Handling a "bad" customer

Well, the vendor insulted the customer when he had no need to. (Sure, the customer deserved it, but what does that have to do with anything?)

Once the vendor figured out that the customer wasn't going to figure out how to use the product successfully, he should have just gotten it returned and a refund issued, without future attempts to troubleshoot or try to point out what had gone wrong. And no, he shouldn't have tried to retain the customer.

Is that what you were asking?

Quit hijacking our newsgroup, you creep.

John

Gee, John, If you'd stop replying to Guy the "hijacking" would cease.

Just give him the ctrl-K and be done with him.

...Jim Thompson

Gee, John, We don't have any sand here in (Sonoran Desert) Arizona, but I understand there's plenty in Austin ;-)

...Jim Thompson

I know almost nothing about shooting, and at first had no clue as to what the equipment was supposed to do , how it was to be used, or how it worked. In reading the story, it appears that the unit(s) somehow detects a moving object (like a bullet) and indicates the speed of that object. If that interpretation is correct, then i say that is very impressive for an optical device! From the interplay, it seems that this equipment is not only rather specialized, but needs a certain amount of care in use for optimum results. That is to say, anyone using the equipment should know a) WTF it is, b) WTF it is *for*, c) HTF to use it, and lastly d) HTF to take care of it. In short, ignorance and dummies are not allowed (or quiet either).

One bad thing about the interchange, was the apparently long periods of silence between missives. I think that after the first long delay, that some reasonable attempts to "close the loop", ie make for voice communications were in order. As most electronic technicians or engineers know, excessive delays in a feedback loop can cause oscillations - the equivalent of undesirable squeals in the loudspeaker and the breaking of eardrums.

I would have handeled the guy wurse. I have little time avalable to deal with inkompetant dolts. God bles my wife and anyone else who works in retail and has to deael with the armys of morons on a daily basis. I want to know why we can't just kill stoopid people on site. If abortion is legal, and capitol punishment is ok, then wtf can't I just shoot the imbeciles?

regards, BOb

ps pleese ignor spel errors cuz I kan't spel good,

I choose to believe that the whole incident is mostly due to miscommunication or a lack of communication, and that the failure happened very early, after the first email from the seller the customer spent too long time doing diagnostic, and he got a negative attitude and got fed up with the whole thing.

It can very well be that there is some distance between the setup where the customer can test the equipment, and the "email terminal" where he can communicate from. In such a setting, I can fairly well understand that the customer chooses to spend long time carefully examinating the first hints he got from the seller - and maybe particularly due to the optimistic ending of the first email.

The seller writes in his comments that the problem probably could have been solved easily if telephone was used instead of email. Of course, it's always easy to be smart in retro-perspective; the seller should in the first email have stated his telephone number and encouraged the customer to call. Probably a better ending would be "check those things first, and then call or write me back".

If I read the communication correctly, the customer does come with a fairly good theory of what's wrong (the first digit on the display doesn't work) and as far as I understand, the IR tops did work at first, the customer could see the green indicator lights (but failed to see that one of them faded away). While checking the IR tops, the customer also noted that the power for one of the tops was alternating. I do not know this kind of equipment well enough to estimate the users techincal knowledge, and I don't know how much this system costs. Self-diagnostics and bootup-tests is fine, but will add to the cost of the product, and it will never be able to catch up with all kind of errors that may occur.

I also think that if a customer buys a package, with software included, and have legitimate reasons for returning the package, he should also get the price for the software refunded.

I had a bit of a similar situation some days ago, a lengthy communication between one guy at support and a customer was sent over to me. The customer apperantly was employed in a "finance institution", but I discovered that the real problem was that he didn't really knew the difference between a credit card number and a bank account number. The tone from the customer had already started to become a bit angry, in such cases I think it's nice that some other person takes over. When beeing stuck with problems, it's often an advantage to get some fresh eyes to look at it.

Well, they can't spare any. They need it to sop up all the beer they spill, and to catch the batshit.

John

I agree. The reason for limiting returns on opened software is to prevent someone from buying it, making a copies of software and manuals, then returning it for a refund.

There has been a very long thread on sci.electronics.design in the last few days about the virtues vs. vices of various sizes of various chemistries of batteries/cells; it has been primarily about wireless mikes and other aspects of the audio in a performance situation. From what I've been able to glean, packs of AAs are demonstrably "better than" 9V stacked-cell batteries - statistically significant differences in performance to the point that at least one participant in the thread has, for all practical purposes, declared that he will not buy 9V batteries any more where reliability is important to the application.

Unfortunately, I've forgotten the title (subject line) of the thread, but if you search on Author: Joerg and "church" in the article body, that might be a start.

So, what did you need to know about bad customers?

Hope This Helps! Rich

What's a "shooter?"

Thanks, Rich

The Customer Is Always Right, Even When he's Wrong.

(and I've plowed through about two screensful of that webpage, and _still_ have no idea what he's selling!)

Good Luck! Rich

...

And wars.

Guano... isn't that what Texans put on their tacos ?:-)

...Jim Thompson

People who work in retail for low pay need to be insulted--heck, they should be flogged in public--that is one of the worst jobs I can imagine and you are a fool to do it if you aren't paid DAMN WELL for it... People can't help but notice you are a fool for doing it--and treat you as you deserve--since when you have taken enough of this abuse, you ABUSE THE CLIENTS/CUSTOMERS back--it can all be overlooked, just a job related hazard...

John

Excuse me, what a bunch of disrespectful P.O.S. towards those poor folks who have to take what they can get by way of employment.

Hold it, Guy, are you saying this is a misc.business.product-dev post? The headers don't show it as anything other than a bog-standard s.e.d. post, which doesn't need, nor tolerate, your personal "approval." Can you tell us what's going on here with this cross-contamination stuff?

Winfield:

I am more than qualified into making such statements--although 52 now, I once was 17 with a job in retail--more than one retail job as a matter of fact--I stand behind all I have said--although it ain't pretty--it is TRUE!

Warmest regards, John "W>>

After i wrote my response, i thought of something else. The use of garbage bags might have been the most stupid thing to use. Just because they may be black means *nothing*. There could be stray beams of light or IR bouncing all kinds of ways off the slick surfaces and royally messing with any detection scheme, no matter how fancy or sophisticated. Talk about ground clutter...