Angry Customer...did we do anything wrong?
A customer asked where their order was and demanded a replacement…I checked the order and it seems that it never had a house name or number on it, which explained why it hadn’t arrived. Knowing that Royal Mail would eventually send it back to us I offered a replacement or to refund it.
The next thing we know we are getting messages threatening negative feedback and reporting us to Amazon because of our error?! They asked for a refund this time and as we’d already offered a refund I processed it straight away and wished them the best with their event…all very polite. I did explain that we will always try to help as best we can, but there was no fault on our side as we posted the items on time in good faith.
Next we get completely over the top messages telling us we’re disgusting, rude and trying to blame them 
We’re always so polite…maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned the address issue, I just felt like we were about to get negative feedback no matter what we did. I felt like we weren’t going to win this one, even after fully refunding them and never arguing anything with them.
Is there anything I could have done differently?
42 replies
Seller_wqciCXuQbNS4p
Absolutely not-unfortunately we receive such abuse as well. Pleased to say not on a weekly basis, but it is more regular than we would like.
Sadly, I think that it’s indicative of the way too many people think these days-happy to rant from behind a keyboard without thinking of how other people feel on the other end.
If I would you, I would just forget it, go home and enjoy the weekend.
Seller_esvgLzKXw2YAl
Report the messages as well.
At least if you end up with bad feedback, it may help to get it removed.
Customers should never be allowed to get away with this kind of thing.
I get being annoyed etc, but that’s no reason to take it out on someone like that.
Seller_B4VbHpnDLDLAU
Unfortunatly [and more so since the pandemic] Peoples attitude towards others has changed allot, we see it on all sites. No form of patience or understanding on anything. Always demanding.
But as to your problem. So many customers when they have been pointed out its their fault it will not matter what you say its always someone else fault never there own. no responsibility at all.
But i also see the differance in the proffesion they are from, somone who has worked ina customer facing enviroment can be the complete opposite to an office worker. just a little more understanding
Seller_xUKHc5xSYJmI4
Its common knowledge some buyers play the system provide an inaccurate delivery address and then claim they haven’t received the order 10 days later. If you read the terms and conditions of use clearly states the buyer should not use the platform to cause annoyance etc paragraph 7.
Seller_0jWlqgUh2docO
i recently had a customer whos order had not been delivered by royail mail, i offered a full refund, but this just wasn’t good enough, they demanded a full refund and i also send a replacement item
Seller_DTufFoxJuMU0M
I had a weird one this afternoon as well, granted it was completely my fault (I missed a quantity of two and only sent one card) but the message telling me that I was not sending what they paid for, accused me of being a scammer, threatened me with negative feedback, negative reviews and everything if I don’t post the 2nd out immediately.
Now I get she was disappointed, but a simple - “I ordered 2 and only received 1” would have got the exact same (probably nicer and more helpful) response from me.
Must be something in the air 
Seller_WChbFymG0Ifsc
Unreasonable customers are an occupational hazard sadly with online mail order. However I was just wondering if you had some system for verifying the address is correct before dispatch. We generate each label manually using the courier address database, so if a house name or number was missing then we would know to contact the buyer for more information. Perhaps this is not possible with larger volumes of mailings, but if you have some kind of address check in place it might stop these situations arising. Hopefully.
Seller_mbIkluVdnTyII
Don’t take it to heart. Not much else you can do apart from adjusting the way you process and respond to these events.
Seller_r14NdyLFxbzeU
amazon allows multi address, so selection errors might happen on an incomplete address or an old address.
- start your message with ‘thank you for bring this to my attention’
- offer resolution as you did ‘replacement or refund’
- say ‘this was posted on %date% & type of post’ and the product
- finally confirm the postal details ‘address sent to %location/ address%’ then ask if this is the correct address, for your replacement if required (or flat out ask them to confirm delivery address)
- finally say ‘apologies for the delay, we are unsure why this has happened’ and if you want to be real smug you can add ‘this doesn’t happen often and we are dedicated to resolve this for you, sir/ madame’
Seller_2JXNLecJDOAHj
Lot of us trade on Ebay as well as other platforms. Without any doubt what so ever, Amazon is by far the worst platform for abuse. We don’t have any tools to stop abuse or from customers gaining a free item.
We treat every customer the same regardless of what happened to the item. We don’t ever reply to abuse and stick with our game plan every time. If a customer understands about a glitch no issue. It’s when you have a customer who makes demands because they know Amazon will end up on their side.
We don’t make money out of trying to persuade an angry customer to see out way. We make money out of customers buying our stock. The one time about 7 years ago we tried to explain to a customer what had happened and we spent nearly two weeks back and forth emailing etc. What a compete waste of our time. Did it once and learnt a hard lesson. Never did it again.
Every customer who buys from us and we don’t hear from them, is rated a top success. It’s the odd one who demands our attention that we seem to remember.
