Nastiest customer emails
I just got back from out of town and there in my support inbox was the nastiest customer email I've ever gotten. Rather than feeling sorry for myself, I figured I'd get a laugh out of it by sharing it here and asking "what's the nastiest customer email YOU'VE ever gotten?"
Here is mine:
A friend of mine bought your "game" from Walmart. Once he finally got it to work, he and I agreed - piece of crap. And BTW - Discovery Channel called, and they don't want their name dragged into the crappool of your company. Get a real job, you hack!
I dont have it to hand but I had some retard reeling off this "Gimme my money back for this piece of crap or ill bring your company down, ill spread bad things about your company over the net and put you of business etc etc etc"
I wonder if they think this kind of stunt works on microsoft?
That's quite funny.And BTW - Discovery Channel called...
can't please everyone ... no matter what you do there will always be people who hate it. everyone is a natural born critic. the good thing is there will usually be people who love what you do as well
I wish people could just try asking nicely at first. Most requests I get for help and/or support are laced with anger and/or a veiled threat ("Respond immediately or else!").
I'll help! Really I will. Try asking nicely next time and you'll notice you get the same service.
I seem to recall some sort of social concept which claims that you can rate someone success by learning how many people spend time declaring how they hate him.Originally Posted by DrWilloughby
Worked well with Hanson
Gil Zussman
From NPC To PC : Gil’s Guide to life
I remember one that said "you have exactly 5 minutes to respond". (he was entering the wrong key code)
Another said, "who would buy this, you must think we're stupid."
Another implied that we were "baby killers" which I thought was a most amazing leap. (we had advertised on a political blog he did not approve of) He was going to let the whole internet know about it.
I once got a irate email from a customer who complained about a product that we didn't even make. I'm not sure how they ended up at our support email address. I took a quick guess at their problem and replied. I then added them to our customer database.
Business Tip #96: Change problems into opportunities.
Anytime someone is nasty on an email I always start off by telling them to be nice and write emails the same way you would talk to someone face to face. Good manners matter. I try to go out of my way to help nice people.
Tom
I got this little gem recently:
"I knew I shoulda never bought a game from a [racist remark]!"
That's life.
You should have replied "And yet I still have your money, dumbass".
Just got this one today, did someone send it to me as a prank or something? *looks at svero*
I have bought 24 games mostly fron BigFishGames, but some from RealArcade. Most of the games, if not all, have spyware embeddeded in them.
I have to run SpySweeper and SpyBot at least twice a day to keep their crap from my computer.
It has dawned on me that since you built some of the games, you are putting the crap into the games.
I am reporting this to a congeressional committee. Care to comment. They are investigating spyware Etc..
Now there's an informed customer. Great stuff. There must be more hate out there. Please, do share.
Mike Kasprzak | sykhronics entertainment | Blog | twitter | Ludum Dare
Smiles + HD (It's on everything™, IGF finalist, won a car) | ??? (2013) | MORE: Book, PuffBOMB, Towlr
Hey you what's up yo? Kickin' it oldskool style!
First contact with this guy:
Where is my product? Are you another example of internet theft?
You have taken my money and I do not have a product other than the Demo! Supply me a password or return my money. If you do not I am reporting you to the police!
Unfortunately some people email the credit card processor (usually Regnow), instead of us direct when they need help. This adds about 24 hours to response times - enough extra time to make reconciling with the customer difficult to impossible sometimes. Here is a long one from a while back:
These same people write in every couple of months wanting the latest greatest specials. Go figure.I am wanting a refund as soon as possible.
I ordered it 15/10. I am yet to receive the order.
On completing the order form there is a box that says 'Is the recipient the
same as the billing person'. I entered 'no' and put in my details being the
recipient into the next page.
You have incorrectly made the recipient my mother (whose credit card
I used with permission). I have been told that this cannot be rectified.
Therefore I would like my mother's credit card credited with the purchase
amount. You have the details. I then want confirmation
that this has been done. I finally want my mother's credit card details
deleted off your system as I will not be dealing with you in the
future and I will advise as many other people of the troubles that I have
gone through when ordering.
I will be speaking with my lawyer if I do not get confirmation of my refund
within 24 hours.
Man, people do take full advantage of whatever little power trip that comes their way, don't they?
That's the worst you guys have got? Bah!! Funny we used to get 80% hate mail but now it's about 80% fan mail and 20% hate mail. The hate mail can be pretty darn hateful. Particularly from the classless little kiddies.
LOL. So this kid that uses his mother's credit card to buy video games also has a lawyer, huh?
Riiiiiiight.
"Lawyer" is the scary trump card that the masses pull out whenever they feel they need to exert some control over the situation. Sad, really.LOL. So this kid that uses his mother's credit card to buy video games also has a lawyer, huh?
I wonder what they would do if you said something along the lines of "please forward my your lawyers name and a contact number so I can put my lawyers in touch with him"
Sure, as long as the lawyer takes credit cards
I wonder if the lawer excuse holds up at EB.
Mike Kasprzak | sykhronics entertainment | Blog | twitter | Ludum Dare
Smiles + HD (It's on everything™, IGF finalist, won a car) | ??? (2013) | MORE: Book, PuffBOMB, Towlr
Hey you what's up yo? Kickin' it oldskool style!
This is our best one so far. Keep in mind that this one was sent less than five minutes after the customer placed his order - at 9pm on a Saturday night no less!
In all fairness, this customer did apologize to us the next day..."zero-frustration gameplay\"... hardly.
I just purchased (paypal) a full copy of your game and when I clicked on the \"Click Here To Activate\" button all I got was a toxic dose of frustration!
Well, that and an IE error code...
Please contact me asap an let me know how I am supposed to unlock the full game or refund my payment.
Customer support represents 50% of a products worth. No matter how fun or cute you game design may be, without better support it will always be lacking in quality.
Have a nice day.
Matt Parry
Grubby Games
While not really an awful customer email, I just got a big all-caps post complaining about how terrible my customer service was because she'd paid (bmt micro) and never received her code within a month. To which I had to politely point out that if she'd told us SOONER we could have helped her FASTER.
This thread reminds me of this site: Acts of Gord. Some quick examples here and here.
Always amazes me how people are so quick to threaten legal action. That's their first thought when something doesn't go quite right. *sigh*
The trouble is that so many companies are so shitty at dealing with customers they think that threatening legal action is the only way that they will get someone to listen to them. They've been so abused they don't even bother trying the nice way first.Always amazes me how people are so quick to threaten legal action. That's their first thought when something doesn't go quite right. *sigh*
I got this one on the same day as the first one. My website says that I donate a percentage of the proceeds of Venture Africa to habitat protection annually.
I only started getting proceeds for the game in 2006, and I'll be donating at the end of the year. But this guy, who claims to be a friend of the environment, is trying to threaten to ruin me, just because he's a jerk and a moron. Man you try to do something good for the world...Dear Sir/Whom This May Concern:
I am a consumer, and advocate for the environment. I also am an advocate for accurate advertising. Please note that I have investigated your claims about "donating proceeds" to Habitat and Wildlife Preservation and found that they are completely spurious. I would advise you to take action to actually donate some money, or face a report to the appropriate authorities from angry consumers such as myself.
I got this impatient customer:
19:31 -> I NEVER GOT THE FULL GAME PASS WORD
19:35 -> I NEVER GOT AN EMAIL FOR THE GAME
21:30 -> I NEVER GOT EMAIL OR MY GAME xxx@yyy
21:45 -> I NEVER GOT MY GAME I PADED FOR xxx@yyy
22:32 -> I WILL CALL MY CARD AND TAKE THIS OFF WHY DO YOU CALL THIS CUSTOMER SUPPORT THIS SHOULD BE CALLED NO SUPPORT xxx@yyy
(finally arrived at home and answered him/her with the info, he never replied back)
Its like one of those tech support calls i used to have at my old ISP-helpdesk work.
The conversation lasted 45 minutes, where the first 44 mins she constantly shouted, sweard, threatened, and used almost every nasty word/phrase in the both known and unknown vocabulary.
It ended like this:
"Miss, would you like me to help me help you or not? just check if your modem has lights and that its connected to the power supply"
"I'M NOT YOUR MISS!! IS THAT HOW YOU CALL YOUR CUSTOMERS???"
"Your modem, is it connected to a power supply... check it..."
*silence for a few seconds*
"MOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!! THE INTERNET IS BACK *hung-up*"
Gil Zussman
From NPC To PC : Gil’s Guide to life
Not an e-mail, but a phone call:
<Me> Hello Tech Support
<Customer> I've installed your game now my PC won't work
<Me> Ok, what did you do?
<Customer> Nothing.
<Me> Ok, what happened?
<Customer> I put the CD in and installed it, but it stopped half way.
<Me> Then what?
<Customer> My computer stopped working.
<Me> Did you get any error messages?
<Customer> No.
<Me> Ok... [getting puzzled now]... have you restarted your computer?
<Customer> I told you it doesn't work any more.
<Me> Your computer won't even start up?
<Customer> No.
<Me> You don't get anything on screen at all? The power isn't even coming on?
<Customer> No. What are you going to do about it? You've broken my computer.
<Me> [biting own tongue at this point]... Ok, After it stopped installing, what happened next?
<Customer> I left it for ages then turned the computer off.
<Me> Turned it off, or reset it?
<Customer> I didn't know what to do so I turned it off.
<Me> From the Start menu?
<Customer> No, that won't work any more either. I just pulled the plug out the wall.
<Me> [cue sound of penny dropping]... and now your computer won't turn back on?
<Customer> No. Are you going to pay for me a new computer?
<Me> [lengthy explanation about the dangers of power surges etc - I shan't bore you with it]
<Customer> Well I always switched it off like that before and it never broke so why would it break now? You're just trying to get out of it.
<Me> Our software didn't break your computer, its not our responsibility to replace it.
<Customer> Well I'll just have to see what my solicitor says about this.
<Me> Ok if that's what you want to do, but you'd be better off spending money getting your computer fixed.
<Customer> *click*.
The customer in question was a 14yr old girl from Merseyside. Oddly enough, never heard another word about it.
Nastiest e-mail I got was one that simply said "I HATE YOU SO MUCH RIGHT NOW" - didn't even say why. Fairly disappointed that it didn't have the "AAAAAAARGGHHHHH!!!" on the end.
I'm not aware of the exact circumstances, but I'd say the customer was right. Not very polite, perhaps, but when you buy something over the internet, it's not too much to expect instant delivery. Or at least a clear notice stating how long it will take if the delivery is not instantaneous.
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