AlphariusOmegon
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- Oct 23, 2011
- 18
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Hey, for anyone who is interested in how not to run a business, there's a great example over at Penny Arcade. The PR guy for a company launching a new game controller first didn't give answers towards when a customer could receive a product that was pre-ordered, then proceeded to threaten to cancel the customer's order. When the customer asks further questions beyond when he'll receive his order, the guy tells him he'll sell the customer's order on Ebay.
When the (obviously) dissatisfied customer forwards the emails to a few blogs and one extremely popular webcomic that runs a big convention, all hell breaks loose. The PR guy states in an email to the webcomic that he knows the top guys in the industry and that they shouldn't mess with him. The webcomic proceeds to post the PR guys email and twitter on their blog in addition to posting all the emails they had received.
As a result, this guy has lost his contract with the company making the product, and he has been disowned by the entire community he works in. In addition he has had angry readers track down his facebook, his wife's facebook, make fake twitter profiles claiming to be him, write blogs about him, leave harassing messages on his phone and email, and turned him into an internet meme. Not only that, the product the guy was hired to advertise has been completely trashed on amazon, and currently 200+ reviews most of which involve how horrible their impression of this company's customer service has been.
This is the complete opposite of how customers should be treated and is a perfect example of how mistreating customers can come back to haunt you, the people you work with, the products you're involved with, even the people in your personal life. Learn the lesson.
Note: Googling Ocean Marketing will provide the whole story, I don't want to post a bunch of links because I don't want to violate any forum policies, but if someone gives me the okay, I'll post them for the full story.
When the (obviously) dissatisfied customer forwards the emails to a few blogs and one extremely popular webcomic that runs a big convention, all hell breaks loose. The PR guy states in an email to the webcomic that he knows the top guys in the industry and that they shouldn't mess with him. The webcomic proceeds to post the PR guys email and twitter on their blog in addition to posting all the emails they had received.
As a result, this guy has lost his contract with the company making the product, and he has been disowned by the entire community he works in. In addition he has had angry readers track down his facebook, his wife's facebook, make fake twitter profiles claiming to be him, write blogs about him, leave harassing messages on his phone and email, and turned him into an internet meme. Not only that, the product the guy was hired to advertise has been completely trashed on amazon, and currently 200+ reviews most of which involve how horrible their impression of this company's customer service has been.
This is the complete opposite of how customers should be treated and is a perfect example of how mistreating customers can come back to haunt you, the people you work with, the products you're involved with, even the people in your personal life. Learn the lesson.
Note: Googling Ocean Marketing will provide the whole story, I don't want to post a bunch of links because I don't want to violate any forum policies, but if someone gives me the okay, I'll post them for the full story.
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