Top 5 Buyer Mistakes

Or "Stupid Buyer Tricks". And maybe not 5, but what are your pet peeves as a merchant in SL? Maybe this will educate a few people to not do these things, and customer satisfaction will rise a bit.

1) Offline IMs that have one of the following, and nothing else: "hi", "are u on?", "IM me when ur on".

If people think I have to be online to respond to them, why waste my time and theirs with nonsense that doesn't tell me what their problem is, and risk causing an IM cap?? I, like most merchants, have my IMs sent to my email and can respond from there. I've had complete conversations with one or both parties offline at the time. I've gotten so many of these that now I have to just ignore any message that doesn't actually ask for something.

2) Friend requests from strangers, especially when I'm offline.

Related to 1, some people seem to think they can't get help from me unless they friend me, or they're hoping to use that to tell when I'm online. Newsflash, just because I'm on your friends list doesn't mean I'll let you see when I'm online! Only my actual friends are granted "can see my online status". Besides, my public profile will tell you if I'm online if you bothered to look at it.

3) Items dropped on me with no explanation.

Notecards I can understand, though they're not nearly as useful to me as IMs, with me being forgetful and having a messy inventory. What really gets me is snapshots and other stuff that is supposed to show a problem, but has no explanation to go with it. A picture of someone having fun or doing something silly with one of my avatars is self explanatory (I happen to enjoy those) but at least a couple of times I've gotten things that had no apprent purpose but for some reason showed up in my inventory.

That's about it for me, aside from the usual "stupid customer" that all businesses have in one form or another

Hell, I am just so jazzed when something sells I don't worry about the other stuff.

Top buyer mistake is not trying to contact and get a bad situation resolved.

You can't get resolution if you just stay quiet and mad. Most content creators are decent people and will help you.

Likely anyone selling stuff has dealt with plenty of failed transactions, lost items and more. There's a good chance you'll be believed if you have a transaction number and date handy, plus an explanation of what happened.

hmmm

my top one is "demanding not asking" politeness costs nothing

Nothing else much bothers me, bad manners really do

i thought there were gonna be 5??i must be stupid or something i could of sworn........
im me as to why i didn't get my other two lol

Because I make full perm kits, my name is often left on the items my customers make for their own stores. Then THEIR customers contact me with customer service issues. I am unable to provide any customer service because they didn't buy the item from my store and most likely I have never seen it, have no clue what scripts or textures or permissions have been added or changed.

A tip for buyers: make a note of where you shop, or take a landmark. The name on the item is not always the person you bought it from.

I have been blessed with 99% polite and appreciative customers and I love seeing what they do with my kits and getting suggestions for products. Perhaps because my niche targets other content creators, I get a pretty on-the-ball customer base. The other 1% give me opportunites to practice setting boundaries.

Ceka, I'm sorry but the product's readme does state that there would not actually be 10 in that package, though I suppose someone else may make an add on in the future. I apologize for the miscommunication.



I agree with Desmond, if a customer has a problem with something they bought from me, I do want to help them. I try hard to be polite, and I honestly want to help, so I don't want people to just be upset and not try to get the problem fixed. Of course, if they choose to do that, I'm not likely to find out about it, hehe.

I've experienced the mistaken identity problem Sylvia talked about, though not directly. I've been on the other end of things as the one that did make something, but wasn't contacted. I share a lot of my scripts with friends, so those scripts show me as the creator, even when the object using it was created by someone else. Oddly enough I don't think I've ever had someone IM me about something that wasn't mine, but I have heard from friends who were IM'd about something that was mine

Either my products are so perfect my buyers are entirely satisfied, or (MUCH more likely) I haven't sold nearly enough to have experienced any problems yet.

If I communicate with a creator I always send a notecard explaining as politely as possible the problem. 99% of the time it's a failed transaction that isn't their fault, and 100% of the time I've had positive, helpful and friendly responses. I even have a form notecard with spaces for time, date & transaction number etc. that I fill in and send. In fact, that gives my an idea... I'll include a similar card with my sales to let customers know how to request help.

I've been a recipient of the "R U on?" IM myself, for non-business reasons and it's incredibly frustrating. Depending on my mood I respond with a request for more information, a notecard with the times I'm likely to be around, or a sarcastic "Yes". Given that I'm selling more stuff these days, I should probably cut out the last one

Newbies buying houses then finding they can't rez them anywhere permanently unless they buy land.

Even worse: someone who does that and then blames the merchant for not telling them that would happen XD

1. People who can't get something to work, claim they have followed the instructions faithfully, but haven't. I really dislike spending time on someone who won't follow the instructions.

2. (related to 1) People who IM to ask how to do something (e.g. add someone to the security device). I want to say, "Please read the instructions" and leave it at that, but I tell them it's in the instructions, and then I tell them the command.

3. Notecards detailing a problem, but without including their name, and I have to look for it (you can't copy the name from Properties to paste into Search, to contact the person, like you can when it's written in the notecard).

4. Being called out to fix a mod item, when the person has made a right pig's ear of it. I've never refused to deal with one, but I'd prefer to.

People who refuse to read notecards or instructions and then act all rude and blame you when something doesn't work for them. Not much else bothers me.

atleast 30% of my customers seem to be very suprised they get service
is it truely that bad, or is it only in the mind ?



Have had this too , totally unaware of the situation i got some ALLCAPS "spam" demanding delivery , and had to calm the person down , the question arises what amount of shops dont fix failed transactions ?

Your customer service rocks Mister Nakamura

i will say ..the only time i contact the seller is on a bad transaction..i will IM them soon as possible so that i can have a logged time of when it happened plus the longer you wait to contact the longer you wait for resolve ..
i give a well described situation to them of what exactly happened and even as to why i was buying their product..If i buy anything in sl it is because i like it and could not make it myself
so i will tell them what drew me to their product..i believe when sl is being bad it's no reason to be getting huffy with someone that is probably getting pounded with loud IM's..

i admit i am a heavy shopper and will drop 60k in a heart beat or what ever it takes in a clothes store because if i love the designers work or whatever product it is,i just can't seem to leave without getting everything of their's i like..then will wait for the new releases..so i have had alot of bad transactions on some days..but in doing so have met alot of good people because of them..

Every seller and creator i have ever IM'd we have ended up either becoming friends or in a chat for 30 minutes to an hour after the situation is resolved just giggling about this or that or talkig about new products comig up..

Let me correct myself on something..i will IM a creator if their work really does stand out and is something that i just have to say to them..i am goofy like that though but i just have to tell them how i feel about their work and how good it is..

i think people get the wrong impression about people that own stores or sell products..
i think some get on the defensive right away if their lindens are at risk..
i will look at a 1000 lindens in a bad transaction as 4.00 USD..i mean i'm not gonna get huffy over 4 dollars and if it were a bigger amount of money you can bet i'll be even nicer than if it were 4.oo lol cause you have the money now lol
seriously though.
there is no reason for anyone to get huffy or speak to anyone with all caps or bad mouths
all the creators i have met have been really great with me and i look forward to meeting more.

After reading through the thread I see most of the statements dont have to do specifically with a buyer/seller relationship. They are simply pet peeves or guidelines for living a Second Life or First Life for that matter

I dunno, I really don't get all this aggression towards customers. I'd say the biggest mistake buyers make is buying from anyone with a whole list of rules and regulations about how they can be contacted and what they refuse to do if you don't get everything exactly right first time.

Of course in the land business people are throwing a lot of money around, 100s of US dollars for parcels and they make mistakes or they're not experienced with how things work so naturally they can get upset when things go wrong but the strict rule in my business is that no matter how the customer treats the employee it is our job to do the right thing and help as much as possible.

The thing you always have to remember is sellers, like most of the people responding to this thread, have experience and practice at the various complications SL can throw at you. Buyers generally don't know as much as the person they're buying from and they never will.

Try to always remember that if a customer makes a mistake it's because you didn't explain it clearly enough in the first place.

Before I started selling anything, a friend was always complaining and was bothered nearly daily (despite not selling much) from people who didn't read the instructions of her product.

So I think about that before making anything for sale!

Ironically, people have to read your responses of course, so I don't understand why they don't read the notecards...

Either way, I sell things that mostly don't need instructions for just that reason, and have very happy customers and love them.

Or they just didn't bother reading it. Either way, I do agree that everything possible should be done to make a customer happy.

The lost message stuff is an issue. I'm not sure how many IM's never reach me. My profile is usually 90% dedicated to offering reliable alternative means of contact. It seems to work in most cases, but I do get a few that probably don't read profiles. I answer anyone back if they have anything relevant to say other than "Hi", or "I want to look like Angelina Jolie".

Not looking at the blog entries when they sign in. Going right past the giant "Asset Server Issues. Do not make any purchases" etc.... And then sending an IM that they didn't receive whatever. I try to just assume that they were already inworld when SL borked, but it happens a lot.

I do not really have a lot of customer complaints or commentary, except in cases where I actually know the person anyway, but I am not entirely sure, since most of the time when I get a message saying "hi" or "hello", and I respond with "Hello", there is nothing further. In fact I tend to close the IM tab after replying these days and get on with other things in order not to waste time; rarely will somebody actually continue the conversation.

Mostly my customers tend to be polite, well-mannered and intelligent - very much as one would expect, given that they clearly display a high level of discernment in purchasing items from Ordinal Enterprises in the first place.

What Rioko said, plus a little tale...

A customer (a native english speaker) bought a scripted item form me, which needed to be set up. The instructions were clear and straight forward (most other people managed it without any difficulty), but she couldn't manage to set the item up. So I went out to talk her through it, and we used voice. At one point the object needed to be left-clicked. I am not exaggerating when I say that I spent 20 minutes trying to get her to left-click the object, but she never managed it. The process wasn't slowed down by having to type anything - we were on voice. In the end I just had to leave.

Most people who have such problems don't bother to take the time to read the instructions and follow them step by step, but that one was different.

True, but no matter how simple instructions are, somethings can always confuse your reader, for various reasons (ie. things heard or read elsewhere).



Hi there faithless, Thank You !

Part of reason why I don't buy many things is after few bad experiences trying to understand complex gadgets, even once I did get help even after numerous times reading the instructions I just got fed up.
I won't buy again certain things unless a friend recommends them or I just got have it.
Last time I bought anything I didn't have problem but the time before it was Chaise longe from a Roman themed sim.
I rezzed item at home, it poofed and was lost where ever.
I just figured it would be donation and I didn't bother at all contacting the Creator.
Recently did write this model creator because I wanted to find the item it was sold at and ask if I could draw the design for art and personal educational purposes.
No response.
There has been couple times I have wanted to study a design a bit closer for educational purposes or use specific texture but after talking to few very extremely bitter and paranoid designers I quit.
A lot of what is mentioned here is why I don't want to start business.
I rather work one on one with people if they want something specific or part of team project with friends.