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11.30.05
How Not To Serve Your Customers Online
 By
David Utter
Verbal abuse, deceptive in-stock claims, high-pressure upselling,
and attempts to charge a credit card when a customer posts negative
feedback about a business comprise this primer on actions that
could reflect poorly on one's business.
Quite a few people are familiar with photographer Thomas Hawk's work, particularly those who have visited his photos on Flickr or regularly read his blog. His most recent entry, detailing his experience with a New York-based camera dealer called PriceRitePhoto, aka C&A Marketing and TheCameraMall.com.
Calling his experience unpleasant would be akin to saying the
surface of the Sun may be uncomfortable to touch. After ordering with
the company and turning down a series of upsell pitches for
accessories, Hawk contacted the company to find out why his order had
not yet been routed to shipping, and was told the camera was out of
stock, despite the company's web site showing it as in-stock:
At
this point I thanked him and informed him that I would be writing an
article about my experience with his company. It was at this point that
he went ballistic. He first told me that if I did this that he would
not cancel my order but just never fill it. If I cancelled it he said
he'd charge me a 15% restocking fee. When I told him that that would be
unethical he went nuts. He accused me of trying to "extort" him and
said that he was going to have two local police officers come over and
arrest me. He then went on to say that as a "professional photographer"
I should have known better than to try and buy a camera this way and
that he was an attorney and would sue me if I wrote an article about my
experience.
He told me that I had no idea who I was dealing with and that
as he had my work contact info that he was going to call both my
immediate supervisor and the CEO of my company and tell them that I was
trying to extort him.
The blog entry in whole offers a very instructional read, and
I highly recommend any online retailer spend a few quality minutes
over a cup of hot cocoa reading it.
Comments from other people discussed similar experiences, and
mentioned the company's attempts to charge credit cards for
posting negative feedback.
If an online retailer finds they conduct their business like
the one Hawk unfortunately uncovered, it would be a good idea to make
some changes. On the Internet, news like this spreads very fast.
About
the Author:
David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him
here.
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