Pissing, Moaning, Complaining
and Whining …
And the Occasional Dead Rat!
Dear Business Builder,
Oh customers! You can’t live with them and you certainly can’t live without them. But boy do they whine … and not to mention piss and moan about everything.
Here’s the scenario … a green, fresh out of school marketer starts her very first corporate job. She’s just gotten through executing her very first marketing promotion … and the e-mails have just started hitting the inboxes.
Less then 5 minutes later, the marketer’s own inbox is flooded with messages from the customer service reps … the indignant harbingers of the frontline …
The order button’s NOT working … Mr. Johnson tried and it didn’t WORK!
The newbie starts to panic. She goes to the page and checks the order button and it’s working fine.
Mr. Smith would like to place an order, but says something’s wrong with the order form. CAN YOU CHECK IT AGAIN PLEASE?
Once again, she goes back to the page and places a test order and everything is fine.
Mrs. Pitts is furious. She wants to know how we got her e-mail address. She’s turning the matter over to her attorney.
And now the poor marketer is in full panic mode. Her first attempt at executing an e-mail promotion, and she’s getting her company sued. Well, that will surely mean a one way ticket out on the street.
And so it goes … dozens and dozens of customer complaints. By the end of the day, the new marketer has her desk packed and is ready to be unceremoniously escorted from the building.
If there’s one constant in any direct response business, it’s complaining customers. It’s the one thing that takes new marketers very much by surprise.
And quite frankly, Customer Service Reps don’t help the matter … often blowing things completely out of perspective.
Only a small percentage of marketing prospects will actually take the time to voice a complaint. But to a CSR that takes phone calls all day – a dozen calls in a row all complaining about virtually the same thing is a huge deal … even if that dozen calls equals less than 1/10th of 1 percent of the total number of people that actually received the marketing message.
It’s the CSR’s job to sound the horn … it’s the marketers job to put it into perspective.
Putting Complaints into Perspective
Customers were born to complain … and you should love that about them. Customer feedback is essential to improving your marketing efforts, because customers always see things differently than marketers.
Their complaints tell you that your order process is confusing or cumbersome …
They tell you that your pages load too slowly and they’re not willing to wait …
They tell you that they’re not quite comfortable ordering through your shopping cart and ask you, “Why the hell didn’t you include a phone number I could call?” …
They tell you they’d like to buy your product but they can’t afford it because their Aunt Sally got “the cancer” and they have to quit their job, buy a plane ticket and fly to Seattle to take care of her!
All good stuff! Improvements just waiting to be made …
Here’s an example I ran into just yesterday.
I just launched a lead generation campaign for a client of mine, and the leads and orders are starting to come in. My immediate goal is to determine exactly how much I can afford to pay for a lead. And approximately how much a new lead will spend on my client’s products within 90 days.
So I turned the project over to a programmer.
The programmer started writing a script that would pull the data I needed, and we were reviewing the initial reports. I noticed that several people had actually signed up to my lead file multiple times.
One guy actually signed-up 24 times!
I started thinking back to the day my lead gen campaign went live. I recalled there were several e-mails from our CSRs about people that were having trouble accessing the page … they desperately wanted the three bonus reports we were giving away and the flood of requests slowed our servers.
A light bulb went off. I realized my guy that had signed up 24 times wasn’t just an idiot. He was actually having trouble getting his request to go through. I suspect he was clicking the order button and the confirmation page wasn’t loading quickly enough … so he got impatient and abandoned. Not sure if his request made it through, he went back to the page over and over again entering his e-mail address each time. I also suspect the length of time it was taking for the auto-responder e-mail that contained the links to the bonus reports was excessively long … not helping the matter.
Technical problems had, in fact, been the cause of this customer’s strange behavior. So here’s what I did …
I added language to my sign-up page under the order button that said: Please click the button only once, the sign-up could take several seconds to complete. Your bonus reports will be delivered by e-mail and may take up to 30 minutes to arrive.
Then I checked with my programmer to see if there was any way we could speed up the e-mail delivery of the bonus reports. I also asked what we could do to increase our bandwidth to handle the extra traffic these types of campaigns were bringing in … not a bad problem to have, if I do say so myself.
By tuning into my customers’ complaints and behaviors, I was able to make changes that will set the customers’ expectations ahead of time and keep them from flooding my system with duplicate requests and inflating my numbers.
It pays to pay attention.
Dead Rats in the Mail
But I have to admit, some people are just nuts (or have way too much time on their hands) … and in my many long years in this business, I’ve come across quite a few. Here are a few of the most memorable …
There I was at my first job working for a direct response publisher … happily opening business reply envelopes and plucking out order forms … when I hit on a batch of envelopes that were a bit thicker than the rest. One by one, I pulled out pictures of naked women torn from a Hustler or some other XXX magazine … disparaging remarks scrawled across each one.
People love to have fun with business reply envelopes (BRE) simply because the cost of the return postage is paid by the mailer. I’ve seen people save up BRE’s and then send dozens of them back at the same time stuffed with the original direct mail pieces … all in an attempt to make them as heavy (and postage as expensive) as possible.
Then there are the amateur proof-readers of the world. I’ve received hundreds of direct mail and e-mail promotions back in the mail filled with red ink correcting proofing mistakes. And of course, these would-be proofers — the Simon Cowell’s of the DM world — don’t hesitate to tell us what pig-headed idiots we all are.
Or how about the time I sent a survey that included a dollar in the envelope. Several people actually stuffed the survey and the dollar in the BRE with messages like “You can’t bribe me” … “I don’t want your stinking dollar” … and “My time is worth way more than a dollar!” Folks, it was a gift!
But the most memorable is the time we received a folded up direct mail promotion wrapped around a dead rat that someone had stuffed into an envelope and mailed back to us. I only felt sorry for the rat.
Ahhhh … good times!
It’s the direct response backlash … all part and parcel to the bidness! What about you? Have you experienced the direct response backlash? Can you beat my rat story? Take a minute to share your wackiest experience on the blog.
Have a great weekend!
Until next week,
Julie McManus
Editor, In the ‘Net Trenches
THE TOTAL PACKAGE™
And Web Media Goddess
And Web Media Goddess
P.S. Are you in the ‘net trenches? Do you need help? Send
me an e-mail to AskJulie@MakepeaceTotalPackage.com and
I just might answer your question in an upcoming issue.
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11 Comments »
Join the Discussion!
Let us know what you think. Or ask us anything. Or offer your own sage advice.
The only rule: RESPECT THIS HOUSE! Postings that contain abusive language and/or personal attacks will be cheerfully VAPORIZED. One cross word and – POOF! – your well-thought-out post will be gone in a puff of smoke.
– Clayton
Comment by Margaret — March 14, 2008 @ 1:22 pm
The one about the rat would beat alot of bad things. It is sad that some people feel the need to take so much energy and time to think up such stupid stunts it just boggles the mind. I consider stuff like that pretty immature and ignorant. I do so hope that things have gotten better over the years since this happened.
The dollar bill I would have kept.
Comment by Jason — March 14, 2008 @ 1:33 pm
Thanks for raising my blood pressure, Julie. =)
…I don’t have a crazy story to tell you. I do this part-time and have a 7 to 3. BUT…
What I will say is that when I first started dealing with annoying customers who literally ruined my day, I realized lightning quickly that I like freelance copywriting more because you don’t have to hear all that bologna all day every day.
…And I stick to affiliate marketing and small lists…
I can only imagine what you big dog marketers go through each day. I feel sorry for you because dealing with customers su-u-u-cks.
All the best,
Jason
Comment by Laurie — March 14, 2008 @ 1:44 pm
Julie -I just have to ask… What the heck were you selling that prompted a dead rat? People (most, anyway) don’t just have those laying around to send to people.Laurie
Comment by John Scola — March 14, 2008 @ 1:49 pm
Julie! I see you found my pet rat, Alger!
OK! It just was a joke… Not very PC but damn funny!
When I first started in the info market biz, I used to feel real bad when I got negative responses from readers.
But then I realized that entrepreneurs are often the loneliest folks on earth. The road to the top is crowded with petty, jealous and obsessed people who are determined to knock you down.
I believe it when I hear that successful people mastered the art of thick skin.
John
P.S. Oh, BTW Julie… Alger likes peanut butter and mint jam on his graham crackers…
Comment by BRIAN DAVID DELANY STARR — March 14, 2008 @ 2:01 pm
WELL SUPERSTARS,
I’VE GOT A STORY FOR YOU, BUT IT ISN’T PARTICULARY FUNNY! BUT THE COPY WRITER GET’S THE LAST LAUGH…AND YOU KNOW WAHT THEY SAY…"HE WHO LAUGHS LAST…"
IT HAS TO DO WITH SELFLESS WHOLESOME MORALITY, AND A JOB WELL DONE, THAT ULTIMATELY MADE ONE MAN’S DREAMS COME TRUE!
I DON’T HAVE TIME TO WRITE THE SPECIFICS RIGHT THIS PARSEC, BUT MY FELLOW COMMANDOES, I SHALL DELIVER THIS MASTERPIECE IN THE VERY NEAR FUTURE! SO UNTIL THEN STARQUESTERS,
KEEP READING AND KEEP BELIEVEING…NEVER GIVE UP AND REMEMBER TO CHANNEL YOUR ENERGIES TOWARD FINITE FOCUS ON THE ULTIMATELY DESIRED POSITIVE ASPECTS OF YOUR DREAMS…HARNESS AND USE THE NEGATIVES TO CATAPULT YOUR DREAMS INTO ACTION…INTO REALITY!
SHALOM!
COMING SOON…THE REAL DEAL HOLYFIELD!
BRIAN DAVID DELANY STARR
Comment by John C. A. Manley — March 14, 2008 @ 2:26 pm
Had one lady write back to a client of mine (a doctor) saying that his emails where stressing her out. She was quite angry, because he didn’t give them all the information they needed. Only 90%. The 10% they had always had to pay for.
I had my client take a bottle of Vitamin B12 and mail it back to this customer (who was on file) with a prescription saying: "Vitamin b12. Helps calm the nerves. Take 2 30 minutes before reading my emails."
That won her back with an apology.
John
Comment by Irene — March 14, 2008 @ 2:31 pm
Now we know what caused the big guy’s Google rant. It was the rat in the mail. ;~)! Thanks for sharing. Irene
Comment by Greg Thompson — March 14, 2008 @ 5:13 pm
On one of my health websites, I’ve had people make death threats to me, e-mail me pretending to be doctors saying they’re just days away from filing a huge FDA lawsuit on me, e-mail me saying they had my address now and were going to stalk me, people who wrote to me demanding their money back when they hadn’t even purchased in the frist place, etc etc…
One guy even tried to get a refund on my product by falsifying a PayPal receipt he got from a pair of jeans on ebay!
I can remember very clearly how one death threat used the verbiage "I wish on you only the blackest of deaths"
I don’t get hardly any of these kinds of letters anymore, but back when I first started, it was brutal.
Comment by Bill Hibbler — March 15, 2008 @ 2:00 am
Great article, Julie! I’ve got some stories but can’t top the dead rat in the envelope.
I did a blog post a few days ago and got an angry email from a fairly new subscriber who said something like, "you’re a money hungry a$$, stop sending me your b.s." You’ve got to have a thick skin in this business so I just unsubscribed him and deleted the email.
Later, I thought about it. "Money hungry?" My ezine is Ecommerce Confidential. It’s all about tips on how to make money online. If you’re not ‘hungry for money’ why’d you subscribe?
The angry folks are, fortunately, far and few between. The one’s that seem confused are usually the ones that have a lesson for you as you’ve wisely pointed out here.
Good work!
Bill Hibbler
Comment by Sylvia — March 15, 2008 @ 1:29 pm
Oh dear. . . a dead rat! No I can’t top that!
But one of my products is a colon cleanse kit. . .they wouldn’t dare, WOULD THEY? ? ?
Comment by Dean Kennedy — March 22, 2008 @ 3:27 am
Wow, there’s no way I can top that one!! And I worked in political campaigning for 6 years (in Australia)… opened a lot of mail and the worst I ever got were a few angry comments! We had a brick through the window once, protestors in our office ranting and raving… but still nothing like a rat!
You’re SPOT ON though with your perspective on complaints, and how they’re often improvements-in-waiting … being tuned in is a great description, thanks for the article.