How to submit a Support Request to Anyone to Ensure an Immediate and Effective Response

18 years ago

ha... Big Mike... love 'ya... following you on twitter. Only made it to the islands once... Patmos. Semper Fi by the way.

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John Taylor 18 years ago

Mike,

I like the old adage the customer is always right (in his head).

Nice work.. just think of all the drinking time you now have when
"Numbnuts" won't be submitting even more support requests!

John
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Peter Bestel

18 years ago

Mike, seems pretty clear cut and obvious that it wouldn't have been a fruitful relationship between you and this customer - better to cut 'losses' for both parties.

But don't you think less experienced Warriors should, in general, tread with a little more caution when dealing with complaints? I'm just aware how influential your comments may be on this forum and I wouldn't want less experienced Warriors to think they should nuke customers for the slightest of mistakes.

I'm aware that that's not what your saying but it could be construed that way.

Just a thought.

Peter

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rapidscc 18 years ago

whahehehehe

this one made my day!
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Heather Vale 18 years ago

I would have turned it around...

"It appears the unprofessional wearing the Mickey Mouse outfit is you...

Ever thought that you might just have entered your information wrong?

Yup, that's what happened... this is what you SHOULD be inputting:"

And then if he's still an asshole, well... have a little fun with him before you cut bait!

cheers
Heather
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Peter Bestel

18 years ago

Nice bit of clarification. Thanks Mike.

Peter

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Kevin Riley

18 years ago

"Greek scumbag"? Dammit, why you get the compliments?

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Kevin Riley, long-time Warrior living in Osaka, Japan

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KarlWarren

18 years ago

Originally Posted by Kevin Riley

"Greek scumbag"? Dammit, why you get the compliments?

Bearded scumbag

Didn't want you to feel left out.

Mike,

I think you did the right thing, and I'd have done exactly the same. It's tempting, when growing a business, to feel that you have to please everybody all of the time - and take it on the chin when people are purposely trying to be difficult.

Have people not realised yet, that a "Mickey Mouse Operation" taken literally, is Disney...?

One of the world's largest brands and a multibillion dollar corporation.

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Midas3 Consulting

18 years ago

I think baring in mind the guy was clearly not that PC literate, frustrated he couldn't get his purchase and lashing out , you shouldn't have called him an idiot and numbnuts.

People lose it when they can't get what they purchased and I've seen that hidden characters on cut and paste a few times, sometimes they actually cut a "space" which screws them up .

I have a couple of members areas and the amount of times we get issues like this, it's fricken endless but my support guys have learnt how to deal with them to elicit a positive response and a customer who ends up being profusely thankful and even apologises for his initial ticket.

Yes he went overboard, but you got very personal and abusive, he thought the fact he couldnt login was micky mouse, you in turn called him a numbnuts and an idiot.

Personally I find the best way to deal with people like that is I get my staff to be beyond polite in response.

My guys would have kindly informed him that unfortunately he had cut and pasted his password in and that cut and paste has some issues on occasion, on this occasion it had picked up a rogue character and that was the cause of his problems, but the system was working 100% perfectly.

We appreciate sometimes these issues can occurr but being insulting to our company and support staff doesn't help, we have now changed your password for you, here are the new details.

===

You would be amazed at how snivelling and apologetic they come back to you. Meet very good manners with awful manners and the transformation in the dickhead is almost immediate, especially when it's their fault.

My 2 cents..

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Kevin Riley

18 years ago

Originally Posted by SimonHarrison

I think baring in mind the guy was clearly not that PC literate, frustrated he couldn't get his purchase and lashing out , you shouldn't have called him an idiot and numbnuts.

People lose it when they can't get what they purchased and I've seen that hidden characters on cut and paste a few times, sometimes they actually cut a "space" which screws them up .

Just because he screwed up a cut and paste barely makes him an idiot. I have a couple of members areas and the amount of times we get issues like this, it's fricken endless but my support guys have learnt how to deal with them to elicit a positive response and a customer who ends up being profusely thankful and even apologises for his initial ticket.

Yes he went overboard, but you got very personal and abusive, he thought the fact he couldnt login was micky mouse, you in turn called him a numbnuts and an idiot.

Personally I find the best way to deal with people like that is I get my staff to be beyond polite in response.

My guys would have kindly informed him that unfortunately he had cut and pasted his password in and that cut and paste has some issues on occasion, on this occasion it had picked up a rogue character and that was the cause of his problems, but the system was working 100% perfectly.

We appreciate sometimes these issues can occurr but being insulting to our company and support staff doesn't help, we have now changed your password for you, here are the new details.

===

You would be amazed at how snivelling and apologetic they come back to you. Meet very good manners with awful manners and the transformation in the dickhead is almost immediate, especially when it's their fault.

My 2 cents..

Simon

All very good and reasonable, but you're forgetting one thing. This is Mike, a slovenly, drunk Greek who when he does surface from an Ouzo haze immediately slugs the nearest person and then falls flat on his face. Do not expect civil manners and the decorum of a gentleman.

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Kevin Riley, long-time Warrior living in Osaka, Japan

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Midas3 Consulting

18 years ago

Originally Posted by Kevin Riley

Simon

All very good and reasonable, but you're forgetting one thing. This is Mike, a slovenly, drunk Greek who when he does surface from an Ouzo haze immediately slugs the nearest person and then falls flat on his face. Do not expect civil manners and the decorum of a gentleman.

Kevin, this is the reason I havn't touched customer service in years, my tolerance for abusive muppets is paper thin, and that's without drinking my way out of an Ouzo bath every morning.

God bless customer service outsourcing is all I can say. While I'm quite happy up here on my high horse, the truth is ,when I used to do customer service my responses to the kind of ticket Mike got pretty much ended up in the same vein as Mike's, if not worse.

Which is why I hire a customer service couple who don't take personal offence when the company is called names. I don't even look at the tickets any more, serves to keep my blood pressure down.

Seeing as Mike did ask, if he had gone OTT, I just offered my 2 cents based on the wonderful job my customer service staff do.

I'm still trying to pay somebody to create a piece of javascript which induces the monitor to explode in the face of anybody logging an abusive ticket, any coders out there?

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Frank Donovan 18 years ago

Mike,

Much as I enjoyed your response, and wish I'd responded in a similar way at times, you were probably a tad OTT.

The guy could just have been having having a bad day and I know how frustrating simple things like a failed login can be when you're convinced that it's not your fault. But at least he had the good sense to try to join your site in the first place.

When I had a large eBay store, my biggest customer was a guy who started off as a real pain - complaining and abusive; but when I went back and told him he was right and then asked for his advice, he soon became my cheerleader! A bit of psychology often works.

Frank
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BIG Mike Banned 18 years ago

[DELETED]

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- Chris Lockwood 18 years ago
  
  I don't know why some people think they'll get better help by sending nasty requests like that, rather than something like "I got this error message. Can you help?"
  
  Can't blame Mike for cutting him loose.
  
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  Greg Cooksley 18 years ago
  
  Hey Big Mike,
  
  The special bond between us just cracked me up.......lol
  
  You did the right thing you big Greek you.....
  
  Regards
  
  Greg
  
  Thanks
  
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BIG Mike

Banned 18 years ago

[DELETED]

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Greg Cooksley

18 years ago

Originally Posted by BIG Mike

My own embarrassing support request was
to a hosting service in the middle of the night. I was up around
3am with a baby daughter ho wouldn't go back to sleep, so thought
I'd do some work on a server. I couldn' login to the WHM for
some reason and so emailed support to ask them to check it out
(wasn't an angry email or anything).

The tech get's back to me and asks if I was trying to login with
the cPanel User Name or the root one. DoH! Too tired I guess.

I looked over at my baby grl and asked her, "Who's got a great
big dumbass for a daddy?" LOL...

I emailedthe guy back thanking him and told him I was just going
to go off and be embarrassed all by myself now. He got a chuckle
out of it and we ended up having a pretty cool techie discussion
via email over the next 2 hours.

Anyways, ever since that night I've been getting the most
incredible
support from them and I really think it was simply establishing
a good relationship out of the box so to speak.

Hey Mike,

How old is your daughter now????

All because you admitted your mistake and afforded the techie
some respect.....

I've found the most amazing strategy - when I stuff up, I admit
it very quickly......it takes the sting out of the smack that
I was just about to get.....if you get my drift....

Sometimes it's good to just humble yourself.....

So simple and easy.......yet some people just don't get it.....

Regards

Greg

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dbarnum

18 years ago

--------------------------------------------------------------

Grek scumbag !!!

--------------------------------------------------------------

Wow, at least spell "Greek" right, dude

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Eric Johnson 18 years ago

I dunno, those kind of emails tend to amuse me more than anything so I probably wouldn't have dropped him. Unless this became an ongoing thing.

Can't blame you a bit though. You didn't pull the trigger too early I don't think.
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- JohnMcCabe 18 years ago
  
  I've learned that a well-placed tantrum can work wonders sometimes. They key here is "well-placed", and the initial help request is not the place.
  
  I wouldn't tolerate that kind of treatment face-to-face, so why should I tolerate it by email?
  
  If you've ever gotten crosswise of a headwaiter at a snooty restaurant, you know that absolutely correct formal politeness can feel more insulting than any 'mickey mouse" crack.
  
  I've had by far the best success by treating people with respect.
  
  After one session of calling a tech support number, the support person actually thanked me for talking to him like a person. I told him, "We both have a job to do. Your job is to help me when I screw things up. My job is to occasionally screw things up so you have a job."
  
  He got a chuckle. I got his direct extension and instructions for avoiding the voice mail menu.
  
  OPA!
  
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Dana_W

18 years ago

So to be clear, Big Mike is a GREK scumbag and Kevin Riley is a BERDED scumbag. Let's call a spade a spade.

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Louis Raven

18 years ago

The drunken Grek

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Paul Myers 18 years ago

Mike,

I might have done exactly what you did, depending on some things I don't know about the specific situation.

I might also have sent him an email telling him what you found as the problem, and suggesting that he try again with an eye to not repeating the mistake. Then mentioning that further abusive language directed at the support staff would result in cancellation of his membership.

If his response to that email was abusive, I'd have nuked him with extreme prejudice.

I'm cutting people more slack lately than in the past. I've been hearing all sorts of oddly stressful comments from people. When called on them, they almost all apologize and remark that they've lost a lot of money in stocks or have other problems related to current situations that aren't within their usual problem range.

Paul
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Tim_Carter 18 years ago

Originally Posted by Louis Raven

The drunken Grek

lol.

The dudess can't spell Greek. No wonder s/he can't get the password right.
Want me to fly over there and unzip it for her? (the spell checker I mean)
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GuerrillaIM

18 years ago

#1 Benefit of Having Your Own Business - You can tell customers to **** off without getting sacked

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Peter Bestel 18 years ago

Originally Posted by GuerrillaIM

#1 Benefit of Having Your Own Business - You can tell customers to **** off without getting sacked

You can't be too cavalier about it, you need to know what you're doing and who you're dealing with.

Your customers can always sack you!

Peter
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- GuerrillaIM 18 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Peter Bestel
  
  You can't be too cavalier about it, you need to know what you're doing and who you're dealing with.
  
  Your customers can always sack you!
  
  Peter
  
  True. I do my best to always put myself in the position of my customer so I can empathize with them and best help overcome their problem.
  
  Occasisionly though (not often) I put myself in their position and realise they are a complete a-hole. I realise it is juvenile but sometimes people do actually deserve it, you can only be nice up to a certain point.
  
  Its the point where they say "I demand to speak to your manager!" and i put them on hold for 10 minutes then come back to them saying "Manager speaking" that really makes me happy to be the one in charge.
  
  I talk to hundreds of people every week. I get into words with a customer like this maybe once every 6 months at tops. Don't go around being rude to your customers! Some people do deserve it but they are few and far between.
  
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Scott Ames

18 years ago

I've always thought that forms or the code underneath should truncate names, passwords so that a space, hard return, etc. that is picked up during a copy and paste is eliminated. Not many do that.

The other thing I run into a lot is phone number formatting. Usually the programmer just gives an example ie: (822) 999-9999 and restricts entry to that format. Some people copy and paste or enter in their own format and it gets rejected. 822-999-9999 won't work, 8229999999 won't work, etc. Why not just have code to strip the numbers out, put them together, then build the format you like. It makes it easier on the user.

Sometimes users copy and paste phone numbers, but the field is too small because of the formatting requirement.

I'm not blasting you Mike... your thread just made me think of these things. I don't have my pages set up like this yet either, but its on my mind.

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GuerrillaIM

18 years ago

Originally Posted by Scott Ames

I've always thought that forms or the code underneath should truncate names, passwords so that a space, hard return, etc. that is picked up during a copy and paste is eliminated. Not many do that.

Yeah, this is one line of code that validates for blank spaces. It is the number 1 reason people can't login to my site. They cut and paste from email and take a blank space with it.

Putting a quick FAQ in your error message output can help tremendously. I think people get more frustrated when they don't understand the error message or feel it is irrelevant.

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balsimon

18 years ago

Originally Posted by BIG Mike

Was I too quick to pull the trigger or should I have continued to build upon the special bond between us? :rolleyes:

Hi Big Mike -

Only because you asked, yes? Obviously, you have your
opinion and I wouldn't dare to try to take you to task for
it. I'd rather not be a "pure bred mutt scumbag." :rolleyes:

In other incarnations, I've had "opportunities" to deal with
hot-heads.

My policy has been, and will probably continue to be: "Three
strikes and your out."

The first strike could simply be indigestion. (I reply
responsively and politely and ask that s/he do similarly
going forward.)

The second strike could simply reflect bad breading - I
mean breeding. (I continue to reply responsively and politely
and ask more firmly that s/he do likewise.)

The third strike - well that's intentional and a pattern.
Time to say good-bye. (I prefer to take the high-road,
despite intense temptation to meet abuse with abuse. I reply
that I'm sorry we can't seem to meet your needs. There are
other services/products that may suit you better. Please try
one of them.)

On more than one occasion, I've had a miscreant come back and
apologize for acting the part of a barbarian; who doesn't do
it again.

On the other hand, I've had people flip me the bird on their
way out the virtual door.

People are people - whether in "real" or in "virtual" life.

Regards,
Bal

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How to submit a Support Request to Anyone to Ensure an Immediate and Effective Response

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