The Customer View

Hammer Time - Angry Customer Style

A recent article in the Washington Post titled Taking a Whack Against Comcast tells the story of a 75 year old Virginia woman, who, after receiving poor and indifferent service over the course of four separate incidents, decided to draw some attention ftom her cable provider's service department by taking a hammer to a service rep's PC and telephone. 

While I am sensitive to the plight of angry customers everywhere, and believe that businesses can learn a lot from listening to their angry customers, and while I believe that being ignored and mistreated by businesses can rightfully elicit anger from customers, I must draw the line at violent reactions to the service.

And I am a little bit disturbed at the smirking, cavalier tone of the Post's article.  In this day and age, violent outbursts are not really a laughing matter.  The fact that this woman is 75 years old does not mean she was incapable of inflicting pain or injury to Comcast personnel.  OK, she busted up a keyboard, monitor, and telephone, as a way of getting "attention."  Cute.  What if some of the splintering equipment hit a Comcast employee in the eye?  What if Granny's backswing of the hammer caught someone in the face?  What if she hurt herself while wreaking havoc on the Comcast office?  Would she then sue Comcast for the pain and suffering? (Fact is, her blood pressure did go up to a dangerous level, and she began hyperventilating, and required an ambulance.)

And the Washington Post, who really should know better, chose to highlight this woman as a great American outlaw, going outside the boundaries of the law, yet striking a blow for "justice."

Let's get this straight.  I love angry customers.  My consulting practice and the articles I write are all about getting businesses to take heed of their angry customers, and learn how to improve their service, products and operations by hearing, and then addressing, customer complaints.  But their are limits to the appropriateness of customer anger.  I tend to draw the line after the first use of profanity.  Violent actions?  Forget about it!  You just lost your complainin' priviledges, is what ya did.

  -- Chuck Dennis

Capitalism or Greed? Often, a Fine Line...

Good old fashioned capitalism?  Or price gouging and scalping?

Thousands of  "tweens" don't really care what you call it.  All they know is that their dreams of seeing 14-year-old singer / actress / icon Miley Cyrus, aka "Hannah Montana," have been squashed by ticket brokering organizations who have bought up the vast majority of tickets in a number of cities across the country, and are selling them for 5 to 35 times the list price of $63.

On the one hand, free enterprise works on the premise of first come, first served.  And if you have enough money, you can purchase what you want.  And what these ticket brokers want is tickets that they can sell for profit.  That's how they make their money.

On the other hand, if you or I tried doing that, we would be arrested for scalping.  So, apparently it's okay to do on a mass scale, as long as you hide behind a business name and have a web site.

A recent article on cnn.com, titled Brokers Snatch Joy from Hannah Montana Fans, discusses this phenomenom.  Now, this kind of thing happens to concerts and ball games and other big events all the time.  But this particular occurence strikes a sour chord on a couple of levels.

One, the ticket brokers bought up almost ALL of the tickets in many major cities, almost immediately.  So there was little opportunity for the rank and file to purchase their tickets at the list price.

And the other issue is, this event is for KIDS.  It's a big deal for kids - this is probably the first concert that many of them were interested in attending.  And the listed price of $63 was high enough, but once the scalpers... uh, I mean brokers got into the game, the prices skyrocketed into the ridiculous (four figures, for heaven's sake!) range.  And due to the targeted demographic here (10-14 year old girls), they are not going to go to this event alone.  Most will require a parental chaperone (i.e., another full-priced ticket).

Miss Cyrus, and her father, country music star Billy Ray Cyrus, sort of just shrug and give a sad little smile, saying there is nothing they can do about this, because, frankly, no laws have been broken by the brokers.  No, it is the system that is broken. 

But what if the Cyruses decided to put on some free shows?  The scheduled Hannah Montana shows are already sold out (thanks to the brokers), so Miss Cyrus wouldn't lose any money.  And she would gain even MORE adulation from her adoring fans.  And the greedy, price gouging brokers would maybe think twice before pulling this kind of stunt, at least to this extreme, in the future.

   -- Chuck Dennis

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Customer Scorned

It used to be, if your business angered a customer, you could lose the customer's business, and count on him telling anywhere from 5 to 25 people about the negative experience.  Depending on the nature of the the experience and the credibility of the angry customer, you might take a business hit from some existing and prospective customers.  Not to mention, your loss is your competitor's gain.

Nowadays, through the wonders of technology, specifically the interactivity of Web 2.0, disgruntled customers have a much larger stage for their soapbox.  Hundreds, thousands, even millions of people can now read about a single customer complaint!  An article in yesterday's New York Times, titled "Dealing With the Damage From Online Critics," discusses this topic. 

Now, no business is immune to the occasional dissatisfied customer.  However, as the article explains, it's often how the business deals with the dissatisfaction that makes or breaks them.  Depending on the magnitude of the customer's anger, bitter online posts with embellished details and ominous threats can give pause to potential customers and even disinterested third parties.  Critical and derogatory web sites can be created, or simply steaming posts on blogs or online forums can wreak havoc on a business' goodwill.

Businesses can fight back by jumping into the fray with denials, counter-claims, or simply by posting authentic or contrived positive news about themselves or their products.  However, my belief is that nobody wins in this kind of online street fight.  Everyone comes out with at least some scrapes and bruises.  A better approach would be for the business to attempt to reach out to the offended customer, and try to learn the exact nature of the problem, why it happened, why it disturbed the customer, and how it can be avoided in the future. 

The business that acknowledges its problems, and resolves them to the customers' satisfaction, is going to win a lot more loyalty and admiration than one who simply tries to sweep the dirt under the carpet.

  -- Chuck Dennis