How many ASSHATS do you deal with?

Because, the first rule of customer service is - the customer is always right.

That said, I'd be sweet as pie getting this asshat his/her product, and then ban their ass from my store

/me bows and extends a 'hats off' to Butch....I wish more sellers had this attitude.

No, the customer always THINKS they're right, even when they're horribly horribly wrong. I've worked plenty of customer service jobs in RL and the people who got my best effort were the ones who behaved decently...asshats got bare minimum service and a few were even invited to leave the premises.

And, Zaphod, I wasn't suggesting that Yummy not redeliver - although, in her position, I probably would have just returned the L$ and muted the jerk- I was objecting to this bit:


Yummy owed the asshat no kind of apology, especially for something utterly beyond her control.

I sometimes get ones like this, often they are ones that IM during my night time and I have a string of IMs from the person in email spaced throughout the night getting more and more angry that you have not answered, thats just agravating to begin with because people have to sleep, you cant be in SL 24/7.

Its also very annoying to be blamed for things that are not your fault at all, why these people think you would deliberately not give the item to them I dont know, you would hardly have a succesful shop if you used that practice, there would be nothing for you to gain in doing that.

This one is actually reasonably tame compared to some Ive had in the past who get downright abusive and say they filed abuse reports etc, before you even had a chance to answer them.

With the one above Id check account history and send them the item, explaining that you cannot control SL, and suggest the best people to complain to about SL malfunctions is LL rather than throwing accusations, sometimes you find they didnt actually buy the thing in history, if thats the case then it can get very hairy, these "shoot first, ask questions later" people tend to not believe their own account history and blame you for not delivering a thing they didnt actually buy lol.

There are those who believe that if you are doing customer service you are "paid to take abuse", I dont agree with that, you are still a human being, people should treat others as they would wish to be treated themselves, if a person cannot be civil, do you really want them as a customer?
Of course if they did pay money and didnt get the item then you should make it right, I would never ignore them to "teach them a lesson", if you do that you become what it is they think you are.
However if they are extremely abusive, you can refund them the amount they paid and then ban them from your shop.

It has been my experience that if you allow people to treat you this way without taking some sort of issue with it, it will come back to bite you, to some this is a green light to go further and exploit you.

Me too

I've had two opportunities to act like an asshat customer. Once I bought boots that did not even remotely fit (my calves) and the other time a skirt prim rezzed around my neck (me too noob to know how to fix it )

My initial reaction to think that I was dealing with incompetents. I decided to inquire politely. Turned out that the boot box was actually missing the 'large' calf size, and the skirt was replaced immediately with a correct copy.

Boy, was I glad I didn't yell. Even designers and shop owners have to start somewhere, and mistakes happen. Because of the response I received from these two, I always first assume that all sellers are good folks and NOT out to rip off their clients.

WOWOWOWOWOWOW I know my english is not perfect but I didn't stop laughing when I was reading that, I bet you loose more time to understand it than to find the transaction on your transactions history lololol




I also love fried liver with potatoes heheheheheh


I must say I've been lucky, I only had a couple of complains about no delivered items, but in both cases the customers were very polite and I simply sent them a second item without waiting for them to see the inventory

Nope, that's what the asset server is for.

Yes, I've had exactly one asshat fitting of the title and that was back when I'd started my shop. The bright boy bought everything from SLEx knowing exactly what perms the items had, given they are CLEARLY marked on the site.

He got hostile, because he wanted 'copy, transfer' so he could give 'em out to all his little chickies as presents or that I HAD to give him a refund. After checking the perms of the items on the site, I politely told him that they were correctly labeled and that if he had wanted to purchase them for someone else, he should have used the site's gift option. But noooo, he wanted the copy, transfer. I laughed at him, muted him, banned him and went about my merry way.

If it had been my fault and it had been incorrectly labeled, I would have made good on that. But this was just... annoying.

..dant... I might know that person. lol

LOL Yummy. If you were local to me, we have customer service vacancies at my RL workplace. 95% of our customers are like that. I had to actually hang up on someone yesterday (a very rare thing that I can't handle a stroppy caller, but this one was mad as a lorry) - he got through to one of the support team who complained that I had had the "audacity to claim that your business is not corrupt".

Erm - yes. Why yes, I do indeed have the audacity to do that.

People are largely idiots, more's the pity!

Waittt.. you claimed that your job wasn't corrupt? Shame on you! You should know by now that any company that takes money for services/products is very corrupt! And anything involving a corporation is worse, since after all they share the same first three letters!

I loved callers like this.

Spot on Craig. I have a no abuse policy lmao. 'Glad to help you out until you start being and XXXhole.' I get a lot of IMs from people who can't read directions. Using a giftcard system as a marketing tool, I encounter someone EVERY day who just doesn't get --Wear and Right Click and don't Cam shop while using it.

I have instructions in the vendor that auto pop, I have instructions in the card that you can access by clickin, every notice I send has a blurb, basic instructions are in my profile, plus I put greeter scripts all over the store with 'tips.' -- I give away cards in prims that say Open Me and subsequently find someone wearing the prim on their head at least once a week -- I got accused of giving away fake giftcards in my lucky chairs to draw traffic. All while this is happening, there are card transactions firing off every couple of minutes while I am listening to this lmao.

Gotta love retail

CC

I should have worded that differently. Many times, apologizing and accepting responsibility for something are not the same thing. I'm just talking about good business etiquette.

So, said differently:

"I'm very sorry this happened to you, and I understand your frustration. Here is a fresh copy of the item you purchased but did not receive. Understand that these problems are not generally the fault of business owners in SL, but of problems with asset transfers on the grid."

Then mute the son of a bitch or whatever you feel you have to do.

We're human. When we are insulted it is difficult to swallow pride and do the right thing, especially in the face of such belligerence.

What amazes me is that people expect an instant response. What, you didn't get the "user is offline" message the first time? How can they fix it in 5 minutes if they're not online? They could be asleep... at work... or just having a real life. Sorry that the thing worth 50 cents is ending your world that it can't be resolved at a later time.

How many asshats do I deal with?

Every single one of you.

No, I'm kidding. But I really think that usually this kind of situation is due to people not understanding the nature of SL. They think that if something goes wrong, the shop owner is right there to correct it, 24/7, and that's why you see these IMs just minutes apart. They tell you once and OMG it's been THREE WHOLE MINUTES and you haven't responded so they escalate.

Either that, or they're just asshats. Yeah, that's probably it.

P2

I agree most customers are great, but sometimes you get some that make you wonder if you should answer or ignore from the begining.

I just had one that bought something 2 or 3 months ago, and her landlord sent it back and she couldnt find it in her inventory. I told her it should be in the lost and found folder maybe clustered to something else, she wouldnt listen, and wanted ME to replace everything.

In this case I said NO

Most of the time I replace things on the spot when they're not delivered, not my fault, but not my customer's fault either.

But yes, I wont take abuse from anybody, if they do, I simply tell them to go to a Linden and ask them to replace what the asset server lost. (Done it once and not regretted it)

With all respect, CCTV, if you have that many people that have difficulties, you may want to rethink your system. I've not been by for a while - maybe it's too complicated, especially for newbies?
Certainly, it all seems very simple to you because you developed it, but your customers may not 'get it' because they don't have to or simply don't want to.

When I shop, I want to find something nice, click on it, buy it. I don't want an education on how to go about using your shop. That may seem shallow and obtuse or possibly both, but that's the reality.
Making people wear things and scan through a bunch of notes, tips, profiles, greetings isn't what they came there for. They came for shoes.

I'd worry that I'm losing business from those who cannot bother to IM you. The ones that just throw up their hands and walk away.

B.

Does my bum look big in this hat?

In the rare times I don't receive an item from the vendor, I send them a notecard. I address them as I would like to be addresed. I provide all the details and the transaction history to make it easier for them to do their research and comparison. Because I know they are busy and I may get a faster response LOL.

I did have a problem with this week with the set up of an item I purchased. I exhausted all methods prior to contacting the creator for their assistance. She came to my sim and was very nice about the whole thing. I even apologized that she had to make the trip.

The experience was quite pleasant. So OP please don't 1 dipstick muddle the pool as their real people behind the avie. Some of customers like myself value and respect the vendor and their product.

No but your head looks perky in those shorts. Are you related to Anthony Keidis by any chance?

I would've told them off and returned their money a day later so you're better person than I.

I agree with this line of thinking. Customer service means you run the risk of some sort of abuse or unreasonable expectations but you need to rise above it. If the abuse gets too much there's always the AR option.

were they an A$$hat or not? Perhaps since they joined they had many people sucker them and steal their L.

How has their day or week been in RL?

You can never know what sets people off. Have I had customers like this? Heck yeah. Several times.

I do not remember any that I could not calm down. You check to make sure you got paid. Send them the item and an explanation of how SL asset servers act up from time to time. Every once in a while I am ultra nice and refund the L as well.

people by nature tend to over react, I have done so at LL myself. but once they understand you are willing to work with them and help they calm down and start to understand the situation.

As a business owner you need to treat others with respect even when they don't. You help them and yourself with this.

If the person, even after shown you are trying to help them, continues to act like a jerk. Flush them.

However, too many people can't wait to be a victim in something, because they assume the worst. Human nature, of course, but still flawed. Take the high road and be understanding. You only gain from doing that.

my response would have been, "here's your money back" and then ban the person from the shop.

One thing I learned in being a clerk/CSR is that everything that goes wrong with the product or with the platform IS your fault (by the customer's thinking), regardless of whether you have any control or not. So, working from that mentality, I've found it's easier to say, "I'm sorry you're having this problem," because it does affect me too.

How can I say it affects me? Well, I'm going to assume (yes, that nasty word) that for every one person that contacts me, two don't. And those two are NOT happy, but they don't want to deal with the 'hassle' of contacting me, for various reasons. Those two are going to walk away unhappy with me and my product, which reflects poorly when word gets out. So, I lose sales and possible sales to SL's glitches.

Also, I've found that some of the forceful customers also become some of your best when they find you're going to consistently give them good service when they need it. (Okay, that sounded less dirty minded in my head.)

Now this doesn't mean I'm going to cave in to threats and such. Once a threat is made of a nature exceeding tolerance, the person ceases to be a customer and will find themselves unwelcome at my shop. Unless of course, they are paying me to specifically be abused, but I don't think most people could afford the PITA tax.

Make up a Tee-Shirt and put "I'M A ASSHAT" in Big Block letters on it... then when you get a customer like that offer them a free item to make up for thier troubles.....