Dealing with Difficult Website Customers

Writing by Brick Marketing on Thursday, 20 of December , 2007 at 9:57 am

Remember the old adage, “the customer is always right,” it applies doubly for anything web related. As a customer, I can be a bit of a jerk. I have high standards of myself and I expect those standards to be present in other people. I guess I would make a good exhibit A for difficult website customers.

I remember one time that I was planning a trip and booking a flight with an online travel agent who shall remain nameless, we will call him Peter. It was about six months in advance, but there was a group of us going, so I thought that I would snoop out the best deal and find a good travel agent at the same time. As there were ten of us going, I thought I should at least have a little bit of leverage. I mean, ten international flights is great commission in anyone’s book.

I made email contact with a travel agent that was known for good prices. I said that I realize that it is early, but would he be prepared to give me some idea of the ticket price based on last year’s prices. I explained that I was not asking for a quote, just a ballpark figure to get an idea of what the damage might be. He replied that the best deal he could offer was with Air China and that the cost would be over $3,000.

I got upset and asked him if he took me for a fool? The price was a 300% markup on last year’s prices which I had recently become aware of. He replied to me familiarly and said that he was simply giving me the best quote that he could for the trip. I said that would hardly be the best quote he could offer for ten tickets and suggested that he was trying to rip me off (which he was). I went on to add that since we were not friends, he should not be referring to me by an abbreviated form of my first name and that a surname and title were more fitting. Then he became insulting and told me that I was no longer able to do business with his company. He lost a fat commission on what turned out to be an $8,000 (as opposed to $30,000) sale. I went with one of his competitors which had the best website customer management practices I had seen in a long while.

Peter clearly knew nothing about website customer management. He was ignorant and he lacked people skills. He was too quick to become defensive and too thin skinned for his own good. I never said anything untoward or insulting, I simply questioned what was a ridiculous price. He broke every rule in the customer management book.

What should Peter have done? Stay tuned for Part 2 which will be featured tomorrow.

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Category: Website Customer Management

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