When I had a streaming website, featuring only embedded videos, we decided to put a form so that people could tell us if something was wrong. 90% of it was garbage:
- gibberish
- insults
- useless comment either empty of content or context
- people asking us to fix things that weren't broken, or weren't broken on our site
We didn't ban them. Instead, we extracted each useful information out of it:
- adding missing informations to guide people on the site
- adding features to remove frustrations from people
- adding filters to remove fake email addresses (dns lookup on the domain name) so that we spent only time on those who are expecting an answer
The client is not always right. And I don't try to be nice to rude people. But that doesn't mean you can't use rude people to improve your business.
And clearly, if you can't stomach the stupidity and nastiness of humanity, don't sell to the average human. It's like getting angry at mosquitoes because they bite you, it's the most useless reaction ever. Worst, those particular mosquitoes give you money and you are not allowed to kill them.
So either do your job professionally or leave. Leaving is a very sane option IMO. There is not reason you should live this experience if you don't want to if you have the choice.
Any person working in an affordable bar, restaurant or shop knows that. Because they often don't have the choice.
> clearly, if you can't stomach the stupidity and nastiness of humanity, don't sell to the average human. It's like getting angry at mosquitoes because they bite you, it's the most useless reaction ever. Worst, those particular mosquitoes give you money and you are not allowed to kill them.
This is gold! ;-)
I sell a little object on Amazon; a person returned it with an angry message (non public) that explained that it didn't work, and while explaining it, clearly demonstrated that she didn't understand how to use it.
I wrote her back to say I was sorry of what had happened and that we would try to do a better job of showing how to use the object (which we did).
She didn't reply -- but bought 2 the week after...
> The client is not always right. And I don't try to be nice to rude people. But that doesn't mean you can't use rude people to improve your business.
You're right, the client isn't always "right", however, on a personal level, I'd recommend being nice, period. Outright extracting value out of the "rude" customer is part of the problem, at least in my opinion, as that frame of mind permeates throughout culture.
Maybe, if you were "nice", you'd influence that person (maybe they had a terrible day, not everyone is a troll) and then, not only would you gain value from their complaint(s), you'd have an additional customer for life (or at least for a more time than never).
Relationships are the backbone of sustained success.
Any person working in an affordable bar, restaurant or shop knows that. Because they often don't have the choice.
Working low-wage, unskilled customer service sucks, but offers important life lessons about the way other people conduct themselves, and your own options to conduct yourself in the face of behavior you don't like. The best thing about high-school jobs is they offer concentrated streams of some of the interaction types necessary to becoming a well-adjusted person.
You either learn to stick to principled action while other people's behavior roll off you like water off the proverbial duck, or grow up to be the kind of person that thinks societal tut-tutting of 13 year olds on twitter an important moral cause.
- gibberish - insults - useless comment either empty of content or context - people asking us to fix things that weren't broken, or weren't broken on our site
We didn't ban them. Instead, we extracted each useful information out of it:
- adding missing informations to guide people on the site - adding features to remove frustrations from people - adding filters to remove fake email addresses (dns lookup on the domain name) so that we spent only time on those who are expecting an answer
The client is not always right. And I don't try to be nice to rude people. But that doesn't mean you can't use rude people to improve your business.
And clearly, if you can't stomach the stupidity and nastiness of humanity, don't sell to the average human. It's like getting angry at mosquitoes because they bite you, it's the most useless reaction ever. Worst, those particular mosquitoes give you money and you are not allowed to kill them.
So either do your job professionally or leave. Leaving is a very sane option IMO. There is not reason you should live this experience if you don't want to if you have the choice.
Any person working in an affordable bar, restaurant or shop knows that. Because they often don't have the choice.