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We Do Not Negotiate with Terrorists

ignitiondeck.com

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Re: We Do Not Negotiate with Terrorists

#41

Post by patio11 »

spinlock wrote: post #40
patio11 wrote: post #22

As a counterpoint: I have the opposite policy for refunds, and have for the last 8ish years. The official version, to satisfy my accountant [+], is a full refund with no questions asked for 30 to 60 days. The unofficial version is that I will give anyone a refund in (basically) perpetuity. I think my current record is 70 months after the transaction. My refund rate for BCC is 2.7%. That's the easiest one for me to ca…

I have the same refund policy specifically for chargebacks. Here's a fun side note: despite the fact that I always issue a full refund, I had one customer chargeback a purchase. I decided to contest the chargeback and, amazingly, I won. I still don't know how that ended up in my favor but I feel like I just saw a unicorn and wanted to share.

Here's my unicorn: CEO Bob buys the service, uses it happily for 6 months. Bookkeeper Cindy wonders what this strange recurring bill could possibly be, assumes it is credit card fraud, and initiates six chargebacks. I get on phone. Bob brings Cindy on call, explains the situation, and tells Cindy to call bank and cancel chargeback. We document the conversation over an email, which I file with my credit card processor.

I still lost.

Re: We Do Not Negotiate with Terrorists

#42

Post by pm90 »

6d0debc071 wrote: post #34
spellboots wrote: post #18

How ridiculous. This post sounds like a pair of children fighting. And whilst your client seems very annoying, calling them terrorists for opting to exercise their perfectly valid rights to (a) engage you in legal proceedings and (b) write about their experience and publicise this writing make you look a lot less professional that they do.

To be fair threatening to have your 'SEO staffers aggressively hit the forums and ratings hubs' seems a bit beyond standard writing about someone. It seems more like they're threatening to flood with lots of reports of bad service, where only one would really be an honest reflection of an experience that successfully picks out the company involved. Which seems more akin to fraud than honest reviewing.

Fraud, yes. Terrorism, no.

Re: We Do Not Negotiate with Terrorists

#43

Post by ufmace »

patio11 wrote: post #22

As a counterpoint: I have the opposite policy for refunds, and have for the last 8ish years. The official version, to satisfy my accountant [+], is a full refund with no questions asked for 30 to 60 days. The unofficial version is that I will give anyone a refund in (basically) perpetuity. I think my current record is 70 months after the transaction. My refund rate for BCC is 2.7%. That's the easiest one for me to ca…

What does a refund look like on AR, or any other recurring SaaS product, anyway? If somebody has been using it for, say, 6 months, then decides they don't want it anymore and asks for a refund, what do you refund? The most recent month? All 6 months?

Re: We Do Not Negotiate with Terrorists

#44

Post by adammil »

This sounds more like "We don't negotiate with customers." because even if the customer had been professional and polite about it, their policy is no refunds. Even considering the behavior of the customer, IgnitionDeck is getting some really bad PR for the sake of saving $300.

Re: We Do Not Negotiate with Terrorists

#45

Post by patio11 »

ufmace wrote: post #43
patio11 wrote: post #22

As a counterpoint: I have the opposite policy for refunds, and have for the last 8ish years. The official version, to satisfy my accountant [+], is a full refund with no questions asked for 30 to 60 days. The unofficial version is that I will give anyone a refund in (basically) perpetuity. I think my current record is 70 months after the transaction. My refund rate for BCC is 2.7%. That's the easiest one for me to ca…

What does a refund look like on AR, or any other recurring SaaS product, anyway? If somebody has been using it for, say, 6 months, then decides they don't want it anymore and asks for a refund, what do you refund? The most recent month? All 6 months?

Officially, any payments you made in the last 30 days. Unofficially, if you tell me "Gadzooks I got billed for this for 6 months because I never canceled my free trial and missed the 6 invoices you sent me", I'll reverse 2-3 charges (I lose the capability to do so something like 60 days after the transaction) and then tell you that you have options for the remaining months: a) I write a check to charity, b) I write a check to you, c) you let me keep it. Pick whichever sounds fair.

$174 is, literally, less than rounding error.

I am aware of other companies which hew more closely to "Just your last payment", and even one prominent SaaS company with a declared no-refunds policy, but they don't strike me as being material improvements.

Re: We Do Not Negotiate with Terrorists

#46

Post by marshally »

patio11 wrote: post #22

As a counterpoint: I have the opposite policy for refunds, and have for the last 8ish years. The official version, to satisfy my accountant [+], is a full refund with no questions asked for 30 to 60 days. The unofficial version is that I will give anyone a refund in (basically) perpetuity. I think my current record is 70 months after the transaction. My refund rate for BCC is 2.7%. That's the easiest one for me to ca…

Refunded license for Ignition Deck: $299

Transaction fees associated with refund: a few dollars

Making an ass of yourself in public? Priceless!

Re: We Do Not Negotiate with Terrorists

#47

Post by drcube »

dougmccune wrote: post #9

I can't possibly imagine the time and energy wasted on this blog post and back and forth with the customer is worth $300. Not to mention the PR implications... you're calling your customers terrorists! Good god. You have an unhappy customer, give him his money back and move on.

It's not about $300. It's about everybody else from now on who will discover getting $300 from Ignitiondeck is as easy as threatening some bad reviews.

Think of the bad PR as an investment. These people will hopefully move on to easier targets now.

Not saying I agree, but I think that's the rationale.

Re: We Do Not Negotiate with Terrorists

#48

Post by 6d0debc071 »

pm90 wrote: post #42
6d0debc071 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair threatening to have your 'SEO staffers aggressively hit the forums and ratings hubs' seems a bit beyond standard writing about someone. It seems more like they're threatening to flood with lots of reports of bad service, where only one would really be an honest reflection of an experience that successfully picks out the company involved. Which seems more akin to fraud than honest reviewing.

Fraud, yes. Terrorism, no.

I don't disagree, they seem like bullies who think they can threaten their way out of something they've given their word on - but that's not necessarily terrorism for all that it seems a similar approach in some respects.

I take the article to have been more a play on Reagan's statement than anything else:

"If you’re able to remember back to the days when Ronald Reagan was President of the United States, he issues a warning that the United States would not negotiate with terrorists, a policy that has been maintained to this day.

We state this reminder only to explain that we treat our policies in the same manner."

Re: We Do Not Negotiate with Terrorists

#49

Post by programminggeek »

A happy customer is potentially worth multiple other customers, a pissed off customer potentially costs you many other customers. Because the refund rate on everything is basically single digits, you should do a refund.

Why? Because the end result is basically going to cost you a lot more in potential revenue than you are "saving" by not giving a refund. Say it costs you like 3% to do a refund, that is like $9 on a $300 product. That $9 savings is going to cost you hundreds of dollars in negative customer sentiment. If they lose a single sale because of this episode, they are at a net loss of $300 because they really wanted to save $9.

Even if you wanted to factor in customer acquisition costs at say $50 to get that sale, you can't get that $50 back because you spent it either way. More importantly, due to the negative publicity this is generating in the way of "Ignition Deck Scam" type pages on the internet, it is now going to cost them more to acquire new customers. So, that eats up even more of those measly $9 in savings.

No matter how you look at it not having a sane refund policy is costing them more than it is saving them by a mile. What a foolish and shortsighted way to run a business.

Re: We Do Not Negotiate with Terrorists

#50

Post by MartinCron »

6d0debc071 wrote: post #48
pm90 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fraud, yes. Terrorism, no.

I don't disagree, they seem like bullies who think they can threaten their way out of something they've given their word on - but that's not necessarily terrorism for all that it seems a similar approach in some respects. I take the article to have been more a play on Reagan's statement than anything else: "If you’re able to remember back to the days when Ronald Reagan was President of the United States, he issues a…

Maybe people here are just to young to remember the Reagan 80s and can't make the metaphorical leap?
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