The customer is always right, an old saying goes.
While this might hold water in the retail service business with the customer physically standing in front of you, it means very little in electronic commerce.
Rudeness is not only unnecessary, but a deal breaker, as far as I’m concerned.
I’ve heard some horror stories relayed to me by domain brokers of Domain Name Sales, that made me shake my head; from customers cussing on the phone and hanging up with an “I’m busy” statement, to making threats about domains parked there.
There are several ways to treat such customers that insist on being rude.
- You can ignore their response and their requests completely. One does not have to put up with foul language, threats or other statements outside of a business transaction.
- You can respond, in a manner that lets them be aware of your intolerance of such responses. It might work some of the time, but most often it will add very little to extending the intended transaction.
- You can tell them that their behavior is douchy and let them simmer in it. Sometimes, guilt will settle in and they will apologize.
- You can go ballistic and tell them to sit and spin. Usually, this is the last resort, and it’s recommended for some repeat offenders that clearly need a taste of their own medicine.
- You can up the game one notch further and expose them publicly, especially when threats are involved. This is the equivalent of going thermonuclear on a global scale.
Whatever method you choose, keep in mind that escalation is the general approach that works best. While some responses are outright rude and insulting, sometimes there is an underlying communication issue.
If a transaction matters to you, exhaust all levels of escalated response, prior to pulling the plug.
I requested a price on a name at DNS and the response went into my spam folder and then a day later I get this email below. I removed the name of the rep so she would not get in trouble. So as you can see the rudeness goes both ways sometimes. By the way the $55,000 price tag on the domains was about 50k to much. It’s almost like they pull prices out of their ass to see what sticks.
Hi Todd,
Are you alive?
Regards,
Review & Respond Online
Warm regards,
Domain Name Specialist | DomainNameSales.com
O: 1-800-818-1828
D: 1-206-395-3525
todd – My post isn’t DNS-specific, but you make a valid point. Maybe they were trying to catch your attention. 😉
When dealing with a disgruntled person, usually we get an immediate apology or we never hear from them again after sending this simple statement:
“We try to maintain a level of respect and professionalism with all of those that we come into contact with. If you are unable or unwilling to do the same please do not contact us again.”
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Having dealt with numerous unsolicited telemarketer calls on my home phone in the past few days (despite my listing in the do-not-call lists), I am done with being polite with these sharks.
I grew up in a generation that was taught to be polite on the phone, even with sales people, but, geez, politeness doesn’t work — these spammers and scammers just keep calling.
Not only that, they are rude right out of the box and insult you when you ask them a simple question, such as “Who is calling, please?”
So when a salesperson calls, I have a bit of a ‘tude to begin with.
🙂
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Re Hi Todd, re you alive? That response from DNS brokers is only sent as a last resort to get a reply after the inquiring party has not responded to a series of very polite earlier emails in reply to the buyers initial contact about the price.
Sadly, lots of buyers are rude in not responding so the broker only sends that as a last ditch effort to communicate to get the domain sold. The fact is that response actually does frequently work in getting a reply which can be positive and probably not taken negatively like Todd felt it was. Personally I like that effort by the DNS brokers and don’t see it as necessarily being rude.
@David
Are you alive? is something you would say to your friend in freshmen class of high school that doesn’t want to talk to you because you said Hi to his girlfriend so you send him a written note saying “Are you alive” passed across a classroom of pimple ridden punks.
There are a thousand ways to do a last ditch email effort and that is not one of them. I am sure it gets very few responses. Just like mine.
Todd – Sounds as if you’re more upset by the price quoted, than anything else. Once again, this isn’t a DNS-specific topic.
Acro you mentioned DNS and I mentioned an example that was from a DNS broker. I was simply using this as an example because you had mentioned DNS. Honestly I could care less about the price there are thousands of names and that is just one of them. I just think it’s funny that someone thinks this type of email is everyday business and it’s clearly not. I would never send that response to someone and neither would anyone else. You don’t know who is on the other end and their circumstances. They could of just lost a loved one, have cancer, a parent dying, who knows so it’s in my opinion an improper response. It’s childish.
Todd – I think you’re a bit overly sensitive, again given the circumstances. By rude I mean being told (by the buyer) to F*** off, or that domain selling equates theft, or threaten you for simply owning the domain – all on an inquiry they initiated. I consider the “are you alive?” to be the equivalent of a Facebook ‘poke’: some people might get uncomfortable.
I am far from overly sensitive. Ask my wife. LOL
I agree with Todd. Poor choice of words in the DNS email and in some circumstances could be very inappropriate.
I understand that this article isn’t directed at domainnamesales.com or Frank Shilling but I have to comment about my experience with the rudeness of one of their brokers this past month (March 2015).
Normally I shy away from any name brokered by domainnamesales.com as any name they represent is normally overpriced. I did take an interest in a name that they brokered so I thought what the heck. Throughout the negotiations with one of their brokers, I was nothing but respectful and nice but once the broker realized that I wasn’t going to pay their crazy asking price, here’s the response I got from him:
“I thought about it, and you should really consider registering another website name at our partner registrar Uniregistry.com.
These are only ten dollars, but will grow in value like this one.”
What the heck? I still am amazed at the level of intelligence and rudeness that some people display. I would tell anyone to think twice about having any company represent a product that you’re selling when they have employees treat potential customers this way. The broker doesn’t realize that I would have paid a considerable amount for this domain, more than fair for what the name is, but not after a response like this. Unfortunate for the seller on this one since they have no idea that their broker killed any potential deal with this name, at least I don’t think they can see the negotiation process, but I could be wrong.
Mike – I actively sell domains via DNS so I have to disagree with you on the “overpriced” part. I would go as far as to say that other venues depend on volume sales and attract lower quality domains, hence the much lower selling prices. What you refer to as “crazy asking price” isn’t determined by your budget alone.
You seem to contradict yourself, with the statement that you “would have paid a considerable amount for this domain”. If you would have paid, you didn’t, and instead chose to call the asking price “crazy.”
That being said, the broker’s response should upset the seller of the domain more than the buyer, as it does interfere with the seller’s attempt to sell their asset at a nominal price.
The important part of my comment was the disrespectful comment made by the broker when I can only assume that he figured I wouldn’t cough up the price he wanted me to pay. Once he made that comment, that pretty much killed the negotiations for me on that name, which is negative for the seller.
Poor choice of words I my part. Considerable amount for me in respect to the full asking price of this name. Like I told him, just because I value a name differently doesn’t deserve a snide comment. I can only speak of this one particular broker but seems to be a trend from what I’ve read lately on the internet.
I’ve watched many of the domainsherpa videos and Frank Shilling seems to be a very nice and honest guy from the videos. But besides that, any communication that I’ve had with DNS has been negative. Because of this, I’ll most likely steer clear of Uniregistry for now.
Off topic but I like your captcha, feeding bread to the ant!
Mike – I don’t see how he was disrespectful, nor do I see any ulterior motive about you not “coughing up” more than what you wanted to pay. To put it simply, he promoted a similar service Uniregistry offers. Again, if I were the seller, I would be upset, but since you were the buyer, I see nothing wrong with the broker’s suggestion that you register that keyword in another gTLD.
Frank does not run the show directly, you can contact Jeffrey Gabriel, VP of sales for any questions or concerns you might have.
The statement “These are only ten dollars, but will grow in value like this one” is the main issue that I had. At the end of the day, each sentence is up for interpretation for the person reading it. Just like how you pointed out various things about my statements.
Unlike this broker, I tried to clarify what I actually meant. I’ve never received any response from him to clarify anything. This doesn’t insinuate one thing or the other, just not the way I would have handled it.
Just like I told him, it’s just a domain and there’s another one waiting around the corner!
Thanks for the back and forth, helps put things in perspective from another fellow domain investor!