I like how the guy is completely clueless about who he is talking to.
He is in marketing, and didn't know someone like that?
And this whole thing could have just been avoided with a measly $10 coupon.
Avenger controller company pisses off gaming community with bad customer support
21–30 of 97 posts
Re: Avenger controller company pisses off gaming community with bad customer support
#22At the risk of taking a potentially unpopular opinion on the subject, I don't think either one of those people come out looking too good. I'm all for doing the whole "CC your formal complaint letter to several outlets in hopes that someone will take notice" approach; My brother taught me about doing this when I was a little kid. He would write letters (this was before the advent of the internet) and note on the botto…
I'm not sure. Admittedly, I genuinely try and avoid getting into pissing contents. Nobody wins, and you both get wet. In this case, though, the guy at Ocean seems to think that he's far more important than anybody else at the table, including his customers. As a business owner, this is not only a horrible attitude to take, but very dangerous. It's exactly like being the toughest kid in the neighborhood, which is grea…
I'm not letting the PR guy or the company itself off the hook, they're completely the losers in this case.
I just can't excuse either side when it devolves into 2 children kicking sand on each other. Someone needs to be the bigger man, or else you both end up looking like fools; Even if one fool is the bigger fool.
Re: Avenger controller company pisses off gaming community with bad customer support
#23At the risk of taking a potentially unpopular opinion on the subject, I don't think either one of those people come out looking too good. I'm all for doing the whole "CC your formal complaint letter to several outlets in hopes that someone will take notice" approach; My brother taught me about doing this when I was a little kid. He would write letters (this was before the advent of the internet) and note on the botto…
> I'm all for doing the whole "CC your formal complaint letter to several outlets in hopes that someone will take notice" approach;
I recognise that many people working in customer support roles have lousy jobs with lousy wages and are treated like dirt by customers and by bosses.
So my first approach is a nice, short, letter explaining the problem and asking for help. People like to help, and they like to help nice people. If I get help I always follow up with thanks to them, and if possible I find a manager to write to saying how pleased I am that a problem was sorted out by $NAME.
I agree that having your name attached to some childish ranting is not a good approach at all.
Re: Avenger controller company pisses off gaming community with bad customer support
#24I love the part where he tries to get back on Mike (Krahulik's) better side: "Did I feed into his emails a little bit too much yeah ok . But it’s one person dude for real. No disrespect intended for you , My name is good in this industry and I know a lot of people."
But then goes off on one when Mike posts a slightly glib "take me off this mailing list"!
I agree with FuzzyDunlop, definitely been watching waaay too much Sopranos.
EDIT: The dude seriously needs to learn to punctuate sentences better, some of those could definitely use some commas!
Re: Avenger controller company pisses off gaming community with bad customer support
#25At the risk of taking a potentially unpopular opinion on the subject, I don't think either one of those people come out looking too good. I'm all for doing the whole "CC your formal complaint letter to several outlets in hopes that someone will take notice" approach; My brother taught me about doing this when I was a little kid. He would write letters (this was before the advent of the internet) and note on the botto…
> I'm all for doing the whole "CC your formal complaint letter to several outlets in hopes that someone will take notice" approach; I recognise that many people working in customer support roles have lousy jobs with lousy wages and are treated like dirt by customers and by bosses. So my first approach is a nice, short, letter explaining the problem and asking for help. People like to help, and they like to help nice…
The CC approach was something he taught me to use under 2 scenarios:
The initial interactions with customer service directly (which was to always be polite and professional) had failed, and you felt you were still in the right
or
They had been rude or dismissive toward your complaints, or offered no feedback whatsoever.
You never open with that, as you then have nothing to escalate to when things don't turn out well
Re: Avenger controller company pisses off gaming community with bad customer support
#26The takeaway seems to be don't let a raging idiot near customers in the first place. There's a second documented encounter with the guy from 6 months ago: http://www.natesnetwork.com/Poor-customer-service
That's incredible. You have to wonder if they even checked into him first with a simple google let alone reference checks.
Re: Avenger controller company pisses off gaming community with bad customer support
#27Re: Avenger controller company pisses off gaming community with bad customer support
#28Sigh. This may actually be good PR :(
I had never heard of this controller until this story. It looks really cool. How other many people is that true for?
edit/update: this story is #2 on the vanilla reddit front page.
Re: Avenger controller company pisses off gaming community with bad customer support
#29From about five seconds of Google, it looks like the actual product was made by David Kotkin and is considered to be rather significant for disabled users. http://www.ablegamers.com/hardware-news/interview-with-aveng... Paul Christoforo is just some schmuck at the contracted marketing company, because the product was put together by an art teacher trying to make small-quantity disability aids and not someone trying t…
I wonder if anyone at Ocean Marketing and among the people who make Avengers had any idea how Paul Christoforo rolls.
Another point towards "trust but check" policy towards your employees.
Re: Avenger controller company pisses off gaming community with bad customer support
#30From about five seconds of Google, it looks like the actual product was made by David Kotkin and is considered to be rather significant for disabled users. http://www.ablegamers.com/hardware-news/interview-with-aveng... Paul Christoforo is just some schmuck at the contracted marketing company, because the product was put together by an art teacher trying to make small-quantity disability aids and not someone trying t…
If you contract a marketing company, surely you take some responsibility for how they interact with your customers.