7 ms·

I've had fun replying honestly to bad customers. I run a service where you pay once for a lifetime upgrade, and it doesn't make much money so I don't care very

I've had fun replying honestly to bad customers. I run a service where you pay once for a lifetime upgrade, and it doesn't make much money so I don't care very much about dissatisfying bad customers. One of them emailed me with a subject line of "my account is broken! FIX IT!!!" and no body, to which I replied "how rude, do you think I'm your slave?". He replied in the same vein, saying that if I didn't fix it he'd go to a competitor, to which I said "it's a one-time payment and you've already paid me, if you leave you're just basically saving me time in support". He replied a few hours later apologizing for his rudeness and detailing what the problem was, which I helped him fix, but it was fun to see how much customers expect to be able to walk all over customer service and how surprised they are when you don't take their shit. To be fair, 99% of support emails are very kind and polite.

panpanna 6y ago
> I run a service where you pay once for a lifetime upgrade, and it doesn't make much money so I don't care very much about dissatisfying bad customers. I don't like this attitude.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  Would you prefer I cared deeply about bad customers?
  - panpanna 6y ago
    Customers should not suffer because of your business miscalculations.
    - StavrosK 6y ago
      They suffer because of their own rudeness and inability to extend basic courtesy; the fact that they can't hold future payments over my head as an excuse for their bad manners is just a bonus.
      - iagovar 6y ago
        I'm with you. It doesn't matter it's a business, if you can't have even the most basic level of courtesy they don't deserve much. I guess most people here in HN never worked in customer support, or as cashier and such. Treat people with respect. Customer support already mentally tax people, much more that you would expect if you never worked in it.
        StavrosK 6y ago
        That's my point of view exactly, and I'm really surprised it's this controversial. I would have expected it to be the norm.
        seamyb88 6y ago
        I think you were quite reserved. If you were responsible for fixing something in a company and a colleague spoke to you like that, you'd have them in arbitration faster than they could apologise.
        iagovar 6y ago
        I think it's a combination of never having contact with customer support or public-facing jobs and this american thing of expecting employees to be on top of customers. It's also a culture thing. Since you are Greek I guess you have a similar understanding to mine on how customer support should work.
        kungtotte 6y ago
        Reading the replies you're getting here makes me understand why there's so many rude people contacting customer service... I have a customer facing job and I work closely with the customer service department so I'm exposed to a lot of this (I meet customers face to face as well), and it's shocking how rude and abusive some people can get to another human being. I tell people all the time to stuff their attitude up their holes and start over if they want any help from me. I'm a human being; I will not accept people talking like that to me. Those customers sure wouldn't accept it if I acted like that to them, why should the reverse be okay?
  - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    From your account of the incident, you declined to take the customer's problem seriously at all. I don't see that it's reasonable to disregard the issues of a paying customer on account of their poor netiquette. They aren't a professional tester filing a bug-report, they're a paying customer with poor communication skills. I don't see that refusing to help them, and even mocking them, is an acceptable response. At the very least you're holding yourself to a low standard.
    - StavrosK 6y ago
      I disagree, but I wouldn't email anyone with "it doesn't work! FIX IT!!!" with no further detail and expect to get help, paying or not. I'm frankly surprised that you think that a person this rude is entitled to support. Paying gets you support, it doesn't get you the right to be rude to the person you're asking for help. What would you have done?
      - technothrasher 6y ago
        Considering they did come back with a polite follow up, I agree with the above poster that it was likely a case of poor communication skills rather than intentioned rudeness. Your quick follow up to their inappropriate message with your own overt rudeness is clearly what is setting posters off here. I would have given them a bit more of the benefit of a doubt before I went off on them.
        StavrosK 6y ago
        How is it rude to tell someone they're being rude? My takeaway from the reactions in this thread is that businesses are culturally expected to let the customer walk all over them, and anything other than "thank you for your abuse, now please let me help you" is considered rude.
        ecpottinger 6y ago
        Garbage! Telling someone they are rude is not rude, it is cutting off the rude behavior.
- onion2k 6y ago
  Very often people say they don't like something because they can easily imagine being in the same position. If that's what prompted you to state you don't like the response, just be sure you never post such a rude support request and you should be fine.
mrtksn 6y ago
It's a one time payment for you that you don't care but it could be a life changing issue for your user. If a developer responds to me in that way for an app that I depend on, he/she would make an enemy for life. Sure, customers could be rude(I wish they were not but some people have a bad temperament or have something else going in their life and this was a tipping point) but did they wake you up in the morning and forced to create that app and give it to them for the price you sell it? I am sure that it's the other way around, you made an app that promises to solves a specific problem and you offered someone to solve their problem for that low price and they are unhappy that you did not kept your part of the deal. I would be very pissed off too if the developer of a product that I bought decides that it's not a good business and makes the product unusable. It's not my job to calculate the fair price for the product, the product developers must do the calculation since they come up with the offer in first place. If the deal is made, I expect to to receive the full promised benefits of the product I bought. That's actually why we have customer protection laws.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  Where did I say I reply like this to everyone? Why would you expect to be rude to a support person and still get support? In my view, you extend people basic courtesy, whether you're paying them or not, and paying doesn't give you the right to act entitled. Price doesn't enter into it, I reply the same way to every rude customer, except one-off payments don't have "I won't give you any more money" to fall back on to excuse their bad behaviour.
- McDyver 6y ago
  I would be very surprised to see any T&C for a consumer grade app or service explicitly stating that they serve a specific purpose or solve a specific issue. Usually the T&C state that the service is "as is". You are entitled to be pissed-off, as much as the developer is entitled to just say " no", unless you have a contract stating otherwise.
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    I generally strive to help people resolve their problems, and 99% of people are polite and get great support, even if they can't articulate their problem initially. I just can't stand people who think it's okay to walk all over others just because they're in a paying relationship with them. People condemn individuals who are rude to their servers, but it seems to me, from the reactions in this thread, that they would just as easily condemn servers for pointing out the rudeness.
hnarn 6y ago
From a purely business point of view, I don't understand why you go with "one time payment, so I can tell bad customers to piss off" rather than "monthly payment, so I make more money by having to stand the occasional bad customer".
- StavrosK 6y ago
  Bad customers might say "I'll go with your competitor", not realizing that that's no threat when the payment is one-time.
  - hnarn 6y ago
    I don't understand how that's "no threat" just because you got a one time payment. You're still losing customers to a competitor. Is this competitor also charging one time, or monthly? Do they make more money than you? Because if they're charging monthly, and more, you're clearly leaving money on the table as well. There's a potential that you're paying a huge premium (that you don't even see) just for the enjoyment of being rude to customers. Maybe that's something you value extremely highly, I don't know.
    - Smaug123 6y ago
      I think it's reasonable to value that extremely highly - enough of them are inexcusably rude to the customer service people!
      - hnarn 6y ago
        I don't disagree with you, but I think it's less reasonable when you're a one man operation, because at that point you're losing money by not tolerating rudeness. If you're employed in support, or the manager of a support organization, "firing" toxic customers can make sense in another way: retaining competence because people don't quit, the money lost is not relevant compared to the potential risk of churn within support, etc. etc.
        6y ago
katzgrau 6y ago
Your pricing model is broken and it's bad for you and customers. Do yourself a favor and put a limit on support after the upgrade and then offer an ongoing maintenance package. I used to have a similarly bad attitude when I had low metered pricing. Once I insisted on monthly account minimums I could afford to hire a nice customer service person and not be so touchy all of the time.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  This is literally one instance in ten years. That's pretty far from "all the time", which is a conclusion I don't even hint at anywhere. I'm pretty happy to provide the service at this price point, and every customer is too. Besides, I would call out this kind of entitled rudeness at any price point.
  - the_other 6y ago
    I quite often throw out the “raise your prices” viewpoint in casual conversation, based on my time (12ish years) as a contractor. When I do it, I’m aware it’s not always the best option, but I don’t have a catalog of personal experience to draw on for more nuanced advice. This was a nice example of when not to. Thanks.
    - StavrosK 6y ago
      My example is not completely applicable because it's not a business per se, nor do I want to make it one, it's more of a "I made this for myself but you can use it if you chip in to pay for costs". Even so, I recently raised the price from $20/ever (where it was since 2008) to $50/ever. The way I handle most support requests is to make the UI easy enough so that people don't have that problem in the first place, though many still do, partly because of the unorthodox "email token to log in" system I switched to recently. Many people weren't used to that.
  - koheripbal 6y ago
    I think the general point is still correct - lifetime licenses mean that producers have no incentive to support their products.
chrisBob 6y ago
Also remember that sometimes customers make mistakes and you should probably give someone at least one chance to correct for a bad day. I sent a rude email to Gumstix in 2012 that I regret. If you are on here I am sorry.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  I don't think I did anything hostile, I got a rude email and replied with, basically, "that tone is inappropriate". The customer later apologized and we walked through his problem and fix together.
- tlogan 6y ago
  Yes: in our business we understand that customers might have a bad day. Maybe even drunk. So we always answer very politely - next business day. If we get rude answer then oh well... what is the point?
  - cutemonster 6y ago
    Good idea by you to wait a day, so the for the moment angry person has had time to calm down
codingdave 6y ago
I'd be interested to see what contract you have with your customers that allows you to not support them without turning into a breach of contract. If someone were to litigate, what does the contract define your service as? Just having a system on, or having it function for them? I'm not arguing against calling out poor behavior... I've just seen startups with this business model and attitude get absolutely crushed when one bad customer hires a lawyer.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  I didn't refuse support, though, I just told the customer to be less rude.
ptero 6y ago
It is your business, but I personally would not do this. When wearing a business hat you need to respond to rudeness with polite firmness. "fix it!" -- "please give more details" or "sorry, this feature is not a near term deliverable" (which is a polite request to get lost). "I am going to a competitor" -- "we think our product is better, but encourage users to try alternatives", etc. My 2c.
- shawnz 6y ago
  So as to accomplish what? Maximizing your reputation? Who cares? Maybe it's possible that not pandering to the deadbeat clients actually improves your profitability?
  - EForEndeavour 6y ago
    "Who cares?" Presumably, the person who need a steady stream of new clients to survive, many of whom do a bit of Googling that would uncover evidence of dickish behaviour (reviews, reddit posts, tweets, etc.), whether or not the recipient deserved it. There's also the fact that being a dick to rude people doesn't feel good to everyone. I can only truly speak for myself here, but being rude in proportion to some random person who started it and totally deserves it leaves me feeling bad afterward, like I allowed myself to get trolled. An angry client email, a profane reply to an innocuous online comment... You have the luxury of asynchronous communication to take a moment, let the blind rage pass, and reply in the even-keeled diction of business communications, maybe even killing them with kindness. Or just ignore 'em.
    - ecpottinger 6y ago
      Do not work like that. When I read reviews, I quickly notice if the reviewer seems to have an axe to grind. Reviews of true bad service seem to have a different favour than the reviews given by the people who are just trying to bad mouth someone/company, they too often try to make themselves look like angels and how dare this big bad person not meet their expectations.
      - 6y ago
tlogan 6y ago
Yes - 99% of support request/tickets is very polite. The problem is that 1% of bad ones might cause such as stress to your support team that 99% of your customers end up suffering. So cut them fast and swiftly.
znpy 6y ago
It's fun how you didn't say anything about the businesses or the industry you work on yet a lot of people are hurrying up to give you all kind of life lessons and advices. Kudos to you for well handling that specific situation and making/letting the customer get back on track.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  Eh it's natural for the brain to fill in the blanks with its own assumptions, to the point where you aren't sure what the person said and what you assumed they said later. Thanks! It seemed to work out well for both me and the customer in the end.
  - cutemonster 6y ago
    > natural for the brain to fill in the blanks with its own assumptions I think an annoying thing is that people are (seem to be) completely unaware that they're (their brains) doing this

panpanna 6y ago

> I run a service where you pay once for a lifetime upgrade, and it doesn't make much money so I don't care very much about dissatisfying bad customers. I don't like this attitude.

StavrosK 6y ago
Would you prefer I cared deeply about bad customers?
- panpanna 6y ago
  Customers should not suffer because of your business miscalculations.
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    They suffer because of their own rudeness and inability to extend basic courtesy; the fact that they can't hold future payments over my head as an excuse for their bad manners is just a bonus.
    - iagovar 6y ago
      I'm with you. It doesn't matter it's a business, if you can't have even the most basic level of courtesy they don't deserve much. I guess most people here in HN never worked in customer support, or as cashier and such. Treat people with respect. Customer support already mentally tax people, much more that you would expect if you never worked in it.
      - StavrosK 6y ago
        That's my point of view exactly, and I'm really surprised it's this controversial. I would have expected it to be the norm.
        seamyb88 6y ago
        I think you were quite reserved. If you were responsible for fixing something in a company and a colleague spoke to you like that, you'd have them in arbitration faster than they could apologise.
        iagovar 6y ago
        I think it's a combination of never having contact with customer support or public-facing jobs and this american thing of expecting employees to be on top of customers. It's also a culture thing. Since you are Greek I guess you have a similar understanding to mine on how customer support should work.
        kungtotte 6y ago
        Reading the replies you're getting here makes me understand why there's so many rude people contacting customer service... I have a customer facing job and I work closely with the customer service department so I'm exposed to a lot of this (I meet customers face to face as well), and it's shocking how rude and abusive some people can get to another human being. I tell people all the time to stuff their attitude up their holes and start over if they want any help from me. I'm a human being; I will not accept people talking like that to me. Those customers sure wouldn't accept it if I acted like that to them, why should the reverse be okay?
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  From your account of the incident, you declined to take the customer's problem seriously at all. I don't see that it's reasonable to disregard the issues of a paying customer on account of their poor netiquette. They aren't a professional tester filing a bug-report, they're a paying customer with poor communication skills. I don't see that refusing to help them, and even mocking them, is an acceptable response. At the very least you're holding yourself to a low standard.
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    I disagree, but I wouldn't email anyone with "it doesn't work! FIX IT!!!" with no further detail and expect to get help, paying or not. I'm frankly surprised that you think that a person this rude is entitled to support. Paying gets you support, it doesn't get you the right to be rude to the person you're asking for help. What would you have done?
    - technothrasher 6y ago
      Considering they did come back with a polite follow up, I agree with the above poster that it was likely a case of poor communication skills rather than intentioned rudeness. Your quick follow up to their inappropriate message with your own overt rudeness is clearly what is setting posters off here. I would have given them a bit more of the benefit of a doubt before I went off on them.
      - StavrosK 6y ago
        How is it rude to tell someone they're being rude? My takeaway from the reactions in this thread is that businesses are culturally expected to let the customer walk all over them, and anything other than "thank you for your abuse, now please let me help you" is considered rude.
      - ecpottinger 6y ago
        Garbage! Telling someone they are rude is not rude, it is cutting off the rude behavior.
onion2k 6y ago
Very often people say they don't like something because they can easily imagine being in the same position. If that's what prompted you to state you don't like the response, just be sure you never post such a rude support request and you should be fine.

mrtksn 6y ago

It's a one time payment for you that you don't care but it could be a life changing issue for your user. If a developer responds to me in that way for an app that I depend on, he/she would make an enemy for life. Sure, customers could be rude(I wish they were not but some people have a bad temperament or have something else going in their life and this was a tipping point) but did they wake you up in the morning and forced to create that app and give it to them for the price you sell it? I am sure that it's the other way around, you made an app that promises to solves a specific problem and you offered someone to solve their problem for that low price and they are unhappy that you did not kept your part of the deal. I would be very pissed off too if the developer of a product that I bought decides that it's not a good business and makes the product unusable. It's not my job to calculate the fair price for the product, the product developers must do the calculation since they come up with the offer in first place. If the deal is made, I expect to to receive the full promised benefits of the product I bought. That's actually why we have customer protection laws.

StavrosK 6y ago
Where did I say I reply like this to everyone? Why would you expect to be rude to a support person and still get support? In my view, you extend people basic courtesy, whether you're paying them or not, and paying doesn't give you the right to act entitled. Price doesn't enter into it, I reply the same way to every rude customer, except one-off payments don't have "I won't give you any more money" to fall back on to excuse their bad behaviour.
McDyver 6y ago
I would be very surprised to see any T&C for a consumer grade app or service explicitly stating that they serve a specific purpose or solve a specific issue. Usually the T&C state that the service is "as is". You are entitled to be pissed-off, as much as the developer is entitled to just say " no", unless you have a contract stating otherwise.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  I generally strive to help people resolve their problems, and 99% of people are polite and get great support, even if they can't articulate their problem initially. I just can't stand people who think it's okay to walk all over others just because they're in a paying relationship with them. People condemn individuals who are rude to their servers, but it seems to me, from the reactions in this thread, that they would just as easily condemn servers for pointing out the rudeness.

hnarn 6y ago

From a purely business point of view, I don't understand why you go with "one time payment, so I can tell bad customers to piss off" rather than "monthly payment, so I make more money by having to stand the occasional bad customer".

StavrosK 6y ago
Bad customers might say "I'll go with your competitor", not realizing that that's no threat when the payment is one-time.
- hnarn 6y ago
  I don't understand how that's "no threat" just because you got a one time payment. You're still losing customers to a competitor. Is this competitor also charging one time, or monthly? Do they make more money than you? Because if they're charging monthly, and more, you're clearly leaving money on the table as well. There's a potential that you're paying a huge premium (that you don't even see) just for the enjoyment of being rude to customers. Maybe that's something you value extremely highly, I don't know.
  - Smaug123 6y ago
    I think it's reasonable to value that extremely highly - enough of them are inexcusably rude to the customer service people!
    - hnarn 6y ago
      I don't disagree with you, but I think it's less reasonable when you're a one man operation, because at that point you're losing money by not tolerating rudeness. If you're employed in support, or the manager of a support organization, "firing" toxic customers can make sense in another way: retaining competence because people don't quit, the money lost is not relevant compared to the potential risk of churn within support, etc. etc.
      - 6y ago

katzgrau 6y ago

Your pricing model is broken and it's bad for you and customers. Do yourself a favor and put a limit on support after the upgrade and then offer an ongoing maintenance package. I used to have a similarly bad attitude when I had low metered pricing. Once I insisted on monthly account minimums I could afford to hire a nice customer service person and not be so touchy all of the time.

StavrosK 6y ago
This is literally one instance in ten years. That's pretty far from "all the time", which is a conclusion I don't even hint at anywhere. I'm pretty happy to provide the service at this price point, and every customer is too. Besides, I would call out this kind of entitled rudeness at any price point.
- the_other 6y ago
  I quite often throw out the “raise your prices” viewpoint in casual conversation, based on my time (12ish years) as a contractor. When I do it, I’m aware it’s not always the best option, but I don’t have a catalog of personal experience to draw on for more nuanced advice. This was a nice example of when not to. Thanks.
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    My example is not completely applicable because it's not a business per se, nor do I want to make it one, it's more of a "I made this for myself but you can use it if you chip in to pay for costs". Even so, I recently raised the price from $20/ever (where it was since 2008) to $50/ever. The way I handle most support requests is to make the UI easy enough so that people don't have that problem in the first place, though many still do, partly because of the unorthodox "email token to log in" system I switched to recently. Many people weren't used to that.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  I think the general point is still correct - lifetime licenses mean that producers have no incentive to support their products.

chrisBob 6y ago

Also remember that sometimes customers make mistakes and you should probably give someone at least one chance to correct for a bad day. I sent a rude email to Gumstix in 2012 that I regret. If you are on here I am sorry.

StavrosK 6y ago
I don't think I did anything hostile, I got a rude email and replied with, basically, "that tone is inappropriate". The customer later apologized and we walked through his problem and fix together.
tlogan 6y ago
Yes: in our business we understand that customers might have a bad day. Maybe even drunk. So we always answer very politely - next business day. If we get rude answer then oh well... what is the point?
- cutemonster 6y ago
  Good idea by you to wait a day, so the for the moment angry person has had time to calm down

codingdave 6y ago

I'd be interested to see what contract you have with your customers that allows you to not support them without turning into a breach of contract. If someone were to litigate, what does the contract define your service as? Just having a system on, or having it function for them? I'm not arguing against calling out poor behavior... I've just seen startups with this business model and attitude get absolutely crushed when one bad customer hires a lawyer.

StavrosK 6y ago
I didn't refuse support, though, I just told the customer to be less rude.

ptero 6y ago

It is your business, but I personally would not do this. When wearing a business hat you need to respond to rudeness with polite firmness. "fix it!" -- "please give more details" or "sorry, this feature is not a near term deliverable" (which is a polite request to get lost). "I am going to a competitor" -- "we think our product is better, but encourage users to try alternatives", etc. My 2c.

shawnz 6y ago
So as to accomplish what? Maximizing your reputation? Who cares? Maybe it's possible that not pandering to the deadbeat clients actually improves your profitability?
- EForEndeavour 6y ago
  "Who cares?" Presumably, the person who need a steady stream of new clients to survive, many of whom do a bit of Googling that would uncover evidence of dickish behaviour (reviews, reddit posts, tweets, etc.), whether or not the recipient deserved it. There's also the fact that being a dick to rude people doesn't feel good to everyone. I can only truly speak for myself here, but being rude in proportion to some random person who started it and totally deserves it leaves me feeling bad afterward, like I allowed myself to get trolled. An angry client email, a profane reply to an innocuous online comment... You have the luxury of asynchronous communication to take a moment, let the blind rage pass, and reply in the even-keeled diction of business communications, maybe even killing them with kindness. Or just ignore 'em.
  - ecpottinger 6y ago
    Do not work like that. When I read reviews, I quickly notice if the reviewer seems to have an axe to grind. Reviews of true bad service seem to have a different favour than the reviews given by the people who are just trying to bad mouth someone/company, they too often try to make themselves look like angels and how dare this big bad person not meet their expectations.
    - 6y ago

tlogan 6y ago

Yes - 99% of support request/tickets is very polite. The problem is that 1% of bad ones might cause such as stress to your support team that 99% of your customers end up suffering. So cut them fast and swiftly.

znpy 6y ago

It's fun how you didn't say anything about the businesses or the industry you work on yet a lot of people are hurrying up to give you all kind of life lessons and advices. Kudos to you for well handling that specific situation and making/letting the customer get back on track.

StavrosK 6y ago
Eh it's natural for the brain to fill in the blanks with its own assumptions, to the point where you aren't sure what the person said and what you assumed they said later. Thanks! It seemed to work out well for both me and the customer in the end.
- cutemonster 6y ago
  > natural for the brain to fill in the blanks with its own assumptions I think an annoying thing is that people are (seem to be) completely unaware that they're (their brains) doing this