax auditor, every customer?
That being said, you have to keep enough customers happy to keep those chargebacks from piling on.
Personally, I just gave up after awhile. I just learned how to make the customer think he was right and make him happy without it costing me time or money.
Hell, sometimes I try to cross sell / upsell unhappy customers just for laughs.
If that fails and I have a customer complaint I do the following which I learned many years ago at a customer service seminar.
1) Listen carefully to the customer complaint.
2) Ask questions, be interested and concerned
3) Let the customer know that you are VERY interested, and you truly want to understand exactly what went wrong.
4) Once you are 100% certain you understand the problem, repeat it to the customer like "Ok, so let me make sure I got this right... (reiterate the problem)".
5) Let the customer know that you empathise with their compaint and that you can understand why they'd be upset.
6) Let the customer know how much you appreciate them taking the time to explain all of this to you.
7) Appologize for the problem and then tell them what you can do to make the situation right.
By the time you get to step #6 the customer is like putty in your hand. Usually you don't have to give them anything extra.
We dont want to sell our souls to the almightly dollar either. Having faith in employees to handle the way they feel is appropriate, and be true to our feelings (this includes expressing them to difficult customers even if a sale is lost) is something to be cherished also.
"Rift between how you act and how you feel." LOL Oh, that's a terrible thing! Someone might lose self-esteem over that, heaven forbid.
Ever work in a real store where disgruntled customers have the immediate ability to express themselves in more physical ways? That's where I got my first CR experience. When the customer's 6'4" and covered with gang tattoos, believe me there's a strong presumption that he's always right. LOL
Excuse me while I sob for the plight of the e-commerce CR rep.
I seem to find that if you offer an optional fast delivery with higher charges you do get the takers.
I have spoken to many a customer who to me, seemed very unreasonable and I felt was in the wrong. I have had to nash my teeth on many an occasion as I offered them a refund.
But, at the end of the day, I work on the premise that there are many more honest and trustworthy customers out there than there are jerks. We are still in business and doing ok so I guess we must be doing something right.
We lose more money arguing the validity of how many widgets were defective, or whether the customer is being honest about it or not, then we do just issuing credits for the widgets.
Interestingly, we've found that if we try to be really price competitive, we attract a higher percentage of customers who constantly call us about these issues. Essentially, we sell more at lower margin, but at the same time the 'average' customer is higher maintenance...not just more annoying customers, but a higher percentage of them.
I had a hunch that increasing the price would keep the bottom-feeders away - and it most certainly did. The solution to all of this was to raise the price of 1000 widgets from $10 to $15. People who are willing to pay this premium have proven to let the occasional off-white jellybean in a package of 'whites' pass much more often than the old "average" customer.
I don't know if it is just something about really price-consious people taking the "customer is king" philosophy a little too seriously or what, but I really find the whole thing fascinating more than anything.
I say: sell less, profit more, and attract the "type" of customer you want to deal with anyway.
