What to do when a customer says “Fuck you”
blog.hipmob.com
blog.hipmob.com
That's how the co-founder of a customer service oriented company responds to a bug complaint? Three whole words? And then he has the nerve to "go nuclear" on the customer? Wow, talk about being rude and arrogant. Not only is your response unprofessional because of its poor grammar, you also didn't even give the cusomter the impression that their complaint matters to you.
How about something like, "Still haven't been able to replicate it yet, but we're trying"?
I wouldn't respond how the customer did, but I think you deserved it.
Definitely a better response. No excuse for the casualness of my tone - just reflective of my relationship with Jon (which at the time was more casual/familiar than with others)
Not an excuse - when your job's doing customer service better.
What you fail to realize, even to this day, is that you said "Fuck you" to him FIRST.
Then when he called you on it, you did it again.
You blew him off with a three word response that doesn't give him anything to go on, or any reason to believe that you were taking him seriously.
Then when he called you on your failure to provide adequate service (or an explanation of why you couldn't or even, have given him anything to go on to try and move the ball forward)... rather than recognize that message for what it was (A repetition of what you said to him) you made it even worse!
Your final response is blowing him off, telling him that he's not an important customer, that you care much more about having your anus licked very carefully, than about the issue at hand.
YOU made it personal. First by blowing him off, then when he (quite politely, frankly) pointed this out to you, you made it all about him.
Worse, you've now gone and written a blog post.
This whole affair is all about how your delicate sensibilities are far more important to you than solving a customers problem.
Worse, it wasn't even sufficient to simply blow him off, you had to do it PUBLICLY by writing this blog post... while smugly lecturing us on good customer service?
Frankly, I would be astounded, but there seems to be a lot of this kind of attitude going around silicon valley these days.
I think its what you get when you get kids right out of college and have them do "startups" without them ever having any real life experience.
I suspect pointing this out to you is not going to make any sense. You clearly think you were in the right, and you may not be able to conceive of how you might not be. That's the problem.
That you work for a company all about "customer service" is pretty rich irony, though.
You just told everyone over 30 that, when push comes to shove, you care more about finding an excuse to blow them off.
I still didn't like writing, of course. But I had no idea how right he was. It continues to amaze me how rare proper grammer, coherent sentences, and clear, concise thinking are in the professional world, and how much of a jump start he gave me forcing me to learn those skills, year in, year out.
Also, giving advice based on a single experience rather than several repeated successful outcomes seems like a bad practice for helping other entrepreneurs, and they might not read all the way to the bottom to discover that data point.
It might have looked better a few months later as a humorous addition to a "things people have said to our customer support" list
You're totally right. No excuse for the casual tone there.
After long experience, the users understand this, and don't like being dismissed.
Holy shit, if you were providing a service and sent me (a customer) an email like that I'd leave you in a heartbeat. Talk about a "fuck you".
I get customers can be hard but "can't replicate it" translates directly into "find another service provider".
Really, if the relationship has moved to this level a canned "We're sorry but we are going to have to terminate this relationship, here's a generous timeline and a few freebies to make us look like the better person" response would have been MUCH better.
Omitted for brevity (as others have pointed out in the comments): we maintained a relationship with the customer long after the exchange. The goal definitely wasn't to get him to "find another service provider" so much as it was to reset the tone.
All that being said, clearly my casual response ("can't replicate it") definitely was the wrong thing to do, as I didn't intend it to offend at all.
What on earth did you think it would do, make him jump for joy?
Especially since "it works for me" is standard helpdesk-speak for fobbing people off and closing their issues.
It didn't even occur to you to say "Sorry can't replicate it?"
That would clearly have been the right answer here.
"I'm sorry, we were unable to fix the issue. [Ask them a probing question about their environment, or requests for video]."
Seems to me, the person left the already frustrated customer with very little else to say.
The thing is, you don't let it get to you or even register it. They pay you money, you deal with it. That's the way it works.
Also, I've never once told them it's not very nice. They know it's not very nice.
I've turned paying customers around from "Fuck you" into "take my money please" by just responding to the issues they say around the insults.
Here's an example.
Customer - "One of my players was cut off my team, this fucking game is stupid and I'm never going to play it again. FUUUUUUUCK YOUUUUU"
Me - "Wow, that sucks to hear. I looked over your team and it looks like you signed 1 too many players, and it had to find someone to cut. I can go ahead and reassign him to your team if you'd like, but you need to specify who so you aren't over roster limits."
Customer responds with who, and thanks me.
Completely normal. No big deal, don't let it ever get to you.
1. Realize that a great product has never been enough! How you treat people is very, very important.
2. Apologize to the client. Publicly. Why? You just humiliated him/her by posting the conversation. People value their privacy, even when they are seeking customer service. Now every client might think you are going to post everything online.
3. Either learn some CS skills, or hire someone to do it, or better yet, hire me to make you a simple CS script. It only costs a couple hundred bucks but will save you these types of embarrasments.
4. Erase that blog post, and replace it with a PG version. Specially the headline. You are trading credibility for traffic? Awful idea!
5. Publish a blog post stating your new customer service guidelines and feature it on the front page of the site. If this goes viral you are going to need to combat that.
6. Next time you feel like posting something like this just stop. Think! How would you feel if you were getting shitty customer service? Would you tell them to go fuck themselves? Of course you would! Always, always think about the other side of the coin.
Good luck. You will need it.
* What about a culture where people end up feeling entitled to ask for everything? Should I accept abuses?
* What about personality disorders? There are lots of people out there suffering psychological diseases. How do you diagnose it and handle it, if you are not a psychiatrist?
* You're supposed to be show genuine empathy for your customers needs. I don't know if that is even possible without some emotional vulnerability. How do you control your emotions when people react just plain mean?
Though some just are entitled assholes. Leave those alone. No sense in trying to paint the sky.
I don't see anything wrong in people being entitled to ask for everything but they shouldn't feel entitled to actually get it. You can and normally should say no. Edit: Politely and where possible with a reason.
Having said that there are businesses that make their money from catering to insane requirements and going to insane lengths to look after customers but they really make them pay for it. E.g. super luxury hotels.
* I'll bend over backwards for you, but I won't bend over forwards.
* The customer is not always right - we discontinued that policy years ago due to abuse.
With that said - you'll get my absolute best effort to support you.
A very productive way of dealing with this is to dig out of it with your customer. That person will likely become a great ally.
There's no sense in having someone being mad at you and your brand because of $30. And the interesting thing is that most of those customers back off from taking the refund and prefer to keep using the software omitting the not working parts.
Why does my wife keep shopping at walmart.com even though their prices are not that great? Because if the item is not the coreect one (clothing size, defective gadgets, etc) she can just take it to the store and receive a refund. No questions asked. What does she do with the refund? She spends it in the store.
"cant replicate it" directly to the customer in a 3 word non-sentence from the co-founder? Really? From what's supposed to be a "customer service" company? WTF?
This should have been handled by competent support stuff who know how to talk to users. You should be apologizing for whatever it is and telling them that while you have not been able to reproduce it after many many hours of testing, you'd really like to the bottom of this mysterious issue, and then go on to suggest some steps to try and track the issue down.
... WTF.