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Is this the most condescending customer support ever experienced by mankind?

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Re: Is this the most condescending customer support ever experienced by mankind?

#21

Post by helloworld15 »

88e282102ae2e5b wrote: post #19

The customer service rep seemed perfectly polite. Both in the conversation that you posted, and in your update here, you come off as a complete narcissist. It's not even valid to decide whether you're "right" or not - the company doesn't exist to benefit you and you alone - it exists to benefit as many customers as possible. If most of the other customers are demanding some other feature, they have to dedicate their…

Customer service exists to help customers. At no point in the conversation I felt like the rep was making any effort to understand why I even opened a ticket with them.

Given the kind of products they sell I'd be surprised if requests like mine weren't surging.

I posted this here to figure out if my impression of the conversation was too biased, and it turns out that's actually the case. I guess in your book that's as self absorbed as it gets.

Re: Is this the most condescending customer support ever experienced by mankind?

#22

Post by helloworld15 »

trcollinson wrote: post #18

From a customer service and customer standpoint, I happen to think you were both out of line and it degraded quickly. I am glad to see you not publicly shame the company though. However, I would like to speak to the original premise that a company should have a wget/curlable url for a Wordpress plugin as a basic need for the DevOps world we live in. This is patently false. From a company providing a plugin standpoint…

wget/curl as by far a last resort in this context, as unfortunately none of the companies I enquired care the least about this stuff.

It's not like these wget operations would happen in production, they would happen at scaffold time. But let's not bring this into the realm of whether I know what I'm doing or not.

Most of these plugins provide insular services in and of themselves (i.e. no code in the rest of the project relies on them for anything) so the only way the would break a project is by screwing up with the core software it self, i.e. WordPress.

Anyways - trust me I'd sign for a composer deal this moment, but if I can get a wget/curl url, an api endpoint or anything else over having to go through several webpages and downloading a zip file for every single plugin for every single new project I'll take that deal for the time being.

Re: Is this the most condescending customer support ever experienced by mankind?

#23

Post by helloworld15 »

mod wrote: post #14

I thought you sounded like a jackass, and started it with "TERRIBLE." The other guy was pedantic and sort-of sounded like an ass near the end. He took things a bit personally, maybe having a bad day or something. He seems a little baffled about why you're angry that you got a "straight no" when that's the answer to your question. I wouldn't have submitted to having an argument with you, but I'm not surprised he did.…

I admit getting a straight no without any follow up as to how we could figure it out rubbed me the wrong way as that's not what a customer support rep should do.

When I got condescension on top of that I lost it.

If not letting a smartass condescend me all the way to home makes me a jackass, I'm happy to be one.

The rep could have simply explained their stance without the smartassery and I would have frowned, said thanks and moved on.

Re: Is this the most condescending customer support ever experienced by mankind?

#24

Post by helloworld15 »

orangecat wrote: post #4

Honestly, this makes you look worse than the tech support person. They answered your question (presumably correctly), you didn't like the answer and told them they suck, and it unsurprisingly devolved from there.

It's a customer's right to say "I think this is terrible and I am disappointed" and I think that's miles away from telling anyone they suck.

Re: Is this the most condescending customer support ever experienced by mankind?

#26

Post by nesu »

helloworld15 wrote: post #20
nesu wrote: post #16

An honest feedback. SUPPORT: There is no supported capability to do that with any "COMPANY_NAME" product, thanks. CUSTOMER: FYI, in 2015, that’s absolutely TERRIBLE. None of the other premium providers game me a STRAIGHT NO. 1. Sometimes, when support made the wrong initial contact, all future correspondence will turn sour. Make the first impression count. 2. Having 'thanks' at the end of sentences seems casual/unpro…

Hey, thank you for the feedback, I'm the author of this thread but I'm actually the customer, not the support rep. I get behind every single point of your list. I felt like he just didn't care, and when I proceeded to point out I was disappointed and thought it was terrible of them to just slam the door in my face like that, I received an endless series of condescending remarks which made even angrier and caused my r…

Oh I see, I wrote thinking you are on the support side.

I think you as a customer acted rationally and with honesty. Most customers, when hearing such an initial reply, do not bother responding at all (probably gone forever as a customer). And the worse thing is, support/devs think that, with no further response from the customer, they are doing a great job.

I myself am a customer-dev to at least two websites (been working with them for the last 5+ years). These sites have made at least a large share on their niche market, but their support is terrible. Business-wise, they think they can afford to lose a customer, so their 'default' support mode is to brush customers off (or leave support requests hanging). I believe many businesses are like this.

About the condescension, many devs are like that, treating support as 'inferior' to development and not equally important (cost center vs profit center mentality). When in fact, it's a profit opportunity. The customer's requirements are very specific, and from the correspondence, I can see that the customer understands that not all customers would request for such a feature, and probably would be willing to pay a premium for a custom-made solution. Most people here are devs, so they sympathize more with the support side (personally, I work on both domains).

Re: Is this the most condescending customer support ever experienced by mankind?

#27

Post by [deleted] »

helloworld15 wrote: post #21
88e282102ae2e5b wrote: post #19

The customer service rep seemed perfectly polite. Both in the conversation that you posted, and in your update here, you come off as a complete narcissist. It's not even valid to decide whether you're "right" or not - the company doesn't exist to benefit you and you alone - it exists to benefit as many customers as possible. If most of the other customers are demanding some other feature, they have to dedicate their…

Customer service exists to help customers. At no point in the conversation I felt like the rep was making any effort to understand why I even opened a ticket with them. Given the kind of products they sell I'd be surprised if requests like mine weren't surging. I posted this here to figure out if my impression of the conversation was too biased, and it turns out that's actually the case. I guess in your book that's a…

[deleted]

Re: Is this the most condescending customer support ever experienced by mankind?

#28

Post by ramblerman »

helloworld15 wrote: post #23
mod wrote: post #14

I thought you sounded like a jackass, and started it with "TERRIBLE." The other guy was pedantic and sort-of sounded like an ass near the end. He took things a bit personally, maybe having a bad day or something. He seems a little baffled about why you're angry that you got a "straight no" when that's the answer to your question. I wouldn't have submitted to having an argument with you, but I'm not surprised he did.…

I admit getting a straight no without any follow up as to how we could figure it out rubbed me the wrong way as that's not what a customer support rep should do. When I got condescension on top of that I lost it. If not letting a smartass condescend me all the way to home makes me a jackass, I'm happy to be one. The rep could have simply explained their stance without the smartassery and I would have frowned, said th…

If your ego was just a tad more in check, your correspondence with customer support might have been far shorter and you would have saved us all this ridiculous thread.

Re: Is this the most condescending customer support ever experienced by mankind?

#29

Post by helloworld15 »

ramblerman wrote: post #28
helloworld15 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I admit getting a straight no without any follow up as to how we could figure it out rubbed me the wrong way as that's not what a customer support rep should do. When I got condescension on top of that I lost it. If not letting a smartass condescend me all the way to home makes me a jackass, I'm happy to be one. The rep could have simply explained their stance without the smartassery and I would have frowned, said th…

If your ego was just a tad more in check, your correspondence with customer support might have been far shorter and you would have saved us all this ridiculous thread.

This is what I don't get. People seem to genuinely think ego was involved. I was just blown away by how clueless the rep seemed (at first at least) about what I was asking. The condescension did the rest and I lost it.

Re: Is this the most condescending customer support ever experienced by mankind?

#30

Post by helloworld15 »

partisan wrote: post #25

How quickly can you reach out to the company to apologize? Were you having a bad day or do you fly off the handle on a regular basis?

At what point exactly do you think I flied off the handle? When I said their stance was terrible and that I was disappointed? Or after the flood of condescension that came my way?
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