What recourse do we have........

When you have questions/problems with a item they sell and when you write to them (very politely I may add) and they don't respond? It seems the more well-known the designer, the ones with the biggest reputations (the ones you figure you would never have problems with) are non-accessible and there are problems? Sure I could rate them negatively but I already gave them 100s of my hard-earned Lindens and that isnt going to get my issues resolved.

Can anyone give me some ideas how to contact them? They seem to be never around when I check.

Thanks for any help

Ms Kitty

that's unfortunate ms kitty. Most of the creators I know try really hard to help their customers. If it's someone who sells a lot of product, just be aware that they could be getting a ton of IMs and yours might have been lost in the shuffle or back in the pipeline. There's a fine line between asking a question a few times and nagging someone to the point of annoyance, but I would definitely send more than one IM. (which you may have done)

of course, it could be someone who has washed their hands of customer service -- i have no idea. In that case, your only real recourse is to not buy their products anymore and not recommend it to anyone... just as you would do with an RL store/product that made you unhappy.

It really depends on the creator. Some are so friendly and willing to work with you , and please their customers that you dont need to ask twice. Others are so damn inconsiderate that once they get your money they dont want to hear about it.

I bought an outfit from a designer that had a flaw; a large paint blob on the shoulder that made the outfit unwearable and was unable to be seen in her display picture. I asked her to repair it or refund, and she blew me off; ignored my request. No refund. I never heard from her again and I just deleted the junk outfit.

My recourse? Don't buy her stuff again and advise others to be cautious since it was an expensive waste of Linden. IM me and I will tell you who she is.

Ms Kitty. Understand that if it is a one of the bigger designers, they might not see your IM. I know my IMs are capped to the max every day and I dont even get to see most of the ones sent to me. SL will only store a fix number of IMs, I think its 20.

People always think I'm ignoring them when in fact I just never saw the initial IM.

Hmm difficult. How about sending one more IM (preferably whilst they are in world) saying you are going to tell all your friends if you do not get the response you want. And they will tell their friends and so on. He/she will have a coterie of fans who won't be swayed but a lot of people would be deterred from buying from this person.

I know we can't name names on here but we could have a game guessing initials lol.

Alexa

Beau has a good point. In view of that, wait until the person is online and then IM saying you wish to see them.

Alexa

Does said designer have forum private messages turned on? You could send them a PM here... maybe that will be noticed/uncapped.

-Ghoti

I think contacting the person via private message in the forums is probably best. I lose IMs all the time , as I get hundreds of them a day between vending machines and customers- people will tell me they IMed me with a question and I ignored them, and I never even saw the IM. The offline IM system is screwy, definitely try to reach them in world or private message them.

I do quite a lot of shopping and I have had a few issues with designers not responding back or responding in a curt manner. I had bought a skin that was rather expensive and for some reason when I would wear certain clothes...it would turn part of my av gray. It wasn't a rezzing issue because it wouldn't do it with all of my clothing...just 90% of it. The clothes were fine on other skins and relogging did not help. I IM'd the creator at least 3 times and never got a response back...once was when she was actually online. I was still rather new and this was pretty upsetting. What a waste of $ that was.

I also had some issues with some boots I had bought from another 'seemingly popular' creator. For some reason the base of the boots would not show up no matter what I did and it looked all 'blocky' instead of the heels that were supposed to be there. Relogging didn't help and other shoes looked fine on me, so it was obvious that there was some sort of issue with the item. The imbedded animation also did weird things. I IM'd the creator a few times and...no response. I'm not going to IM someone 20 times an hour until I get a response, that shouldn't be necessary. I told a friend about my experience and she said she had the same thing happen to her and her friend and that the particular designer doesn't normally respond to problems and if so, they are rude responses.

Even though I had that issue I still went back a while later and bought some more boots of a new design...I did not like the animation that came with it and wasn't sure how to get it removed. I IM'd the creator to ask if the animation could be taken out for me. I actually did get a response back that said to do it myself. No info on how to do it or an offer to do it for me real quick, just a sarcastically toned msg. Well if I knew how, then I wouldn't have asked for help in the first place.

I choose now not to do any business at their store and it does suck because I did like their designs. I will give more than one chance to get something taken care of. I feel I gave plenty of chances and my business and happiness with their product didn't seem to be of interest. I refuse to give my $ to people of this nature, in worl or irl. IRL, a place like this would go out of business with a quickness. But in most cases in SL, it really depends on who your friends are and what clique you are in.

I had the same experience Katy, with a well known designer, colour bleeding onto skin - 2 items I bought - same outfit diff colours - were unwearable. I sent a notecard with pics of the problem, never heard a word. A friend of mine then told her associate (who I've never had a problem with btw) that I had a problem with the items, then I had several nasty offlines from the designer accusing me of badmouthing her and that she'd fully refunded me ! er no she hadn't.. must have mixed me up with another dissatisfied customer lol

I've never bought any of her stuff since and never will, like you I deleted the rubbish I bought and point people towards other, more customer friendly designers these days.

I have this problem all the time since I started renting out cabins, I'm constantly missing offline IMs from people.

My recommendation is write up a notecard and drop it on them. I think that gets lost much less frequently than IM messages.

The advice to message while the person is inworld is also good but if they're a big name don't be offended if it takes them a while to get back to you - they're probably carrying on 5 different conversations at once with other clients.

I thought I'd compile a few quick thoughts based on helping some of my own customers:

Tips for asking for Customer Assistance:

1) Please describe your problem in your IM. Messages such as "hi" or "please IM me when you're online" do not help me to assist you.

2) Be polite. I always ignore customers whose messages are angry or threatening. "I DEMND A REFNUD OR I WIL ABUSE REPORT U" is not a good way to get my attention.

3) Please don't beg for free or reduced prices. That's just rude.

This might be slightly off topic, but since you get so many IMs this must be the best place to tell you -- I spent over an hour in your shop yesterday, and I was laughing so hard at some of the animations that I had tears in my eyes. Great stuff. I went there looking for one particular dance step, and while I never found it I think I bought at least half a dozen other animations - dances, gestures, silly stuff. Your store is what SL stores should be all about - ease of use, quality product and pleasing ambience.

Well done

Cindy

Wow thanks for all the ideas....and now that I think of it the one suggestion that the limit on IM's is 20 per day may be the problem with this one case. I do not believe this particular designer has an 'attitude problem' just happens to be enormously popular

My partner and myself spend a great deal of Lindens shopping around the universe so maybe issues come up for us more often than average. Since I am a fledgling creator myself I would hate to think someone had problems with something and could not reach me.

In the past I have purchase clothing items from one particular female here who was extremely rude when I asked her about my sunglasses which were hanging off my nose. Since I was still new hadn't a clue how to arrange on my face so I didn't look like the granny I am in real life...lol. I had spent hundreds of dollars in her numerous shops but from that day on never spent another dime and dumped all of her clothes in the trash bin.

I will try the notecard idea hopefully getting their attention.

Just want to say not all the prolific designers are this way it seems to be the exception to the rule.

Thank you for all the ideas/suggestions.

Ms Kitty

katykiwi,

I know you are talking about me, because I remember now that you had notified me about a problem on my Hallucinate lingerie set. I apologize for not fixing this, I simply forgot. You sent me one IM about it, and while I am not placing the blame on you, you never bothered to follow up before posting this nasty note and offering to tell people not to buy from me.

I work a full-time job, often with lots of overtime. I attend school full time as well. On top of that, I like to make stuff in SL, as well as try to have some fun when time allows. I am a nice person, and I try very hard to do quality work, and for you to call it a “junk outfit” and “an expensive waste of Linden” is uncalled for. When I log in every day, I have a ton of IM’s to answer and customers to help. Did you ever think that maybe I just forgot?? Would have been so hard to follow up with me one time before posting something like this, even though you didn’t mention my name? Yes, I’m human. I make a lot of mistakes, and I forget a lot of things because I’m busy.

I’ll refund your money as soon as I get in-world tonight, as well as take a look at the outfit and make any necessary corrections.

Unfortunately, buyers have absolutely no recourse.

When I log in I tend to have a lot of IMs waiting for me, and I don't get to them right away. And sometimes while I am digging into those IMs my client may crash. IMs lost forever

And sometimes I'm just a space cadet and forget to reply.

So if I don't get back to you in a day or so, don't feel like you are being rude to resend your request. I would feel sad if someone has a problem with a *PREEN* item and I didn't take care of it!

This definitely bears repeating. One of the most frustrating things for me is getting an IM with just "hi" or "IM me" in it from someone whom I've never before met. Often the person is offline when I check my IMs, so I feel like saying "tag, you're it!" in a return IM. Even a quick note like "I have a question about X product" or "I need/want X from you" would be a great help.

I think the notecard this is the best way to handle it.

Don't be rude just say I imd you once but you may have overlooked it. There is an old saying that you can kill more flies with honey than you can with vinegar.

And as for HoseQueen, I bought a new hairstyle that she had just put up in her vendors. When I got back to take it out of the box, the prim hair wasn't in there. I imd her and she got back to me right away, giving me a whole new set. To me, that is going above and beyond what I expected.

Also I would suggest checking the Notices section of the forum to find out if the designer is on vacation etc. When Ferran and I made our move back to the U.S., we were offline for a solid week.. but we announced it there so our customers would know we were out of pocket.

Also, all manner of RL things happen. The person you are trying to contact may be dealing with a RL issue and unavailable. I remember clearly in my first months trying to get ahold of a designer whose it turned out mother had just passed away.

Keep an eye peeled for online status...excellent idea.

I'm almost always over my IM cap too. Cristiano's suggestion of using forum private messages is a great one. Notecards can be good too, but I don't necessarily think to look in that folder very often. When people send me tattoo requests for their skins I have them send me a notecard describing what they want inside of a folder named "tattoo request for so and so." That way it's sitting in the root of my inventory and I'm more likely to notice them. I get my offline IM's to email and I tag the ones I need to respond to, but some days that might be a dozen or even twenty and I simply might not have time to get to them all, and then I forget. Just keep trying and be patient. Chances are you're not being ignored. The person you're trying to get in touch with might simply be overwhelmed and not able to get to everyone

Torley,

Thank you for the excellent idea - I put my email address in my profile here. I agree with Chip that notecards aren't ideal either - I get so many notices that this person or that person gave me something, but the damn notice never tells you WHAT THEY GAVE YOU. It's annoying lol. I have stuff in my inventory I've never seen. I also like Chip's idea of flagging which IMs I need to reply to in Outlook, I need to start doing that.

Here is a public, blanket statement, if I did not answer an IM request, I am sorry! I did not receive it - I make a point to follow up on the ones I receive as quickly as I can.

Well, I'm accessible. But I do notice one thing. When I'm online, I don't get any IM's. But when I log off and check my email, I find some IM's that seemingly were sent directly to my email as if I was offline. And one time, when I logged, I got IM's from someone, she could still see I was online but I wasn't. LOL I dunno what to tell ya. I respond to all the IM's I get, either in email or in-world.

I can act faster if the IM's are brief. I sometimes get 10 IM's in email from one person. It's okay, I just need to log in and clear them out before I hit the IM cap. But yes, if you sent an IM, try again if you get no response the first time.