I had no idea I had saved this story and thought is was lost in the last hack. I found it while rummaging about in my document folder. I sometimes refer to this story in my posts and figured I'd put it up.
As you will see, it's not something I would have tried to compose again from scratch, so I'm glad I found it.
__________________________________________________ __________
This happened over a couple of months. It contains some technical stuff, but is more about a customer's inflated sense of entitlement than about the technical stuff.
Background
We manufacture very specialized software. I can't say what it does because it would make it too easy for someone to find out where I work. One of its functions is to drive a specific sort of device which is manufactured by about 2 dozen competing companies. We do not manufacture the hardware, do not sell it and, do not make a dime from hardware sales.
We sell our software direct to the public and also through a network of resellers. Most of our resellers sell one or more brands of the hardware as well as our software.
Our software comes with a 90-day money back guarantee. It's very unusal for any software company to offer any kind of refund on opened software. Nevertheless, we feel that it's important for customers to be able to buy with confidence and not have to worry about it. Most find that they love the software and love he way we support it. Very few people return it. Even fewer try to return it after the 90 days, but it happens...
The Cast of Players
Me
Mark-our director of marketing and reseller liaison
Carl-our best tech support person and THE guy for hardware interface issues
Keith-the owner of our company
Bryan-a reseller
Bub, The Most Entitled Teacher in the Whole Wide World-a customer
Lou-a beleagered IT professional who works at the same school as Bub.
Hanna-our accountant
The Beginning
Our story begins with an email from Bryan, the reseller, to Mark. He told us that a customer, Bub, had emailed him and demanded a refund for "defective software." He wanted to know what to do.
Mark looked up the Bub in the database and saw that his school had purchased the software a year ago; the 90-day refund period was well past. His reply reminded Bryan of our refund policy, but also expressed concern that the customer wasn't satisfied and asked what specific problems Bub had reported.
Fortunately, Bub had sent Bryan an email about the "defects," and Bryan just forwarded the entire thing to us rather than try to play interpreter. I can't paste it wholesale here, but I will try to paraphrase the tone and content of the key section as best I can:
"I have tried numerous times to contact Awesome Software and they have ignored all of my emails and phone calls. I have finally had to revert to the prior version and expect a full refund of the $2500 I paid for the update I can't use."
This was a flat-out lie. We aren't perfect and mistakes can happen every now and then, but there is NO WAY IN HELL that we would systematically ignore a customer numerous times. Just. No. Way.
At this point, Mark realized that Keith, the owner, would need to be involved. But, as luck would have it, both Keith and Mark were going to be away from the office for a trade show, so I got to be the person who would communicate with the customer and the reseller and try to resolve it while they were absent.
I certainly wasn't going to take any action at all until I had collected every last bit of information about The School's transaction and their dealings with us. The more information I had, the easier it would be to prove Bub for the liar he was.
As you will see, it's not something I would have tried to compose again from scratch, so I'm glad I found it.
__________________________________________________ __________
This happened over a couple of months. It contains some technical stuff, but is more about a customer's inflated sense of entitlement than about the technical stuff.
Background
We manufacture very specialized software. I can't say what it does because it would make it too easy for someone to find out where I work. One of its functions is to drive a specific sort of device which is manufactured by about 2 dozen competing companies. We do not manufacture the hardware, do not sell it and, do not make a dime from hardware sales.
We sell our software direct to the public and also through a network of resellers. Most of our resellers sell one or more brands of the hardware as well as our software.
Our software comes with a 90-day money back guarantee. It's very unusal for any software company to offer any kind of refund on opened software. Nevertheless, we feel that it's important for customers to be able to buy with confidence and not have to worry about it. Most find that they love the software and love he way we support it. Very few people return it. Even fewer try to return it after the 90 days, but it happens...
The Cast of Players
Me
Mark-our director of marketing and reseller liaison
Carl-our best tech support person and THE guy for hardware interface issues
Keith-the owner of our company
Bryan-a reseller
Bub, The Most Entitled Teacher in the Whole Wide World-a customer
Lou-a beleagered IT professional who works at the same school as Bub.
Hanna-our accountant
The Beginning
Our story begins with an email from Bryan, the reseller, to Mark. He told us that a customer, Bub, had emailed him and demanded a refund for "defective software." He wanted to know what to do.
Mark looked up the Bub in the database and saw that his school had purchased the software a year ago; the 90-day refund period was well past. His reply reminded Bryan of our refund policy, but also expressed concern that the customer wasn't satisfied and asked what specific problems Bub had reported.
Fortunately, Bub had sent Bryan an email about the "defects," and Bryan just forwarded the entire thing to us rather than try to play interpreter. I can't paste it wholesale here, but I will try to paraphrase the tone and content of the key section as best I can:
"I have tried numerous times to contact Awesome Software and they have ignored all of my emails and phone calls. I have finally had to revert to the prior version and expect a full refund of the $2500 I paid for the update I can't use."
This was a flat-out lie. We aren't perfect and mistakes can happen every now and then, but there is NO WAY IN HELL that we would systematically ignore a customer numerous times. Just. No. Way.
At this point, Mark realized that Keith, the owner, would need to be involved. But, as luck would have it, both Keith and Mark were going to be away from the office for a trade show, so I got to be the person who would communicate with the customer and the reseller and try to resolve it while they were absent.
I certainly wasn't going to take any action at all until I had collected every last bit of information about The School's transaction and their dealings with us. The more information I had, the easier it would be to prove Bub for the liar he was.
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