SydLexia.com - The Forums :: View topic - Customer Service Email Turns Into Nightmare for PR Company

Posted: Dec 28 2011 01:18 am

so i found this on 1up.com
http://www.1up.com/news/ocean-marketing-penny-arcade-customer-service

Quote:

In business, it's probably safe to universally say that treating your customers right is important. When they pay for a product or service, they expect to get what they paid for; if something goes wrong, they expect to be able to get reasonable answers. In other words, they expect the exact opposite of what Ocean Marketing has done in handling a complaint.

As revealed in an email thread posted on Penny Arcade today, a customer named Dave placed an order for two PS3 Avenger controllers (pictured above) -- essentially a modified controller that would allow for disabled gamers to use the system's triggers. Despite being charged the entire amount upfront in early November, the "early December" release date came and went with Dave receiving no word on when the controllers would ship. After receiving a cryptic reply from Ocean Marketing's Paul Christoforo which simply read "Dec 17," Dave traded emails with the increasingly rude and unhelpful Christoforo.

Among the emails Christoforo sent is one where he states, "They are in the USA now in customs so its wither before or after Christmas." How is this useful to a customer (who more than likely has no idea how customs works)? That doesn't seem to matter, apparently.

Christoforo became more and more hostile towards the understandably-frustrated Dave, suggesting Dave wouldn't be upset with Epic Games or Activision if a game were delayed. He also suggested Dave put on his "big boy hat and wait it out like everyone else" and threatened to cancel his or anyone else's order that cancels their pre-order in order to take advantage of a brand-new $10 off deal being offered.

The entire email thread is worth taking the time to read, as at one point Dave loops in several gaming websites and the guys from Penny Arcade. Seeing how Dave was being treated -- Christoforo talks about how he knows people from IGN, Kotaku, and so on, and claims no one will care about his complaints ("You just got told bitch," he noted) -- Mike Krahulik chimed in. Krahulik is better known to Penny Arcade readers as Gabe, a fact which Christoforo seemed to initially be unaware of.

theres more at the link, but the real content is at the penny arcade website here:
http://penny-arcade.com/resources/just-wow1.html

that really has to be the WORST customer service i have ever heard of. even that AOL disconnection call was nowhere near as bad as this one. this, is just, ridiculous.

Posted: Dec 28 2011 01:53 am

Sweet Jesus! This paul guy is the biggest douche I've ever heard of. When I think of him I picture a five foot, 120 pound teenager with his straight billed red sox cap turned sideways and his pants halfway down his legs.

Edit: I like how when he realizes this will seriously be posted on PA he starts to back down but then he's told to shut up and he gets tough again. "It's not about what you know, it's who you know and i knows EVERYBODY!

Posted: Dec 28 2011 02:19 am

The update posted on Penny Arcade here follows up on what went down. Apparently the guy has been spammed to hell and back by penny arcade readers. He says he was unaware that Mike actually ran PAX (lol what you thought he was just a liar? isn't this information pretty easy to verify?). But I like what Mike had to say about it all:

Quote:

I think there is a big difference between being sorry and being sorry you got caught. I have a real problem with bullies. I spent my childhood moving from school to school and I got made fun of everyplace I landed. I feel like Paul is a bully and maybe that’s why I have no sympathy here. Someday every bully meets and even bigger bully and maybe that’s me in this case. It’s the same thing that happened with Jack Thompson. It might not always make the most business sense and it is a policy that has caused us some legal problems, but I really don’t give a shit about that. When these assholes threaten me or Penny Arcade I just laugh. I will personally burn everything I’ve made to the fucking ground if I think I can catch them in the flames.

This Paul Christoforo has zero business working in PR. If your first move is to mock customers with a legitimate complaint then you should really consider rethinking your business strategy. It's a shame because those controllers look great for disabled kids.

Posted: Dec 28 2011 02:25 am

I find it hard to believe a 38-year-old man can type like that.

Also I hope Ocean Marketing sues this guy for the massive damage he's done to his company.

Posted: Dec 28 2011 01:53 pm

I'm on Paul's side in all of this. Disabled people can be very demanding and act like the have entitlement because they are disabled. Paul took the high ground and decided not to patronize a handicapped person by giving him false hope that his controllers would soon be shipped. How is that kind of treatment going to benefit someone who is at a disadvantage compared to the rest of us? Paul gave this guy a dose of reality in an effort to make him feel like a normal person in society and that is something that will serve him well for the rest of his life. If you ask me, Paul is a saint.

Posted: Dec 28 2011 02:30 pm

I can totally understand having a bad day and such, but this level of malarkey is unacceptable.

The-Excel wrote:

I find it hard to believe a 38-year-old man can type like that.

That fact was probably the funniest part of the whole exchange.

Posted: Dec 28 2011 03:58 pm

hahah Geico.

There's a bizarre interview posted on MSNBC here. Call me crazy but the guy isn't really apologizing. And why should it matter who he was talking to? "If I had known it was really the PAX guy I would've been nicer." Why? Doesn't everyone deserve some respect when you're speaking to them in a professional capacity, not just people with a lot of 'connections'?

Quote:

"He called me a bully, but he was being a bully ... especially when he emailed me out of the blue, saying 'That's f***ing s***ty, you're banned from PAX,' I was like 'Who the f*** are you? That's how you introduce yourself? ... I dont want to call him out, but he could have gone about that a totally different way, he could have said, 'Hey, I run the show, that email was a little unprofessional, if you don't do something to apologize I don't want you at my show.' But he just came at me and said, indirectly, 'Hey, f*** you, you're banned from PAX.' Is that what you'd call professional? I wouldn't."

I think you were the one that dispensed with professionalism first, dude.

Posted: Dec 28 2011 04:08 pm

I thought it was golden how they had no idea they actually were talking to the "PAX guy" even after Mike told him that he was and challenged them to look them up on Google. It only took an untold amount of e-mails to prove his point. Although it probably would have actually gone better if Mike inserted a Penny Arcade/PAX signature in his e-mails.

As for Mike being unprofessional, it's Paul's fault for not knowing that people who know about PAX tend to know about Penny Arcade. And when you're in any kind of argument, I don't even think it's possible to list a big number of connections and not sound threatening.

Posted: Dec 28 2011 04:16 pm

The whole interview is just absurd. He has not learned anything from this. The guy is an egotistical, self-absorbed douchebag who has no business working in PR.

The whole mess sucks because like I said the controller seems like it'd be great for disabled kids. The controller has apparently been flooded with hundreds of negative reviews on Amazon, which is really unfair. Hopefully the new PR company the controller maker picked up will help sort this mess out.

Joined: Apr 09 2008 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 3112

What could have been an easy victory feels almost Pyrrhic in a way. Instead of taking the high road, walking above the simple-minded rhetoric of Paul, and making this into a whole "Businesses and Marketing treat consumers like assholes these days" debate, a bunch of gamers just went online and threatened his wife and kids, and destroyed reviews on the controller (The one that everyone agrees is cool for people with disabilities) and companies. This will only serve to validate the ideas (at least in the eyes of average people) that we're a bunch of sheltered, violent morons.

The guy was an asshole. He treated a customer trying to buy controllers meant for disabled children like shit, and the e-mails he sent were laughably bad. And yes, it's even worse that he can't even acknowledge that he was in the wrong from the start. He never actively harassed or threatened physical violence towards Dave/his loved ones, or tried to take down Dave's company. It seems like Dave could have also called it quits, and contacted the marketing/production companies in other ways, reporting Paul in the first place.

Posted: Dec 28 2011 04:21 pm

Yeah, but that's what happens when you sick the internet on someone. Anonymity turns people into a doushebags

Posted: Dec 28 2011 04:21 pm

He still made PAX people look vicious by association. For that reason alone I would say banning him from PAX is acceptable on the grounds of libel.

Besides, Dave asked Mike to not ban Ocean from PAX because he still wanted the controller despite the poor service he got. If anyone is to blame, it's solely Ocean Marketing as a whole and Mike.

Posted: Dec 28 2011 04:21 pm

Greg the White wrote:

a bunch of gamers just went online and threatened his wife and kids

Yah guys, we don't need to be threatening Paul's wife. Paul apparently already has that one covered.

(Some people on the Penny Arcade forums tracked that one down.)

Joined: May 22 2008 Location: Goshen, VA Posts: 6544

Guy is asshole to stranger, internet neckbeards and white knights threaten his life and family.

Oh internet.

Wizard Joined: Jun 12 2009 Posts: 4209

joshwoodzy wrote:

Guy is asshole to stranger, internet neckbeards and white knights threaten his life and family.

Oh internet.

QFT

Posted: Dec 29 2011 01:29 am

It's all about whining to the right people. Do it wrong and those neckbeards and whiteknights will be trained on you.

Also, be nice to strangers.

Posted: Dec 29 2011 10:04 am

aika wrote:

Yah guys, we don't need to be threatening Paul's wife. Paul apparently already has that one covered.

That's not his wife. That's Catherine.

Posted: Dec 29 2011 11:01 am

aika wrote:

The whole interview is just absurd. He has not learned anything from this. The guy is an egotistical, self-absorbed douchebag who has no business working in PR.

Its just how Mike said in the PA post: "He isn't sorry he did it, he's sorry he was caught."

That guy Dave is apparently trying to clear the air and do some damage control for Paul but thats way too fucking late, Paul's professional career is over.

Posted: Dec 29 2011 05:56 pm

It turns out that maybe all this venom from the internet is slightly more justified. It's been going on for almost the entire year. The only difference is that Dave had the stones to alert a popular website about it.

Posted: Dec 29 2011 09:21 pm

The-Excel wrote:

It's all about whining to the right people. Do it wrong and those neckbeards and whiteknights will be trained on you.

Also, be nice to strangers.

I think some people make a mistake in vastly overestimating the importance of the internet and their supacool internet personas. The majority of people I interact with don't even own a computer, and if they do they don't use the internet for much more than facebook and watching videos. 99.9999% of the country won't give a shit about this triumphant victory even if they knew about it. The biggest internet outburst, Anonymous, is just a passing sideline news item.

And yet, whenever something like this occurs, some people spend days strutting about, crowing on how bad-ass they are and jacking off at the memory of their group hissy fit. It's pathetic mental masturbation. Nobody gives a shit about your internet adventures, because as much as loser shut-ins would like to believe otherwise, THEY DON'T MEAN SHIT IN THE REAL WORLD.

So they got this asshole fired, woo fucking hoo. The same thing could have been accomplished alone by the guy wronged, by going to his superior with documentation. Oh, and they found some dirt on him, COOL! I really give a shit about the guy now! You can find dirt on anyone if you want to. Anyone, that is, except for people the likes of Anonymous, because you have to actually go do real things in real life to generate said dirt.

Wizard Joined: Jun 12 2009 Posts: 4209

... Wow.

Posted: Dec 29 2011 10:23 pm

I'm sending a copy of that post to Penny Arcade, 1 Up and Kotaku. Laughing

Posted: Dec 29 2011 10:25 pm

Btw, that was not an attack on anyone here nor an endorsement of the pr douchebags actions, more a commentary on a trend I see developing that just pisses me off with its wholly unjustified smugness and self-righteousness.

Posted: Dec 29 2011 10:29 pm

Bob Dylan`s Blues wrote:

I'm sending a copy of that post to Penny Arcade, 1 Up and Kotaku. Laughing

I loled. I live a real life internet free for the most part. I don't have to worry about things being NSFW, for example, because I don't sit at a desk to make a living.

Posted: Dec 29 2011 11:06 pm

Jack Slater wrote:

The-Excel wrote:

It's all about whining to the right people. Do it wrong and those neckbeards and whiteknights will be trained on you.

Also, be nice to strangers.

I think some people make a mistake in vastly overestimating the importance of the internet and their supacool internet personas. The majority of people I interact with don't even own a computer, and if they do they don't use the internet for much more than facebook and watching videos. 99.9999% of the country won't give a shit about this triumphant victory even if they knew about it. The biggest internet outburst, Anonymous, is just a passing sideline news item.

And yet, whenever something like this occurs, some people spend days strutting about, crowing on how bad-ass they are and jacking off at the memory of their group hissy fit. It's pathetic mental masturbation. Nobody gives a shit about your internet adventures, because as much as loser shut-ins would like to believe otherwise, THEY DON'T MEAN SHIT IN THE REAL WORLD.

So they got this asshole fired, woo fucking hoo. The same thing could have been accomplished alone by the guy wronged, by going to his superior with documentation. Oh, and they found some dirt on him, COOL! I really give a shit about the guy now! You can find dirt on anyone if you want to. Anyone, that is, except for people the likes of Anonymous, because you have to actually go do real things in real life to generate said dirt.

This is how I feel about activists. They think they have all the answers, but they keep telling them to the wrong people, i.e. me and others who don't care. Victories on a personal level are immensely satisfying as long as people are willing to listen. Just ask anyone who's participated in a letter-writing campaign.