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> 99% of the time, no matter how carefully or kindly it’s explained, the reply will be more negative than the initial email. When I was in a product leadership
by Aurornis 4mo ago
> 99% of the time, no matter how carefully or kindly it’s explained, the reply will be more negative than the initial email.
When I was in a product leadership position I liked to spend time doing some of the customer support work. This is a common experience. Customers who write angry emails do not care about your reasons. They want something from you (cheaper rates, a specific feature they need, a discount, a freebie) and they do not care about anything else. It’s the digital version of the “I’d like to speak to your manager” customer who thinks that if there’s a 10% chance of getting what they want by being a jerk then it’s worth pushing as hard as they can.
Some times you’d get a little satisfaction from someone who realized there was a person who cared on the receiving end of that email address. Made it feel worthwhile.
Most of them are just doing some transactional game where they think that they can exercise some power over the company if they complain loudly enough.
This also has a lot of cultural differences. Some of the customer contact we’d get from one of the countries we served were out of control mean. There were casual threats of violence from time to time and 90% of them came from one country, which I’m not going to name but I’ve added it to my mental list of places not to visit. It was weird that it was so consistent.
- freemason67 4mo ago> Some of the customer contact we’d get from one of the countries we served were out of control mean. genuinely curious. Which country was it?
- brazzy 4mo agoDude, they've already explicitly said they won't say.
- Hendrikto 4mo ago> “I’d like to speak to your manager” customer who thinks that if there’s a 10% chance of getting what they want by being a jerk then it’s worth pushing as hard as they can. Throw those people out immediately. Not only are they bad customers themselves, they also drive away the good ones.
- arsoon 4mo agoHaving worked in product/technical support on and off for almost two decades, I also have noticed some interesting parallels in support interactions with customers from certain countries. Not all of them were negative, they were just different. Some countries lead with praise and then tangentially ask for a discount. Some countries contact for a legitimate issue/bug which is resolved, and then expect some kind of remuneration for the inconvenience (even if they caused it!), and finally some were almost verbosely thankful and appreciative, re-opening tickets every single time to thank someone vs. just letting the conversation end. It has really made me rethink customer/client interactions when I have them in person, and also how other countries view my own.