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General => General Discussion and ??? => Topic started by: Get Shirts on April 22, 2015, 12:42:52 PM
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Okay, so this is the first public forum negative review we have received in 13 years of business.. see below. What would you guys do? This customer posted on Google & Facebook and I feel the need to respond, if nothing more than to correct his points. This guy is just out of his mind.
This is the post:
Most of the shirts arrived looking fine. However, I noticed several were "misaligned" and the yellow, red, and green, were replaced with black, ruining the design we had spent weeks on. Right away, after addressing this with Press Press Merch, I knew I would have a problem. Instead of apologizing, the staff were defensive, saying it was "a rare error" and it "probably didn't happen more than once". They weren't sorry, they just wanted to "make sure you're stoked in the future." For $10 a shirt, I expect quality and compassion. It doesn't matter what you think, it matters what the artist thinks -and when you can admit there's a problem and not fix it, that's a big deal.
Finally, by request, I spent $6 mailing two of the unsold misaligned shirts back to the company in order to receive a refund, which I was told would be the price of 2 shirts ($21). Six months later, I have still not received this refund. In fact, the best they could do is offer me credit for $17, which is less than the price of the shirts and does not account for mailing or tax costs.
Why take a risk? If you want high quality shirts and a company that will take accountability for mistakes, there are literally fifty other local Tshirt companies, most of which will make the shirts for cheaper than Press Press Merch, all of which will show more gratitude and compassion toward their customers.
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so 2 shirts were "misaligned" (off center, tilted, what does that mean?) AND somehow 3 colors were turned into a single color? I'm not sure I understand what happened...
If these reviews are the result of $4 not being refunded, I would say you messed up big time by not refunding those $4. Like I said though, I don't know anything about the situation beyond what was posted. The reality of the situation will determine how you should respond. No matter what though, don't get defensive or corrective online. It ALWAYS comes across poorly. I would probably either not respond, or respond by apologizing in some neutral way like "We are sorry you had a poor experience. Please contact us directly so we can resolve the issues with your order. We pride ourselves on proving an excellent product and customer service experience."
This guy is probably a lost cause, but if you handle it right it will actually impress other potential clients who see that you will correct problems publicly with compassion and a level head.
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I'd like to hear your side of the story before I would respond.
however, Mimosatexas is 100% right on with how to respond...
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Why would you respond publicly to this. Your goal with any bad review is to get that review removed. If this was my customer and they put a review like this up I would reprint the whole order, give them all their money back even the money they paid for the shipping, if they take the review down. I would also apologize for my staff and the way they handled this. I don't care if you were 100 percent right, I don't care if the customer is trying to pull something over one you. Its not worth it. That review will loose you more business then what giving away this job cost, times 100.
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so it's extortion...
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ex·tor·tion ikˈstôrSH(ə)n/
noun
the practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats.
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The only problem with an obviously non personal response, is it seems like an automatically generated response, implying that there is such a need to apologize, the process has been automated.
However, if it clearly states the best way to resolve issues, it can show folks that you are committed to customer satisfaction
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That sucks, negative reviews are the worst to deal with. We've had our share of bad reviews on Yelp and Google and they're such a sting. I'm all about contacting the reviewer to try to get them to budge. I'm also all about conceding in almost any reasonable way to get the review removed. It doesn't seem like screen shops get many reviews in the first place, positive or negative, so unless you are consistently asking your happy customers to review you there won't be many happy reviews to dilute the bad ones. That Google review is going to hang on forever, so when you look back and still see it there 3 or 4 years from now, it'll at least be good to know you did everything you could at the time to pretty it up.
If a couple customers a year see that review and pass you over for another shop, how much lost money could that be over a couple years time? Instead spend that money trying to fix his order and make him happy. You can always peacefully part ways afterwards, but if you don't make it right ASAP you might kick yourself later.
We had one customer meet our minimum of 36 shirts for her initial order, then came back for 5 more shirts. We reminded her of our minimums and asked if she could meet them. She took it to Yelp and Google and wrote us 1 star reviews for not being able to do her order. I got in touch and mentioned I didn't object to her review, I just asked her to reconsider the review being 1 star. I told her that I thought one star would be appropriate for a shop that had horrible print quality, high prices, crappy attitude, sloppy and dishonest. I asked her if she was happy with the quality, prices and service of the first order, and if she was happy with that then the one star review seemed unfair. She liked our shop, we simply couldn't do her small quantity order and possibly didn't disclose our minimums on her first order (although I'm sure we did). She ended up being nice about it, changed it to a 3 star review and re-worded it to be not so scathing.
We killed another guy with so much kindness and stayed in touch for a year about his review, in the end he finally removed his one star reviews. He tried to friend me on LinkedIn like 4 years later and send a nice message. Taking the high road is the way to go, I'd suggest making it right and get him to at least revise the parts that make you seem untrustworthy.
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I disagree about reprinting/refunding for removal of the ad for a few reasons. It sets a bad precedent and can be taken advantage of if that guy wants to have his friends get some free crap from you. There is also no guarantee they will remove it or repost it later so you effectively lose twice.
I also think it is unavoidable that people will give you bad reviews online, and you won't always be able to remove them. My etsy store got ONE bad review from a woman that claimed she never got her shirt without ever contacting me about it (tracking said otherwise, but whatever...). I sent her another for free and told her she could pick another design of her choice also free. I asked if she would be willing to remove or update it, which she said she would, and she never removed or updated the review or responded to me again. I chose not to respond at all online and let the overwhelmingly positive reviews speak for me instead.
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The only problem with an obviously non personal response, is it seems like an automatically generated response, implying that there is such a need to apologize, the process has been automated.
However, if it clearly states the best way to resolve issues, it can show folks that you are committed to customer satisfaction
Yea, fine line for sure. Don't be too generic, but don't go overboard either. It's a lot easier to come off as defensive or crazy yourself if you get too elaborate with your response.
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Why would you respond publicly to this. Your goal with any bad review is to get that review removed. If this was my customer and they put a review like this up I would reprint the whole order, give them all their money back even the money they paid for the shipping, if they take the review down. I would also apologize for my staff and the way they handled this. I don't care if you were 100 percent right, I don't care if the customer is trying to pull something over one you. Its not worth it. That review will loose you more business then what giving away this job cost, times 100.
Dang Screengear, I like to talk with you one day, you seem to be a very nice guy when dealing with customers, either you run a top notch shop with all happy customers or your giving away profit when confronted by a slick custy. Just about every post like this one you say give in and customer is always right....I need to know what you know cuz if we are in the right it's just to hard for me to give in.
darryl
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Thanks for the responses everyone. I've contacted him directly to see if he would remove the post for his requested refund and it looks like that is going to take care of it.
For those who care to know:
- He placed the order in question in November, contacted me after the event about the two shirts and I immediately said "Sure, bring them by and I'll refund your money". Just today I received the two shirts.. TODAY, 6 months after the order.
- His quotes are fabricated. They are abbreviated & out of context portions of our exchange.
- He paid $8.66 per shirt, but I guess he's including setup in his cost per shirt.. understandable.
I really just want the posts taken down so don't have to worry about this.
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so...what really happened? what's this BS about colors turned to black or something? I understand the feeling of "get that sh*t down"...
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When I have a complaint from a customer I ask them what they want me to do......And even offer to refund 100% and let them keep what they have....Most are very reasonable when you put it in their hands....I can not recall the last time I had to refund 100% of an order...But I think it was 2007.....Never heard from customer again but did get a couple long term referrals.....It all works out in the long run....
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Why would you respond publicly to this. Your goal with any bad review is to get that review removed. If this was my customer and they put a review like this up I would reprint the whole order, give them all their money back even the money they paid for the shipping, if they take the review down. I would also apologize for my staff and the way they handled this. I don't care if you were 100 percent right, I don't care if the customer is trying to pull something over one you. Its not worth it. That review will loose you more business then what giving away this job cost, times 100.
Dang Screengear, I like to talk with you one day, you seem to be a very nice guy when dealing with customers, either you run a top notch shop with all happy customers or your giving away profit when confronted by a slick custy. Just about every post like this one you say give in and customer is always right....I need to know what you know cuz if we are in the right it's just to hard for me to give in.
darryl
I am not a super nice guy. I am more of a business person then a nice guy. This is business. If the customer is mad enough to write a review then you did something wrong. Maybe the shirts are right but your communication of the job was off. Something went wrong. I don't give in very often, I also don't mess up very often. I have been doing this for going on 7 years and I have only lost about $2000. That is for reprints, non pays and other small fixes. Most of that was a miscommunication with one of my big customers. I printed the shirt like the proof they supplied and didn't make a color change that they had in one of these 20 or so email on the job. It was a Rush and I just had to get it printed in time. That job I did reprint and I even let them keep the messed up ones. They do over 50K with me a year so keeping them happy is worth more then the time and cost to reprint. She was not even mad, I just did the right thing.
I look at problems in their eyes. It doesn't cost us that much to reprint a job, to make it right. Most jobs I can reprint and still make some money on. I know the bottom line is to make money but if you mess up you have to fix it. I have another guy that tells me to offer a discount. I think that is a crappy way to handle a mistake you made. We are a business and we stand behind our product and if it is our mistake we make it right.
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I am not a super nice guy. I am more of a business person then a nice guy. This is business. If the customer is mad enough to write a review then you did something wrong. Maybe the shirts are right but your communication of the job was off. Something went wrong. I don't give in very often, I also don't mess up very often. I have been doing this for going on 7 years and I have only lost about $2000. That is for reprints, non pays and other small fixes. Most of that was a miscommunication with one of my big customers. I printed the shirt like the proof they supplied and didn't make a color change that they had in one of these 20 or so email on the job. It was a Rush and I just had to get it printed in time. That job I did reprint and I even let them keep the messed up ones. They do over 50K with me a year so keeping them happy is worth more then the time and cost to reprint. She was not even mad, I just did the right thing.
I look at problems in their eyes. It doesn't cost us that much to reprint a job, to make it right. Most jobs I can reprint and still make some money on. I know the bottom line is to make money but if you mess up you have to fix it. I have another guy that tells me to offer a discount. I think that is a crappy way to handle a mistake you made. We are a business and we stand behind our product and if it is our mistake we make it right.
Exactly how I feel......Well said.....
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I've been doing this so damn long that I can pretty much recognize problem customers and act accordingly. All jobs need a tremendous amount of communication to be sure that the customer knows what they are getting, and their costs. We recently reprinted a job, 4/4 on G2000 black, 100 pieces, because we mixed too much white pigment into the white discharge base, and the plastisol top colors didn't stick, and broke down badly in the laundry. When contacted about it, we asked them to snap a pic and send it. As soon as we saw it, we told them we would replace them immediately. When they picked up, they said they didn't really expect us to resolve it. So I asked,"Why not? Right is right, and wrong is wrong. We did wrong, we made it right." The point is, communication is everything, SENDS PROOFS, make them sign off so they feel involved. It's good to hear that it could be resolved, now just let it go, everyone's happy, yes?
Steve
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Instead of chasing down reviews (that takes resources) focus on providing useful and positive content about your business and it's culture as one of your social media campaigns (that takes resources too) spend it wisely.. A post a day will neutralize any rear negative review..
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I can agree with that from a business stand point, if we mess up I have no problem replacing the item, that is the first thing we say here is we will replace before any refund is talked about, but we've had some customer I know are trying to get over on us and I want stand for that at all. Matter of fact here is one just the other day lady came in to buy some t-shirt for her biz another lady that works with here told her not to come to us because we sold them bad shirts, first I ever heard of this being we printed that job for them 6 or 7 years ago. My wife ask did the print fail, she said no the print was fine the t-shirts started getting holes in them after one wash (g2000) my wife ask why didn't you all contact us about it.....well we didn't think you all would do anything about it is what she said....my wife said all you had to do was bring the shirts with holes in them to us and let us check it out.. mine you this was a Mud trucking event hmmm. but anyway we tell all customers if you have any problems please let us know good or bad because we can't stand by our product if we don't know whats going on. Screen I agree we try to treat all customers like 50K customers, but some you just have to cut loose.
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Sometimes there is an issue sometimes there is a PITA customer.
If you feel obligated to respond via this social media madness consider something like this....
mooseman
We strive to provide the best products and services to every customer we serve.
As in all business actions sometimes a customer will have a concern or be less than 100% satisfied with a product or service.
While we truly believe our customer is unhappy with a small portion of the order we produced
we have offered solutions and remedies to mitigate the claim. To to date we have been unsuccessful in obtaining our customer’s acceptance and we continue encourage this customer to
work with us directly .
In business success does not come just when things go correctly . Success grows rapidly when you correctly act when your customer presents an issue.
Again we encourage our customer to work with us directly, customer satisfaction is our ultimate product.
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Before he took down is bad review I checked his other reviews of local businesses. He's a little quick-to-judge in my opinion and takes things very personally. Just a general sensitive guy that thinks he's gold I guess? I quoted him via email earlier this month too haha glad I didn't get the job! It'd be like walking on eggshells around an emotional girlfriend.
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Some people you just won't satisfy. I wouldn't try to have him remove it, next thing you have is him posting that in response and that looks even worse.
If he is fabricating the facts, gather your information and contact Google and FB. The other thing I would do is publicly respond to it by saying in the least "form" generated way that you are sorry and would welcome the chance to work with him towards a solution. Use his negative review as your chance to show how your customer service shines! If you wait too long though it looks non genuine.
Even if you get his review removed, chances are he will still verbally bad mouth you. Even worse if the review gets removed and there is no attempt at a resolution.
Of you relay on the public/public opinion for business, give him whatever he wants and move on.
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Before he took down is bad review I checked his other reviews of local businesses. He's a little quick-to-judge in my opinion and takes things very personally. Just a general sensitive guy that thinks he's gold I guess? I quoted him via email earlier this month too haha glad I didn't get the job! It'd be like walking on eggshells around an emotional girlfriend.
I was going to send you a note to be in the lookout for this guy.
We treat all of our customers like gold, regardless of how they handle the job, and constantly bend over backwards to accommodate and right any wrongs. Some people just live outside of reality and I'm unable to get on their level.
In the end he agreed to remove the posts and I agreed to send him the requested refund.
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I would never re-do an order without getting the problem shirts back. First, this eliminates those shirts from ever being circulated and becoming a talking point about your work. Second, it could be that the customer is trying to double the order for free and finally, you can always use shop rags.
About reviews... On my FB page there is one dude who rated me at one star. Don't have a clue who he is and never done any work for him. Like the ash tray my Dad had that had a bar scene painted on it....the back side of five men setting at a bar. On the corner sat the ass of a horse. The title was, "There's one in every crowd".