Rob was your typical customer right or wrong and I think eD/Ben handled it very wrong and I would not be surprised to see it come back and bite them in the *** now.................

 

I agree...I think just the fact of handling it in public was poor business sense to begin with, let alone the solution.

 

When can you finally say enough is enough when dealing with a customer like Rob. I pray he never walks into my store or buys our products.

It sounds as though he is THE most high maintenance customer ever.

He has claimed he isn't out to bash eD. Every post he makes has snide remarks and digs, his story constantly changes and he leaves out pertinent facts.

I am not going to cut and paste quotes to prove the previous point. I am sure many members have enough common sense to understand the situation.

eD should have not posted publicly as they did and got into a head-to-head with Rob. The best they could do is make Rob look like an @ss which in turn further humiliates him and gathers more people to his "side" along with members that don't believe a customer should be handled that way.

I support eD and what they have done but unfortunately the way it was done will hurt them and obviously Rob will continue the tirade on every forum he frequents and person he meets.

This is the side of the internet that makes it unfair to be in the service/retail industry. It only takes one person to tell a onesided story to cause an uproar in the online-community.

IMO eD should have publicly (forum) replaced his sub and recinded any further warranty of ANY kind being this is his 2nd sub that has been allegedly "abused". They would have been done with it and Rob would have (hopefully) moved on to another company to deal with.

There's alot more to say but it's hard to get it all out. This would be much easier to discuss if we were all hanging out behind the shop.

 

Sometimes you have to say "No" -- most of us will give the guy a new woofer if he blows it up the first time; however, the second and third times are very "fool me once shame on me, fool me twice shame on me". I've had guys try to con me into a second or third woofer -- or my personal favorites -- 1) Replacement for one they have poked a hole through (insert golf club here or the very classy 2) Replacement for a stolen woofer! Clients are important but sometimes you have to ask yourself "how much is this guy's business costing us"? And Joe you are very correct -- the internet makes things very ugly because "keyboard Commandos" taint everything and let's face it -- when you are debating with fools seldom do you appear witty.

 

I agree, but I understand it being hard for them to swallow after he came on here and brutaly flamed them in front of a large customer base of theirs, before properly seeking out a solution.

 

All I know is that there's a lot of people abusing the system. This whole "customer is right regardless" crap has really caught on and people abuse it in a large way since they have the ability to go on the internet and flame away........... and know about this "power". It's happened a few times now on this very forum. All I know is that if the proof is there to support the claim by a customer, then it MUST be handled fairly. If the customer is at fault and trying to scam the system through online BS, not a good idea for the company to jump into the fray. A lot of people are smartening up now to this scam and these "tools" pulling this crap are getting dumped on by fellow board members if it's not the real deal.

At the end of the day, it's a game that companies have to decide how they want to play. But if they start jumping on the forums, they are getting themselves into a very sticky situation that could have HUGE concequences.............. in a bad way. Personnally, Rob got what he was playing for in getting a rep online to comment. Then he played him. Not good.

 

+1

I was actually quite surprised to see the way Ben responded. I spend a lot of time on caraudioforum.com, and I've seen dozens of threads regarding ED and the A series, but not once did I see warranty issues being discussed within the thread. If Ben did post, he would simply leave a phone # to contact him personally at. I dunno, maybe this Rob guy just got under his skin... Car salesmen sometimes have a way of doing that. [img]smile.gif[/img]

With respect to whole "his word against my word" thing, I find that generally when it comes down to that, the customer wins 99% of the time. It's one of those scenarios that I really try to avoid, because even when I know that the customer is a lying sack of **** and I'd love nothing better than to tell that to his/her face, it will always be a case of me fighting a losing battle and only causes more aggrevation for everyone.

Not too long ago a guy came in with two of the older Pioneer IMPP subs with the aluminum dust caps. I wasn't around for the scene at the customer service desk, but I got a call saying that someone was coming back to have me test the subs. And oh man... This guy was a piece of work. Both subs worked fine, but there were signs of obvious physical abuse. The aluminum dust caps - which are pretty damn solid - had numerous dents in them, and one of the cones was cracked. His claim obviously was that they "blew," and sounded like ****. He didn't know how or why, he just knew that they were blown. And at this point you can pretty much throw credibility out the window, because as much as he's full of ****, he's not gonna listen to a word I have to say. How many times have you heard this from a customer after you've tried diligently to explain why said product no longer works: "Well, all I know is that (insert product) worked fine yesterday, and now it doesn't." Case and point. White flag goes up; customer 1, FS 0. Not only did this guy get his subs warrantied, he received an "upgrade" for his troubles. Oh, and did I mention he had the age-old "out of town" argument to back him up?

Sometimes my blood boils at how easily companies will give in, bend over and take it up the a$$. It really comes down to reputation, I think. When a customer gets turned away at the CSR desk, he has the power to go out and rumour and misinformation and slander a company all because he tried to pull a fast one and got shunned. It really doesn't matter if he's right or wrong. But from a company perspective, it's not as though we can go around telling all the other retailers in the business that this customer is a douchebag and that they shouldn't give him the time of day, let alone any kind of service. The default is to avoid confrontation, and make the customer happy regardless of cost, because no one wants a scene. It's uncomfortable, people point and stare, the customer is usually the only one speaking (or yelling) and it's just all-around not a good thing. I know one manager that actually had the ***** to confront customers about their "warranty issues," and it's a real shame that he left our store and now manages another one, because I used to love listening to the conversations at the CSR desk. Somehow he had the power to nullify even the most irate customers, and I'm sure he saved our store thousands of dollars by taking the stand. He just had an eerie way of assuring customers that we're here to help, but we're not dumb enough to fall for their BS. By the time the conversation was through, I think most customers left so demoralized that they wondered why they even showed up in the first place.

As much as I hate confrontation, I think there's a point where that two-letter word that starts with N and ends with O has to be used. You can avoid all the conflict you want, but it leaves a sour taste in my mouth not only because of the money lost, but because of dignity and credibility. If I tell one person that he can get his "blown" subs exchanged for obvious abuse, what do I tell the next person, and the next? Same thing? I know there are only two ways to "blow" a sub, but wheres my credibility in that if some dick can come in and spontaneously re-invent the laws of physics and thermodynamics and tell me that his sub is "blown" for these new reasons? Iunno... People suck.