Capt. Black wrote: if you read back over the timeline summary Lawrence posted earlier demonstrates that both parties were as much a cock as the other
Ok, now you're just being an arsehole for the sake of it. You're calling an upset customer a cock because they received horrible communication, broken promises and zero product, then a refund ages after the expected delivery?
We live in a digital age and again, there is very little variance between companies and product. The critical, deciding factor is customer service and the customers experience. And unfortunately many companies (and yourself) fail to see the huge implications of extremely poor customer experiences.
Here's some insights from a 2011 Customer Experience Impact Report conducted by Harris Interactive:
- 89 percent of consumers began doing business with a competitor following a poor customer
experience.
- After a poor customer experience, more than one-quarter of consumers (26 percent) posted negative
complaints on a social networking site such as Facebook or Twitter
- 85% of customers will pay up to 25% more for a product if they receive a better customer experience
• 50 percent of consumers give a brand only one week to respond to a question before
they stop doing business with them.
Ed was a customer. Ed received poor customer experience. Ed became the 26% who posted a negative experience on a public forum. His own. And who knows what reach that has. And this is what I was referring to. You MUST assume that your customers will tell EVERYONE they interact with about shitty experience you have given them. They certainly won't tell anyone about the positive one as they expect that. I can't remember the stats around that but it's about 10% of good experiences are shared and 90% of bad ones. You must see people posting on social media when they have horrible customer service. Do you chastise them and call them a cock for publicly airing their grievances? Hell I see Dave from RS do this on a near weekly basis with his facebook and mostly about KFC haha! (what a cock!) The ONLY differentiator is here that Ed has a slightly bigger soap box than your average customer.
From what I can tell..
- You don't seem understand, or car about, the use of blogs and their purpose
- You don't understand the value of entry level customer service and the impact on customer experience, or the tangible rewards given by offering a premium customer experience (which, in this age, is the standard given the similarities with so many products nowadays)
- By being unrelenting with your continued push of your own opinion, and by calling Ed a cock in the process, you've come across as a right arsehole.
The whole 'back in my day when I ordered' doesn not cut it. It's 2014. You oder online, your payment is processed instantly, a confirmation message is provided, a tracaking # is provided within 1 business day and your product is provided within 7. This is expected 'standard' service and anything outside of this should be met with excellent, personalised customer service.
To provide anything else on an online channel is essentially running your business into the ground.