[Very] Long Vent: Terrible Customer Service at Voltaire

[Alagirl]

[QUOTE=katarine;7439363]
Well, the OP got her pound of flesh.
I hope she’s finally happy.

Yes, Claude reacted unprofessionally. You bet. Absolutely

So maybe she’ll be delighted if they fire him. VICTORY!

She laid a trap.She was mad and dare say, offended by the mere existence of the poor hats.

A reasonable, rational, and decent human being would have a) considered that their boyfriend tried to please them with this gift. Instead she blew the entire thing out of proportion. I hope he learned his lesson.

A reasonable, rational, and decent human being would have emailed and asked about their return process, period.

A reasonable, rational, and decent human being would have put the whole thing in perspective and just said well, shoot- I guess they changed something, this is not what I expected. This is not a $4000 custom saddle. It’s a HAT. A BALLCAP.

So maybe the OP finally has her victory. Claude is sweating bullets over caring too much, being too close, and being offended on behalf of his employer. Yes, he messed up. But BOY she wanted a fight, and she got one. Congratulations, OP! You win this piss poor attitude game. How thrilling for you.[/QUOTE]

Laid a trap? :lol:
If you call this a trap and step into it, you deserve to get fired!
All the electrons bothered for nothing that could have been dealt with
a) an automated email response from CS agent ‘noreply’, thanking you for the email
b) a followup with, ‘oh, that’s bad, let me see what I can do for you’
Or, like Best Buy does, just ignore your complaint all together.

The customer is not always right, but never that wrong.

The personal commentary was uncalled for.

and the apology is half assed.

Dear Claude, you have single handedly exposed your company to a lot of bad press…we are talking in the tens of thousands of readers.
Granted, not all are customers, strive to be or could dream of affording your illustrious goods…but their opinion matters as well.

I hope the company has a different position for you, far away from the customer service desk, which is clearly not your forte!

FWIW:
The product was not as shown on display. In any other aspect of commerce, that would be a bait and switch. Not good.

Maybe the company did send out 2 for 1 of their made in China hats, but 2 of the wrong item are still wrong.

[Eventer55]

[QUOTE=Claude Mode;7439305]
Good morning everyone,

My name is Claude Mode and I am the one who sent the answers to our customer. I usually do not respond to any post as I think everybody has the right to say what they think about us (The good as well as the bad). I was not even registered to this forum until today.
I would like to say that this will be my first and last message as I do not want to go and go with this problem that for me was resolved on Monday. I just want to have the right to answer to something I am directly concerned.
I apologize in advance about my english that is not perfect.
I received an order for a hat from the boyfriend of this customer. I understood that this order was placed a few days before Valentine’s Day and I decided to send two hats instead of one to be nice to them so they can match this day.

I received an email last Sunday (you can read it, this is the first one) and I was chocked (you sent me poor quality hat, the brown color is unattractive, you sent me two poor quality hats instead of one nice…)
I am sorry, on my side I felt like I did everything wrong and I responded to this email the wrong way I admit.
I can understand a customer who does not like something and ask for a refund, I have no problem with that, but I felt bad this Sunday night, peoples who know me, know how I am dedicated to our customers, each of them, the one who is buying a jar of soap or the one who is buying 3 custom saddles the same day. I just could not accept all these words just to ask for a refund for a hat. We can respect each other even if we have a problem.
This is my personality, and I am sorry again about the messages I sent you.
I already apologized to you, I refunded your boyfriend credit card on Monday morning before getting the product back, I sent you a prepaid UPS Label to ship the hats back to us, I also proposed you to keep them for free.
What else do you want me to do? Please let me know.
I just want to say that I am speaking under my name today, not under Voltaire Design’s name. Nobody at Voltaire know what happened with this order and the entire story. they probably will now as you decided to post on this forum. I may get fired, but I cannot let you say that we have a bad customer service, just by respect for all our employees who are working hard every day.
I did a mistake, I apologized to you, it looks that it was not enough as you decided to go further and post on the Chronicle, so I apologize again in front of everyone.

Have a nice day

Claude Mode[/QUOTE]

Bonjour,

I hope you do not get fired as you have put yourself on the firing line by coming on here and kudos to you for doing this, life is a learning experience. Both parties can learn from this and your company will have a better employee. The OP could have handled this better, but again we all learn.

[GoForAGallop]

[QUOTE=Alagirl;7439418]

FWIW:
The product was not as shown on display. In any other aspect of commerce, that would be a bait and switch. Not good.

Maybe the company did send out 2 for 1 of their made in China hats, but 2 of the wrong item are still wrong.[/QUOTE]

We actually have no idea if the hats were “as represented”, seeing as OP did not post a photo of them.

It is entirely possible that she is mis-remembering the hat that she saw on someone else’s head over 8 months ago. I am guessing she did not go up and feel the hat on someone else’s head, to gauge quality, and color is all relative depending on lighting conditions and age…maybe that rich chocolate hat she saw at Devon was a few years old and sunbleached.

I know lots and lots of things look better on other people than they do on me.

Personally, I’m willing to give the company the benefit of the doubt, in that they didn’t ship out two sub-quality hats just to ruin the OP’s Valentine’s day.

[katarine]

[QUOTE=Alagirl;7439418]
Laid a trap? :lol:
.[/QUOTE]

She wanted a reaction, not a response.

me, I want one of these hats

[Halt_Near_X]

@Alagirl;7439418

The product was not as shown on display. In any other aspect of commerce, that would be a bait and switch. Not good.

Maybe the company did send out 2 for 1 of their made in China hats, but 2 of the wrong item are still wrong.[/QUOTE]

Actually, when it came down to it, the OP said:

[QUOTE=anev;7438888]Your website shows a hat that looks very similar to the hat I saw in person but the photograph on your website is so small it is possible I am mistaken.

So even the OP is not sure if the hat shown on the website is the same one she saw several years ago or not.

[analise]

Here’s my opinion from having read everything:

1. OP sent off an unnecessarily snippy email (but she did admit that, so telling her to ‘own it’ is a little much).
2. However, she did detail that the hat was not the same as the one she expected to get (the one she saw in person) and the quality was different. Not that the hat was low quality, period, as the CSR seemed to take it, but that it was not of the high quality of the hat she’d seen and was thus taken aback (to put it politely).
3. And she also stated that they’d sent the wrong number of hats (doesn’t matter if CSR included two hats to be nice, there was no note in the package to the effect of “sent you an extra hat! Happy Valentine’s Day!” so instead it looks like the company made a mistake. Not as bad of a mistake as sending less than you expect, but it does leave an impression that they can’t control their inventory).
4. CSR sent back an unnecessarily snippy response. Doesn’t matter what email you got from the customer, it’s not your job to “school” them on when they should have sent the email (which is ridiculous, the point of email is you can send it whenever you want) or on how they should have worded their email. CSR should have said, “I’m sorry for the trouble, here’s how you can return the product.” Period. This thread would never have gotten started if that had happened, I expect.
5. Did nobody notice where the OP stated that the CSR cursed while on the phone with her boyfriend? That is bad juju no matter what happened.

Boyfriend called me later in the afternoon to tell me he had spoken to the gentleman who had cursed at him and claimed I had insulted the quality of all of the company’s wares.

6. CSR apparently comes here (I’m always amazed at how quickly someone being mentioned in a post here [even if they aren’t mentioned by their full name] shows up to defend themselves. Do they just search for themself/their company every day? Did someone else see it and let them know? Just interesting.) and posts again a completely unnecessary post that doesn’t say anything his last two emails to the OP said. CSR has a right to defend himself, I suppose, but showing up with “wah wah, I might get fired because of this post” is pretty ridiculous. OP did not state his name, so by showing up here with it, he outed himself and that’s his fault. And if he didn’t want the danger of getting fired, he shouldn’t have acted unprofessionally. Again, doesn’t matter that what OP sent him was snippy, he didn’t have to respond the same. If a customer annoys you, that’s when you bitch to your coworkers offline, not in the email to the customer.

And yes, I have done customer service and I did treat every customer like they were appreciated, from those who were just walking through and checking things out (never know if they’ll come back later and buy something) to those who came back time and again and had spent many thousands of dollars to everyone in between. Even those who came in and scoffed at the prices and claimed they could do the same thing at home for cheaper.

No matter which way you slice it, the CSR acted unprofessionally and that reflects badly on his company and just like anyone else, OP is free to write a review about how she feels she was treated. It’s not the first time anyone’s come here to write a bad review about a company and I’m sure it won’t be the last. And we’re free to make our own opinions based off of what we see.

[betonbill]

Agreeing that both parties crossed the line a bit. The person I am sorry for is the boyfriend! He ordered what he thought was a nice Valentine gift, the company sent his and hers hats instead of one (a nice touch, which makes the hats $10 apiece). The girlfriend (OP) has a total meltdown–so how does the boyfriend feel after all of this? Why not just accept the hats and wear them as his and hers hats, even if you don’t love it. It was supposed to be a loving gift. Now it’s a fiasco that has crossed the Atlantic.

[GoForAGallop]

@analise;7439482

. OP did not state his name, so by showing up here with it, he outed himself and that’s his fault.

OP did post his full name, but then edited.

[NYCspaz]

I think if Voltaire had a US customer service rep none of this would have happened. MANNERS are very important in France - you get schooled every day, from wearing a hat to the dinner table, saying ‘bonjour’ when someone says ‘bonjour’ (I have literally seen fights break out over an unrequited hello), saying good-bye to everyone when you leave, thank you, etc. This is a cultural aspect that I find lacking the States, where the mentality seems to be “I give you money and you do what I want.” It’s quite normal for a stranger to school you on how to be civilized and I can see how the original email could be very offensive. Not saying either side is right or wrong, but it might be an interesting investigation in the Devoucoux customer service problem as well. Sunday is a NO WORK day, shops are closed, only a few restaurants open, so I can see how the CSR got offended but again, he didn’t need to check the emails that night, only at his own will.

When I worked at Bloomingdales the mantra was “Treat the customer as they wish to be treated.” I prefer this to “The customer is always right” (see: I give you money, do what I say and listen to all of my opinions on your company which you have surely put years of hardwork and sacrificed your family, finances, and retirement for). Similar to a bad Yelp review because someone doesn’t know that hummus is raw, a bad review can be WAY more damaging than what one expects.

As the French say, “C’est pas grave” (it’s not serious)

Did the OP ever consider that the hat might break in differently, or fade to a different color like the one she saw before? Many items take wear and tear to look so beautiful, just like a saddle…

I too feel the worst for the boyfriend.

[amastrike]

Yeah, the OP was rude, but the company’s response was unacceptable. The first response should have been “I’m sorry you’re dissatisfied and we would be happy to refund you. Could you describe what you disliked about the hats so we can determine if the hats you received were defective?” If the OP had replied in the same way as her first email, then I would understand the company’s response, but as it stands… no.

[trubandloki]

[QUOTE=cnvh;7439368]
My .02…

I think OP’s initial email was a bit snarky, but certainly nothing deserving the initial reply. Nice of Mr. Mode to come on here and attempt to address this issue, but I wonder if there are some cultural differences at play here? Because to be honest, if I had gotten that kind of response from a company, I would probably be blasting it around the internet as well… But maybe the standards of customer relations are different across the pond than they are here.

For a minute, imagine if SmartPak had sent that reply to a customer complaint… The CotH servers would probably explode. :lol:[/QUOTE]

This is my take on it too.

I truly did not read the OP’s original email as near as snarky as some people are taking it. Wow.

If I received a box with two of something I ordered one of I would assume that they sent me the wrong order, not that they were sending me, a person they do not know, a valentine’s day gift. I am not sure why the OP was supposed to assume that it was anything other than a mistake.

I do not think the customer is always right. I do think the professional should always act professional. Which means the responses by this company were way out of line.

[Blondie22]

I am with the OP on this one. I don’t feel like her original email was snarky…and even if it was, Claude’s response was HIGHLY inappropriate.

I do think that the customer is always right and deserves to be handled respectfully.

[Abbie.S]

[QUOTE=NYCspaz;7439513]
I think if Voltaire had a US customer service rep none of this would have happened. MANNERS are very important in France - you get schooled every day, from wearing a hat to the dinner table, saying ‘bonjour’ when someone says ‘bonjour’ (I have literally seen fights break out over an unrequited hello), saying good-bye to everyone when you leave, thank you, etc. This is a cultural aspect that I find lacking the States, where the mentality seems to be “I give you money and you do what I want.” It’s quite normal for a stranger to school you on how to be civilized and I can see how the original email could be very offensive. Not saying either side is right or wrong, but it might be an interesting investigation in the Devoucoux customer service problem as well. Sunday is a NO WORK day, shops are closed, only a few restaurants open, so I can see how the CSR got offended but again, he didn’t need to check the emails that night, only at his own will.

When I worked at Bloomingdales the mantra was “Treat the customer as they wish to be treated.” I prefer this to “The customer is always right” (see: I give you money, do what I say and listen to all of my opinions on your company which you have surely put years of hardwork and sacrificed your family, finances, and retirement for). Similar to a bad Yelp review because someone doesn’t know that hummus is raw, a bad review can be WAY more damaging than what one expects.

As the French say, “C’est pas grave” (it’s not serious)

Did the OP ever consider that the hat might break in differently, or fade to a different color like the one she saw before? Many items take wear and tear to look so beautiful, just like a saddle…

I too feel the worst for the boyfriend.[/QUOTE]

This. Nailed it.

As someone who speaks fluent French and who has been to France several times, both for pleasure and for academics, this would have all been very different had this been an American versus a Frenchman.

There’s a reason that, in general, the French dislike Americans, and this is a good part of it. Huge sense of entitlement, no common courtesy, and a very different importance level places on everyday mannerisms and interactions. Something that is also hugely different is the sense of pride in one’s work. Your job, in French culture, is a vocation, not just a job. Waiters go to SCHOOL to learn the trade, and they get paid well for it. As a general rule, you are paid well for your work and there’s a higher satisfaction rating with people’s jobs than in the United States. The French also have built-in vacations, as many as 6-10 weeks a year. I can’t think of ANY U.S job that gives that much vacation time. But it’s cultural, and it makes for a much happier work place there.

So I can see why the proud Frenchman was completely flabbergasted by the OP’s email to him. However, as an international company, he needs to get better versed in customer service in an international arena. The OP was a total snot with that first email, IMHO, but part of running a business is remaining professional at all times, even if it means short responses because, really, you want to reach through the phone or computer and smack the **** out of the customer.

The only person that may suffer, here, unfortunately, is V.

[Abbie.S]

@trubandloki;7439536

If I received a box with two of something I ordered one of I would assume that they sent me the wrong order, not that they were sending me, a person they do not know, a valentine’s day gift. I am not sure why the OP was supposed to assume that it was anything other than a mistake.

But the OP didn’t get upset because she received two hats. She was pissed because she assumed that the two poor quality hats, in her opinion, was supposed to equal one quality hat. Granted, there was no note or indication that is was intentional, but she took a kind gesture to a whole new level and threw it back in the company’s face.

Had she gotten two high quality hats, or at lease the hats she was expecting, something tells me she probably wouldn’t have complained about it.

[js]

Curiosity got the better of me so I looked at the hat on the web site. I see what the OP said about how it was shaped, I’m guessing the one that was originally seen at the show might have been reshaped by the wearer. Perhaps the cap sent to the OP was a newly made order and the color is different from the cap originally seen, likely the dye was slightly different when the caps were made. The picture is small with no option to enlarge the pic for a better look and there is no detail/description of the item, just a little picture with the price. A receipt with return options should have been provided even if it was a gift. The OP was just poorly worded reflecting their disappointment probably less with the product then with a Valentine’s gift that didn’t turn out as expected. The response by the Company rep was inappropriate and while he apologized, it will give potential future customers second thought.

No one is expected to roll over and take it; however, responding in tone doesn’t always work in your favor as a company. While it might have been justified, that doesn’t justify doing it if realize your words might be judged by how future customers view your customer service.

[MsRidiculous]

Seriously right now? It’s a $20 hat. Or two $10 hats, depending on how you look at it. Holy crap.

Sure the customer is always right when it comes to providing a satisfactory outcome, but that doesn’t mean you have to roll over and take it if you feel like someone is being unnecessarily rude. Why was it necessary to come out of the box swinging punches? He’s right, it would have been really easy to simply ask if they had a different version of the hat, and if not could you please get a refund and a return address. People spout vinegar and expect honey in return. Maybe if you were a little nicer you would have more success with how you were treated. Do unto others…

I too feel horribly bad for the poor boyfriend.

[mkevent]

I was in pharmaceutical sales for many years. You learn to deal with many different personality types in a business where you are not always appreciated. It can be difficult, but that is a large part of the job.

I’ve had people yell at me for things I had no control over. I had a doctor who was so nasty that I broke down and cried in his office. I was young at the time, so I didn’t have the coping skills I have now. You cannot change how people treat you. You can affect how you respond to them.

I’ve had times when I really wanted to give someone a piece of my mind. But my job was to always remain professional. You deal with the rude treatment. You analyze if you could have handled anything differently. You listen between the lines and try to find a solution to the problem. Sometimes you just are in the wrong place at the wrong time and you bear the brunt of someone else’s bad day. No one likes it, but it happens.

What I don’t understand is this is e-mail, people!!!

Both of the parties could have easily stepped away and thought about it before sending anything in writing that will be preserved forever for all to see. You aren’t dealing with a bully screaming within 2 inches of your face in front of a crowd of customers. You both had plenty of time to think about what and how you were going to say what needed to be said.

I do agree with the posters that pointed out about the cultural differences. The issue then becomes that you need a liaison who can span both cultures seamlessly.

I see this as a lesson for both parties.

[moodymaretoo]

[QUOTE=Claude Mode;7439305]
Good morning everyone,

My name is Claude Mode and I am the one who sent the answers to our customer. I usually do not respond to any post as I think everybody has the right to say what they think about us (The good as well as the bad). I was not even registered to this forum until today.
I would like to say that this will be my first and last message as I do not want to go and go with this problem that for me was resolved on Monday. I just want to have the right to answer to something I am directly concerned.
I apologize in advance about my english that is not perfect.
I received an order for a hat from the boyfriend of this customer. I understood that this order was placed a few days before Valentine’s Day and I decided to send two hats instead of one to be nice to them so they can match this day.

I received an email last Sunday (you can read it, this is the first one) and I was chocked (you sent me poor quality hat, the brown color is unattractive, you sent me two poor quality hats instead of one nice…)
I am sorry, on my side I felt like I did everything wrong and I responded to this email the wrong way I admit.
I can understand a customer who does not like something and ask for a refund, I have no problem with that, but I felt bad this Sunday night, peoples who know me, know how I am dedicated to our customers, each of them, the one who is buying a jar of soap or the one who is buying 3 custom saddles the same day. I just could not accept all these words just to ask for a refund for a hat. We can respect each other even if we have a problem.
This is my personality, and I am sorry again about the messages I sent you.
I already apologized to you, I refunded your boyfriend credit card on Monday morning before getting the product back, I sent you a prepaid UPS Label to ship the hats back to us, I also proposed you to keep them for free.
What else do you want me to do? Please let me know.
I just want to say that I am speaking under my name today, not under Voltaire Design’s name. Nobody at Voltaire know what happened with this order and the entire story. they probably will now as you decided to post on this forum. I may get fired, but I cannot let you say that we have a bad customer service, just by respect for all our employees who are working hard every day.
I did a mistake, I apologized to you, it looks that it was not enough as you decided to go further and post on the Chronicle, so I apologize again in front of everyone.

Have a nice day

Claude Mode[/QUOTE]

You rock Claude…
The op’s original attack… I can see both sides of it… but the wording op used was at least to me nasty, rude, and it’s a $20 hat fro christ’s sake… grow the hell up. I’m personaly so sick of customer being outright aholes to cs reps… I’ve witnessed enough of it in real life. You go dude… everyone should be free enough to have a little flight attendant moment now and then. a $20 hat being poor or good quality… if it rules your life that much… maybe you should think about things a bit… I am also anti valentine’s day personally but whatever… rude people suck. end of story.
Oh and the customer is NOT not not NOT always right. that is total bullsh. in fact… I just ordered a hat myself. can’t wait to get it.

[TheGoldenChild]

[QUOTE=analise;7439482]

6. CSR apparently comes here (I’m always amazed at how quickly someone being mentioned in a post here [even if they aren’t mentioned by their full name] shows up to defend themselves. Do they just search for themself/their company every day? Did someone else see it and let them know? Just interesting.) QUOTE]

To give you some insight on this, I work customer service for a small company in a niche sport market (not horse related) and yes the company has me check any of the big forums dealing with the sport our product is used in daily. People do also occasionally mention to me if they see something bad about our company written somewhere.

I would never be allowed to write a response publicly though, I would have to PM the person to try to solve the problem discreetly.

[almighty.peanut]

Long time lurker but never posted, so figured I would post here.

Wife read the initial email and responses and WOW! I’m glad I’m not a CSR. I used to do helpdesk years ago and hated it, I can’t imagine getting these types of emails from somebody who wasn’t even sure this was the right hat or not insult the quality.

To work in a CSR position, you HAVE to have a very thick skin. Being around the dreaded V-Day, they probably got all sorts of emails, most of the return emails were probably exactly like he said. The response, though personal, just shows the pride people take in their small businesses in this day and age, and even still give it a personal touch to not have an automated system respond to each email. Getting 2 hats even for the price of one? I’ll take that deal even if I don’t like them! Gift one or both for Christmas and even send a thank you, not an insulting email demanding a refund (and it WAS an insulting email).

I’m going to make it a point to order one of these hats myself after seeing this thread.