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I think the worst part, actually, is that he tried to make the excuse that it was a "joke". That comes across as disingenuous. We all know it wasn't a joke (a
by nlh 13y ago
I think the worst part, actually, is that he tried to make the excuse that it was a "joke". That comes across as disingenuous.
We all know it wasn't a joke (a joke = funny). But I don't think it was meant to be literal either. It was a pretty clear instruction from the CEO to the staff to basically tell the customer to go away. There's no reason for the CEO to translate that message to his staff -- a good customer service person knows exactly what that means:
CEO: "Tell him to fuck off"
Staff: "We are very sorry to hear about your problem, but I'm afraid at this point there's nothing we're going to be able to do further to assist you. I know this may be disappointing to you, but please understand that we receive a lot of concerns and that after reviewing......." Etc etc.
The only issue here is that the internal message got out, which is indeed embarrassing. The CEO's job was to make the final call on how to deal with the customer, and good customer service sometimes means telling some customers to, well, fuck off.
- eli 13y agoI don't think it's a good idea to tell customers to "fuck off." Even behind their back where they aren't meant to see it. Even just in your own head. It's not a good attitude. That's just my two cents.
- nlh 13y agoI agree in theory. But the fact is there are customers who are simply irrational. They use your $5 product, make up an excuse to be unhappy, and then demand $1000 in credit. They'll threaten you with "negative publicity" if you don't give them exactly what they want, etc. etc. Thankfully, these folks are few and far between, and I have no idea if this person in the Postmates case was one of them (haven't seen the whole thread), but the fact is you really do need to put your foot down as a business at some point, and telling a customer to fuck off -- internally or otherwise -- is necessary in some cases. Good customer service is one thing - letting customers waste your time and bully you is another.
- slantyyz 13y ago"Firing" a toxic or bad customer isn't the same as telling them to f-off.
- bradleyland 13y agoI don't think anyone believes it's a good idea. It's just that sometimes, in frustration, we say stupid things that we probably shouldn't. It's called being human. Our error rate, as a species, is fairly high. It runs even higher when we're under high load.
- bradleyland 13y agoSarcasm is a form of joking. Whether it was funny would depend on context. I know sarcasm often pops up in the midst of tense meetings at our company, and we certainly find it funny.