I agree about being pissed about the inventory error. However, getting an item that is not working happens (for whatever reason. It may have been shipped from the manufacturer defective. It may have gotten damaged in transmit. It doesn’t matter. Shit happens, and it’s not 100%). However, as a consumer, I reasonably expect that if I send an email on Sunday complaining about the situation, that I should give the company at least to the next freaking business day to respond, donchathink?
Check their emails more promptly. People are legitimately wary of sellers on eBay, so maybe those guidelines that differ for eBay sellers versus stores cut both ways. If you want to be a power seller on eBay, you need to check emails daily so you can respond to problems.
There are a lot of conveniences that come with being an online seller: you don’t have to maintain a physical store and you have a much wider reach. But there also are some unique burdens too. That’s not too much to ask.
I completely see your point. That’s why we have two negatives and hundreds of positives, and our rating is over 99%
This I don’t agree with. There are some things that are inexcusable, and then there’s the way a human mistake is handled.
If a waiter spills stuff on me and the manager comps my meal or more, as an apology I accpet the apology and would not fault them for it. It wasn’t fun for me but life happens. Their reaction to a mistake, and MINE, are both indicative of who we are. What pisses me off as a consumer is when a company makes an error and then tries to cover it or deny it, or acts like I’m an asshole for even complaining politely.
As in the example above, when someone doesn’t ship an item for 10 days and doesn’t communicate with the buyer about the delay, that deserves a negative. If i am owed a refund and they just don’t do it for a week or so, that deserves a negative. There are also the options of leaving no feedback or leaving a nuetral {rather than a negative} if you feel an error was made but handled promptly and professionally.
I repeat, it’s a judgement call, but after years in retail I judge by how an error is handled, becasue I know they are inevitable.
You’re right, expecting people , sellers and buyers to be decent to each other is way over the top.
See, I never said I didn’t see it as my problem. In fact I was willing and ready to deal with the problem promptly and efficiently by paying for return shipping and doing a full refund., so take your misrepresentation of my attitude and jam it, deep and hard K?
right ebay sellers should never take a day off, because that is too much to ask.
Can you point out a few online businesses that promise to answer emails in less than 24 hours? That’s how I answered this one.
Do you think it’s reasonable for someone emailing a problem to at least wait till the end of what is widely accpeted as a BUSINESS DAY for a response?
Apprarently you’re the same kind of unrealistic asshole as my buyer was. If you shop on ebay give me your buyer ID now so I can block you as asshole buyer prevention.
You have expectations as a consumer that I think are unreasonable, personally. I don’t run an eBay store or sell anything online, but I do buy lots of stuff. It would never occur to me to expect a response outside of normal market hours, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. And, even then, I would give the retailer at least 24 hours to respond.
Her expectations are common, and increasingly common as each year passes among online consumers I find. As I said before people either don’t understand or don’t care.
That’s just crazy. If a large company that can afford to hire thousands of people doesn’t answer emails 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week, how the hell can any reasonable person expect a single eBay seller to be on call non-stop?
This wasn’t with ebay but I had someone ask what took so long for you to reply when they sent their inquiry ten minutes before, also had a inquirer post on a board asking if I took a long time to answer emails and then they said they did realize it was one am where I was but still answer! :rolleyes:
Note that both of these were just inquiries not current customers. My theory is that it is related to blackberries and iphones etc, these people have a tiny pocket computer that alerts them to a email 24/7 so they expect everyone else to also have one.
Gee Kimmy, I couldn’t help but notice you avoided my direct questions and quoted something that had fuck all to do with ebay.
Yes, the absolute ideal would be to check your emails every hour of every day. Any fucking clue as to how many small businesses, ebay , power seller or otherwise actually do that? Any idea of what rational interenet customers actually expect?
No? I didn’t think so. Go back and read my insults to you again. You deserve them.
Which is certainly a reasonable expectation and I responded first thing Monday morning which was before 24 hours had passed. I think as a consumer I might hope for a response by the end of the next business day , so if I sent it early AM of one day, I’d like to hear something back by close of business hours the following day, but I wouldn’t freak out if it took two days.
Seriously, does anyone expect their local store to have call forwarding and answer calls on Sunday when they’re not open? Of course not.
I understand that customers buying online can be worried that a problem is going to be a huge pain in the ass, which is why I respond qickly and assure them the problem will be solved ASAP, but it’s not magic. There are certain reasonable human limitations.
I’ve been surprised and frustrated at how little my local USPO gives a dam.
They left packages at my door even though I live in the first apartment on my floor. Everyone that goes by obviously walks by my door. I discovered the problem when a seller on ebay said the tracking number said delivered, and then I found an empty box with my name on it. They’ve delivered the wrong packages to me and delivered mine to the wrong place. As I said, I understand honest mistakes , but the casual , who cares attitude about thier screw ups was infuriaiting. They actually said, “well you never specifically asked us to not leave them at your door”
Well yeah, I though common sense would do that.
and , “you never complained about other packages missing”
Well that’s because when they don’t show up I contact the sender rather than you. Now I know better.
I get the defect rate bit and have already agreed it was a judgement call on that forst negative. Again, maybe because of my perspective from being in retail, as a consumer , when a problem arises I’m not happy, but I realisitically understand that these things happen and that’s how living and shopping is. I judge the seller by how they deal with the occasional and inevitable problem.
If they take good care of me that’s a good sign I can rely on thier customer service comittment and will do business with them again.
Make sense?
Gibbler is just being n antagonist (again). Please ignore him.
Yes, we know when you charge money for a product or service there shouldn’t be problems, but even if you spend every minute of every hour ensuring everything runs smoothly, there will still be be at least one problem at some point. I know Gibbs wants people to magically be able to avoid the inevitable, and in the event that the inevitable occurs (which it shouldn’t – ever!), you should be hooked up to a 24/7 complaint pager, but for everyone else in the universe, errors should be rare, bur when they do occur, corrections should immediate and hassle-free.
Well, he did give me a chance to vent just a little more.
I’ve heard all kinds of totally unrealistic babble like his over the years. It inevitably comes from people who have never done the job themselves and are clueless.
One of my favs is the gentlemen who’s keyboard slid off the back of thier truck and smashed on the raod. Then they brought it back and said,“We were told we could return this within X days”
No, it doesn’t. All these other power sellers are able to remain power sellers under the system as it currently stands without pleading for special accommodation.
You want the reputational advantages of the power seller designation (and to piggyback on the work of those other power sellers) without taking on the added obligations.
Makes perfect sense. That’s why I said your second guy was an asshole. If there’s a problem, I would expect the seller to make an effort to make it right. If they do over-and-above, I’ll give 'em a positive, despite the problem. But if I were a seller, I wouldn’t expect a positive, no matter what I did to make it right. A mistake is a mistake. So the first guy gets a pass on the negative. The second one, though, didn’t even give you a proper chance before laying on the negative. That’s dickish, and as I said in my previous post, you mentioned that he’s got an eBay business of his own, which makes me suspect he might have pulled that in order to sabotage his competition’s good rating.
