<VV> Let the Buyer Beware - Handling customer support

[Dave Morris]

I've been on both sides of this discussion.  The price of one upset customer:

First off, only about 1 out of 7 call to complain.. the rest just get angry 
in silence and will not tell you.  Each upset customer will tell roughly 5 
to 20 of his friends (or as you saw in this case, several hundred of their 
friends on a discussion list).  You can compute the "Lifetime Value" of a 
customer by predicting their orders over the next 5 years, and then 
multiply that by the number of other people who will believe the irate 
customer's claims and stop buying from you.  Take that dollar amount, and 
multiply it by 7 to account for the people who were pissed and stopped 
buying for you, but never called to complain.  That's your total lost business.

I operate a web site with 75,000 registered customers.  Obviously sometimes 
things go wrong when you're dealing with millions of transactions and 
technology that is racing ahead faster than most people can think.  And I 
have encountered several obstinate users who were convinced that I was "out 
to get them" and purposely trying to make their lives miserable because of 
some error message that popped up only on their computer.  I always take it 
as a personal challenge to turn those people around and make them my 
greatest admirers.  I once made a two hour phone call to Australia to turn 
a guy around who was spewing poison until I changed his mind.

Some experience as a director of technical support in a previous job helped 
me understand how to deal with irate customers, and if a company has never 
availed itself of some of the books and tapes on the market on the topic if 
handling irate customers, I highly recommend looking for them on Amazon.com 
or look at Nancy Friedman's (www.telephonedoctor.com) materials.  Usually 
it works, but sometimes it doesn't and you just have to "let go" and serve 
the others as best as you can.

On the other side of the coin, some people can't seem to do business 
without getting into lawsuits and attorneys and major hassles.  I hate 
doing business with customers like that, and most vendors try to steer them 
somewhere else if at all possible, because they can be a real drain on 
resources, especially for a small company.

Dave Morris



At 11:57 AM 1/10/2005 -0800, you wrote:

>Now remember that I am speaking from an unusual point of view - I'm a
>vendor. What would you do if a one-time customer buys a product, doesn't
>know how to use it, calls up and yells at everyone he talks to, is rude
>and abusive (because of his own ignorance?), refuses to accept that a
>"return" policy is not a "refund" policy, returns the parts and they
>look like they've been hammered on and are completely unsaleable to
>someone else then blackmails you because you won't send the money back?
>
>This type of customer makes doing business harder and more costly for
>all the other customers. The example you quote below is often practiced
>by companies with a much greater markup than your average Corvair
>vendor. There is room to absorb unreasonable returns and refunds. But
>let me give you another thing to ponder.
>
>Our business is 31 years old this month. Of the literally hundreds of
>businesses we've dealt with for suppleirs in that time, virtually NONE
>of them are still in business. Of course companies like Federal Mogul
>are still there - but not even close to the same ownership or
>configuaration they were 31 years ago (they've also filed chapter 11
>during the time as well).
>
>Over the years we've give refunds and exchanges to "good" customers who
>send us back parts they have destroyed, didn't buy from us etc etc etc.
>The past 3 or so years of recession it has gotten worse and some of
>those customers have gotten very belligerant if we didn't just grin and
>eat it.
>
>The consumer fantasy world says "The customer is always right".  Is the
>customer who shoplifts always right? Is the customer who buys with a
>rubber check always right? Is the customer who is dishonest, rude and
>abusive to my employees always right?  At the Dallas National many years
>ago a "gentleman" loudly accused us of "cheating him" because we had
>"charged him 120.00 for two sets of door weatherstrips" and didn't put
>them in his package. he actually went up and down the vendor room
>almost at the top of his lungs proclaiming this fact. I had been out of
>the room when he did this, and returned to hear him berating Linda and
>almost reducing her to tears. I very sternly told him he had better get
>his facts straight and that there were much better ways to handle the
>problem. LATER the vendor came back and meekly admitted (in an
>oh-so-quiet a voice) that he had made a mistake - the weatherstrips had
>been left up in his room. Is the customer ALWAYS right? Bullshit.
>(Excuse my candor)
>
>By the way - despite his loud proclaimations, Dallas was a record setter
>for us in sales at the time.
>
>When a vendor screws up we need to make it good. It's our obligation.
>Even though we have little to no control over what our suppliers send
>us, we're still ultimatly responsible (MOST manufacturers will not take
>back merchandise from us). But we're not here to be abused either. If
>that costs me some sales from the few customers who will only feel
>comfortable in dealing with vendors that they can take full advantage
>of, then that's fine. Life is too short.
>
>This market is somewhat unusual because over the past 31 years I've
>gotten to know MANY of you personally. Anyone can post anything they
>want on VV or elsewhere but, fortunatly for all of us, there is a
>reality far beyond the virtual kind. Linda and I appreciate the many
>years of support you have shown us and we will do our best to live up to
>your expectations. Lon
>
>www.corvairunderground.com
>
>UltraMonzaWest@aol.com wrote:
>
> >>When I worked at a parts counter, long long ago and far away, it was  the
> >>store policy that the customer was right, even when they were wrong. I 
> saw
> >>parts
> >>returned or exchanged, knowing full well that they didn't come from our
> >>store. The object of this policy was for the customer to leave the store
> >>with a
> >>positive attitude and would therefore be more likely to return to spend 
> more
> >>
> >>money.
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