Remember that scene in the Breakfast Club?
Well, recently there was, shall we say, an incident that was documented on Penny Arcade where this was made perfectly clear.
The story starts with a guy writing Ocean Marketing asking about some controllers he pre-ordered way back in November wondering if they’d be shipped to him by Christmas (as promised) so he could give them as he intended way back in November. Well, the guy on the other end of the emails was a jerk. A real jerky jerk. As in “holy cow, I can’t believe this guy is in customer service” jerk. Stuff got sent back and forth until, finally, the mail was sent to Mike Krahulik (Gabe) at Penny Arcade… at which point we see him lay the smack down.
The original email thread is here. The punchline to it is that the guy at Ocean Marketing pulls a “DO YOU KNOW WHO THE HELL I AM?” on Gabe at which point Gabe posts the email thread and the Ocean Marketing guy’s contact info to the front page of Penny Arcade.
The next day, Gabe gets an email saying… well, I’ll just quote it:
“You have the power Mike Please make it stop”
You can read about that entire interaction here.
At the end of the day, it ends up that Ocean Marketing is out of business.
All that to say: Mess with the bull? You’ll get the horns.
My question while reading this exchange was, “Why would any company have a marketing guy who doesn’t know how to write complete sentences or properly use punctuation?”
But maybe that’s just me.
Cheaper.
Related to the boss?
Certainly, that went away after the 80’s… no???
I just assumed it was a small tech company, and this guy was “the guy.”
ahh… the virtues of internet trolling!
When you know an expert PR guy, it’s Amazing how quickly people hop to doing what you want.
http://www.funny.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Funny.woa/wa/funny?fn=CCCKQ
This is what happens when you let the Marketing Weasel into the henhouse.
I’ve been following this train wreck for a while. Apparently this ill-mannered maniac had let his sales mouth outrun his ass and sold gear he didn’t actually have on hand. Had he been truthful with his customer and told him “aw jeez, here’s the situation, I’ve had supplier issues, your gear really is in customs and I’m completely at wit’s end trying to get it out FedEx and here it is the Season of Santa and you’ve been waiting all this time and the truth is, I’ve got a huge problem on my hands here with hundreds of other customers upset with me too and all I can offer is my sincerest apologies at present time and by God and his angels you’ll stay in the loop on everything that happens and here’s an issue tracking number and an offer to refund all your money because your business is more important than anything else here.”
I unconditionally guarantee everything I do. I don’t care what your complaint might be. I’ll fix it. People will repeat the details of a bad customer experience as many as fifty times. My reputation is the only asset I have worth protecting.
This jamoke only knew one side of salesmanship: the sell. I learned my salesmanship and business ethos from an old McKinsey guy and the IBM crews I worked with. Manage expectations effectively and tell the customer the truth and you’re all pushing on the same side of the stones which will build the pyramids. Betray that trust, try to hide shit, stonewall people and they’ll hate you forever.