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Comment by qume | Hacker News Reader

Dear customer,

We are a small team who don't have the resources to test every single OS version on every device. Problems will happen.

As such we're happy to issue you a refund, and you can keep the device. All we ask is that you let us update the app to make sure it's working on your device, and hopefully others.

Thank you for helping us find the issue. We will work tirelessly until it is fixed. If at some stage you are satisfied we would be delighted to turn your one star review into a five star one.

Kind regards Company which needs a little bit of help in how to deal with customers

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I'm fine with a request to change the review, but not sure that they should tell them exactly how many stars to give.

Try it and notice how it actually works vs just asking to give a better grade.

I can see it working, but I just feel that it's putting pressure on the consumer to rate the company how they want them to.

Wierd, I read it as "We will work to change your mind about the product so you'll want to change that 1 star to a 5 star."

There was no "we won't help unless you promise to change the review to a 5 star" implied.

Yep. It usually turns out better that way.

(except I'm not sure how I feel about asking them to change their review at this stage)

I would probably be a lot more indirect about it.

Thank you for helping us find the issue. We will work tirelessly until it is fixed. If at some stage you are satisfied we would be delighted to turn your one star review into a five star one.

Thank you for helping us find the issue. We will work tirelessly until we turn your one star disappointment into a five star experience.

I have a business selling software. And most of the the time, rude customers are just frustrated with the product. Once you start to address their concerns, they are actually very friendly and would not hesitate to change their review or give a 5 star rating.

> As such we're happy to issue you a refund

They didn't offer this, the bricked the device and suggested returning it to Amazon, who have no power over any of this.

Which companies do the refund + keep-device if unsatisfied?

Amazon, occasionally, but not always.

Also happened to me at least twice with Spreadshirt (but they don't really sell devices). Once the product clearly had a defect (part of the print was coming off), once I ordered it just too small.

Big difference between company policy (which will be abused) and good decision making by the company in individual cases.

I got an offer for a refund + keep the device on a $7 electronic part that I posted a 3 star review on from a fulfillment-by-amazon seller.

I guess handling the return would cost more than the value of the item, and presumably they really don't want a 3 star review.

(I did not accept the offer, that would feel a bit dishonest)

Every company selling products via the internet in the EU.

Definitive NO. I think you mean they have to offer free _return shipping_.

I only know the situation in Germany for that, and the law here is not even as straightforward as most customers expect, just the big online retailers are pretty relaxed with their return policies (because that is what the customers are expecting).

There is no situation where you could insist on keeping a defective product, and its also not commonly offered voluntarily.

I've had this experience with Monoprice and a few AliExpress sellers at least. "Oh, it doesn't work? Meh, all yours, have a good one" is a very good way to make customers come back.

It's ripe for abuse, so I'm sure companies have to be careful with it, but if it's low margin stuff it probably doesn't matter much anyways.

Yes, they have to offer free return shipping and for many small items, receiving a to-be-refurbished item is almost worthless to the manufacturer, so it's both cheaper and simpler just to not ask for the item back.

Actually in Germany there is no longer a law that forces the retailer to cover the return shipping costs. They will have to refund your money no questions asked, including the shipping fee you paid, if you return the item in the first two weeks, but not the return shipping. But since for a few years there was such a law, it is very very commonly offered anyway.

And also you can in principle be asked to cover any loss of value if you damaged the product or used it in any way that was not "necessary for testing/evaluation".

So far I had to return every item I did not like or that arrived damaged. Especially for obviously damaged goods it makes no direct sense for them to ask for it back to trow it away on their end, but I really think at least a retailer like amazon does not just hand waive a decision like that and has some economic reasons.

Somewhat related, once I noticed a significant price drop the day after I had bought a product from amazon, and asked support if they could refund me the difference. They could not, but told me to just order another one for the lower price and refuse the delivery of the first order (which means the logistics company returns the item directly).

So clearly "cheaper and simpler" for a company like amazon is not always as straightforward as one might expect.

It's not about "Whatever, here is your money back, just keep the device we don't care, goodbye."

It's about acknowledging the customers frustration, hopefully lowering it by returning the money no questions asked, and ALSO keeping the door open to continue the conversation in the hope for a more positive outcome.

Maybe the customer angrily throws the device away and you never hear from him again. Okay then, everybody moves on.

But maybe he is less frustrated and is willing to have a productive discussion about his problem, provide you with more information and try some things.

Again this might lead nowhere. Ideally you either find that something completely out of your control was the fault, and the customer can admit that blaming you for it was unreasonable, or you find the fault and are able to fix it.

So you might end up with a customer that no longer blames you, or even better one that is now able to use and enjoy your product.

I've worked with a small hardware manufacturer for consumer electronics a few years back and they literally trashed every return (at least in the US market).

They used to just let customers keep them until people apparently caught on and took advantage of the policy.

I know they trashed them as I was the only company resource in the US and they shipped them to my house to be destroyed. :/

I get the sentiment, but why should a hardware company let the user keep the device and their money? Issuing a refund and finding a way to retrieve the device so it can be resold makes much more sense to me. Especially for a small company....

Giving away your product for free to every customer that complains seems like a quick way to go out of business.

If you buy a faulty ipad from apple, they'll certainly give you your money back, but they'll make you return the ipad.

> If you buy a faulty ipad from apple, you can certainly get your money back, but you need to return the faulty device too

Sure, but Apple won't remotely disable your device until you turn it in for a refund. If you want to preëmptively cut off services, you should initiate the refund. That leaves the customer with a free (albeit broken) product. This is partly why few companies remotely disable devices after purchase, particularly as a retaliatory measure.

Yeah, definitely not advocating for remote disabling of anything. Only responding to the sample support response and suggesting that it's worthwhile to retrieve the device and issue the refund. Not just issue the refund.

Not a 99 dollar retail price device. I'd guess the hardware earned the developer maybe 10, 20 bucks?

Loosing one or two less future sale probably makes up for the loss.

Understanding that one customers frustration and improving the experience for other new future customers could literally be priceless.

They're probably making way more than $10-20 on that thing - you can buy wifi capable dev boards for $10 out of China. If you're producing in bulk, you can probably build that even cheaper.

The marginal cost to make more units is dirt cheap, I'd be surprised if it's >$20 - the cost to develop the whole system in the first place is the hard part on the technical side of things. Then there's the business side which they just blew pretty bad. Giving the customer the hardware costs them almost nothing - write it off to make the customer happy. As long as you don't have to do that too much, it's perfectly sustainable.

If the company only makes $20 bucks on it, then they're losing $80 by giving it away. That's how profit margins work.

Super simple - turn your worst anti-evangelist into your biggest supporter. For the value of a used, possibly defective device with a $99 retail (therefore costing probably $20-35 to produce).

It's hard to explain, but I've lived through this so many times, and seeing an angry customer turn into a better marketing resource than any adwords campaign, and getting the warm fuzzies at the same time, is good business in my book.

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