Reading this, I have empathy for the developer.
There is a small subset of customers that will give you a bad review at the drop of a hat because they know it hurts you. They're poison.
Finally one of these people got some tiny payback.
There is a small subset of customers that will give you a bad review at the drop of a hat because they know it hurts you. They're poison.
Finally one of these people got some tiny payback.
I think you give some people too much credit. They just expect things to work and get upset when it doesn't. They're powerless to change or fix anything besides coming to you, the developer. Yes, cursing isn't a good means of communication. Yes, having empathy for the other side is a good thing when trying to get something. It's still probably not _that_ personal.
> Finally one of these people got some tiny payback.
At the expense of a lot of bad PR and a general loss of professionalism displayed by the company. I've never heard of this company, but I will never do business with them now.
Is the spite towards that one person really worth it?
EDIT: Sorry for being inflammatory here.
"The customer is always right" never meant that customer service should be a door mat, but rather comes from advertising and the idea that consumers will spend their money on products that best fit their needs at the best value. If you sell something noone wants, or at too high a price, you'll gain little to no market share.
Should we really have to caveat the accusation with "maybe he's a really nice guy" or something?
By the same token, publicly castigating someone because you couldn't get their software to work on your device isn't a great thing to do either. Perhaps the developer sells his gadgets so he can house sick kittens, and he was up all night trying to nurse a particularly sick kitten when the angry email came through??
This was an Amazon purchase. The developer mentions Saturday, and how the Amazon review was left around the same time as the forum post, so presumably the the item was delivered on that same day. That's gonna be a bad experience for both sides: The purchaser has to wait until Monday to return, and the developer has to deal with (what I expect is) a drive-by flame. It's a Saturday night, and each side reacted poorly.
Honestly, I doubt the guy was going to continue attempting to use his device after leaving such a review, so the developer bricking it doesn't have any effect. In addition, the customer will get his money back via the Amazon return, so the developer was losing there anyway.
We don't know anything else, so I don't know what the actual problem would be. It could've been build quality, or shipping, or software, or the purchasers mobile device, or who knows what.
To be honest, based on what I see here, and speaking as someone who is just a customer, I believe the customer started the boulder running with his negative review and drive-by flame, and I feel lenient towards the developer.
You work out what their problem was and fix it, if they explain the issue. Regardless the attitude should be "how do we make sure the next buyer doesn't have an issue".
You are going to get bad reviews no matter what, some entirely unfair. All you can do it focus on making the product as good as it can be.
> We don't know anything else
It's almost like you treat your 'doubt' as a matter of fact, rather than pure opinion.