When is a customer wrong?

Often we see a customer post a thread about how he or she was wronged by a vendor and in most cases the members will side with the customer. We don't have many complaints and when we do I try to resolve them to the customers satisfaction, even when they are wrong.
I wonder how far the expectation of vendors is going to go as some people are now making ridiculous requests and flipping out when we refuse. Case in point:
A customer says he bought a combo rad/fan package from Corvette Central and it didn't cool. His mechanic told him the fan was bad and replaced the electric fan with a different one and everything worked fine. In fact, he now tells me it over cools his motor but now he wants me to credit him for the cost of the radiator because he paid the mechanic over $800 to solve this problem.
The first problem I have with this is I cannot find anywhere in our system where this order actually exists. I checked our UPS records and we never sent this guy anything. He did not produce any sales documents to prove he even has this part. It makes me wonder if the policy of making people happy, no matter what, has become so nuts that poeple would ask for a refund for something they never bought?
The second problem I have is that he never sent anything back for warranty. If he or his mechanic had asked for a replacement fan, I would have sent one right away. They didn't do that. In fact, his mechanic told him he should have bought a becool instead. How do I know the mechanic even wired the fan correctly? Maybe he burned it up and now wants to cover his butt by blaming it on me. BTW, I don't make the fans, Spal does, so if the manufacturer is always at fault, why isn't he blaming Spal?
I understand Corvette people are fussy, I'm one of them. We demand good parts and good service but expectations of vendors has become ridiculous. No other businesses are run this way. Try going to Best Buy and tell them you bought a TV, bring no reciept or product, and tell them you want a refund. See what happens there. Oh, when you tell them you took it to a repair shop and someone fixed it and you want to recover your cost for the repair you'll be shown the door.
I tried to explain this to the customer but he didn't want to listen. Looking back at our emails, I even gave him my personal cell phone number when they were trouble shooting the problem and nobody ever called me. As a result, he posted a complaint on Ripoffs.com saying that we make poor quality stuff and bad customer service.

 

Unfortunately, when you sell products to enough people, you will eventually get to one of these types.

I bought a radiator from you and I'm very happy with the purchase!

Gerry

 

Tom,

Your reputation speaks for itself. It carries much more weight than some nut case.

Keep your chin up. The corvette community is lucky to have you as a member.

Larry

 

Tom - I agree with you 100%. The most tell tailing sign that someone doesn't know what he's talking about is when they start the conversations with "My Mechanic told me" If the person doesn't have the knowledge of something he's relying on what the other person says "His Mechanic" (like it's his personal employee, no one else) and for every good mechanic out there, there are probably 10 others who are winging it and don't really know what they are talking about.

Personally the way I would handle these things when they say "My Mechanic" would be to tell the person "Well I can't explain to you because you probably wouldn't understand, so have your mechanic call me to discuss the situation" If you present it this way in the first place the person can't keep coming back to bug you. If he does call again don't say anything except "I told you to have your mechanic call to discuss this with me."

 

Ask the guy for pictures and the old fan back. I would bet
he won't produce them. Also ask for a receipt from the mechanic.
Which he probably won't have either.Why didn't he contact you
to replace the fan instead of going to a mechanic. He sounds
like a scammer to me.

Shemp

 

Tom,

You have one of the best reputations in the industry. You can only do what is right....and fair to you and to you customers. As a satisfied customer who ask several question when I made my purchase...and talked to you at a couple of shows...you and your company have more than met my expectations. One bad apple does not spoil the batch..I can not believe where some people come from. I would say just move on and forget about it. Only you would even care. People who drive vettes....if they are into them at all know you and your products.

Dave62 (another happy customer)

 

Tom,

I completely understand your frustration. In this situation it seems you can't win.

I personally like to do business with firms which have a customer service oriented philosophy. If too many of those customers are unreasonable or fraudulent in exploiting that philosophy, it will change for the rest of us, and that bothers me.

 

Tom your products are great, in particular you radiators of which I have one in my '67 and am completely satisfied. Demand proof on his part. If he can't produce any documentation, send him packing.
Remember this guy's name, put it on your list; you know the list I'm talking about. Ignore his crying etc. and complaing, send him back to his "mechanic". Dennis

 

My mechanic told me to buy a DeWitts radiator if mine started to go bad.

 

Tom,
Sadly, we find people like this everywhere, in our "hobby" many of the type of customers have changed. I have used dozens of your products purchased thru other vendors and have never had a problem with one of them. I am personally aware of one instance where my customer bought a car from someone who had just installed one of your 100% reproduction dated 63 radiators. After the new owner put a few miles on it, it developed a leak at the lower neck. I suspect it was probably cracked by a heavy handed hose installer as in my experience that is a very strong joint. Anyway, the owner called you and explained he had just purchased the car and had one of your new products in it and it leaked. He had no documentation of its purchase or the purchase date.

You asked him to return it to you and you would look at it, the day you recieved it, you shipped out a replacement without hesitation at no charge to a "cold" call. Needless to say thats an expensive item also! And the shipping is not cheap either.

You absorbed it all to make a customer happy.

I consider that impessive and the quality you offer combined with that type of service will always far outweigh the one negative.

There are plenty of us who appreciate this and the fact that we are able to purchase these fine products because of your efforts and investments in producing them

Forget that guy, from the sounds of him, he was the type you could never please anyway so fortunately you did not invest anything in him only to get slammed anyway.

 

Tom, This customer is not wrong.

He is crazy! I have had a few of these myself and you will never appease these people without damaging your business and the respect of your employees.

Unfortunately the internet makes it too easy for "purchasers" to throw their tantrums in public, permanently. And every response you make to defend your firm will just cause another public outbreak by that "purchaser".

Thats why all us satisfied "customers" need to push ourselves to help quality independent businesses by touting their satisfaction on the internet.

10000 challenging Power Tour miles later my 66 and I remain satisfied with your product and delivery. And I bought your product based on the positive feedback the members of this forum were kind enough to volunteer... keep your focus on those customers. steve

 

Tom, Unfortunately, there's no explaining some people these days. As I have always said, "You can't reason with stupid".

I have two of your radiators in my Vettes and have absolutely no complaints, whatsoever. You produce a high quality product and you have a return customer in Plano, Texas.

 

Tom, there are always going to be customers who feel cheated regardless of what you do. They really don't listen because their mind was already made up. All you can do is listen to them rant, explain your policy on returns and warranty. Maybe offer advise and understanding. This guy, like some or all of us, at one time or another got burned badly buy a vendor so our trust is not always there. If a vendor takes a defensive posture at the onset of the complaint, it will never get resolved. Vendors need to understand customers are not well informed and just feel they have spent good money for something that failed. It doesn't matter it wasn't your fault. It's all about both coming to an understanding of why and responsibility. You have always been very helpful and your product is well known. But stuff happens and people get upset that it happens and need to place blame/responsibility. Part of being a vendor is to understand that is going to happen. If you explained to your customer you will take care of him if he can just help you with the necessary information, you have done all you can do and if he posts bad feedback, it's history so go on to the next customer and help him.

 

You sell the best replacement, original Rads for Vettes on the Market. Your gear is legendary, Damn people have branded your name. Hey is that a Dewitts. Pretty impressive. With a BRAND NAME comes complaints. I am sure you know this by now.....

Cheers, oWEN

 

I just tell it like it is:

"I do not find any documentaion you bought anything from us, unless you can produce it, you must have bought someone elses product"

"I am sorry, I am not going to send you a replacement part free, how could you have waited over two years to open the box and discover it is supposedly not included, i pack every one of these personally,a nd I know that part was included".

" I am not going to reimburse you for your expense, you should have called us up to arrange a warranty replacement, not send me a bill for more than what you paid for the item new".

"This has obviously been taken apart and tampered with and put back together wrong which is what caused the failure, we do not warranty stuff that has been incorrectly reassembled, so it will cost you $$ to repair it"

I have no problem calling them on their BS, because some people are plain dishonest..

Doug?

 

I think you are worrying to much about this. I understand the "Rant" as it would **** off any vendor for someone to do this and expect something in return when he has nothing to produce to say he ever bought from you. If any of the other guys who work on these cars are like me, they don't pay any attention to sites like "Ripoffs.com", which incidentally I had never heard of before you wrote you message here. The important people are the ones that trully understand that sometimes things do go wrong, even with new parts and that usually most vendors are willing to work something out. Keep up the good customer service and this guys post on Ripoffs.com won't mean sh#t. JMT

 

With AZDoug. Tom, your reputation is stellar among us Corvette enthusiasts. After reading your story on this difficult situation you were brought into, with the customer having no documentation when he bought it or who he bought it from and you cannot locate the invoice in your ordering system, it's then time to tell the customer that he has no case for any type of reimbursement. IMHO, you have gone the "extra mile" with this customer. BTW, you have helped many members here on the CF over the years and have many friends that have your back. I worked in retail for many years and every now and then, a difficult customer would register a complaint. Nothing you could do would fix the problem. You could give them the company profits for the year and the keys to the business and that still wouldn't satisfy them. Never could figure out why some people become totally unreasonable.

Good luck and take care.

 

If you deal with enough people over time, you are bound to run into someone like this. Probably more now that the economy has tanked.

I call it the "Wal-Mart" mentality. I don't like it so you have to take it back and give me a refund. Doesn't matter that I have no bill, that I have used it for 2 weeks, that it is dirty, ripped, missing pieces....you have to take it back and give me a full refund.

That's the reality of doing business today. Same thing used to happen at Home Depot....when they first opened here in Canada they took anything and everything back. Eventually they saw how much they were losing, and changed their return policy.

Best idea for you is to tell the customer to have the mechanic call you.

I would stand my ground, not deal with this nut case anymore, and try to forget about it. Easier said than done but nothing to be gained from worrying about one unreasonable person.

Your reputation speaks for itself

 

In situations like this, it's not important if the customer is wrong or right. When you argue with an arsehole, you lose. All you should care about is your company's reputation.

The old fashioned way of dealing with warranty was to try to determine the cause of the failure in order to assign who was to pay. Better way is to use warranty as a simple sales tool. We will replace it if it fails for any reason within a specified time. No questions asked. That's very powerful.

You sell a high end product. Others sell cheaper radiators. Your waranty should be very important to you. I bought one of your radiators over another because of your warranty.

You don't want to (or probably care to) make this customer happy. You want him to go away. I don't know enough about this situation to offer an opinion on who is wrong or right. If it were me, I'd probably be inclined to refund his money if I could determine that he bought it from me. Where he can't, I'd probably be inclined not to.

 

I definitely understand that you want to please everyone. Sometimes you just can't. This sounds like one of those people that wants something for nothing. Complain until they've wore you down and then get everything for free.

The last thing you ever want is bad press. So the question becomes, "how much is it worth to keep people from bashing you?"

It's sad, but some people pray on the vendors just for the challenge of it.

Keep your chin up. You have a great reputation.