[Very] Long Vent: Terrible Customer Service at Voltaire

[Jealoushe]

Am I the only person who wants to see the hat?!?!?

I have to say, the OPs e-mail was rude and ranty, but honestly…this is NOTHING when you work in customer service. I have worked in the industry for 10 years and have been told to f myself I don’t know how many times…not to mention now that I work in Insurance I am constantly accused of “robbing” people blind, stealing, being in a cahoots with the government, so on and so forth.

If you can’t handle one ranting client over a hat they think is ugly, how will you handle a rider with an ill fitting saddle that has damaged their horses back (in their mind). This is the least of worries in the CS industry. Voltaire needs a thicker skin and PR management STAT.

[MsRidiculous]

I want a hat now too!

It’s sad to me that some think this kind of behavior is okay because it’s “nothing” compared to what other people say/do. It is never okay to act like a rude toddler having a temper tantrum, I don’t care how many other people do it. Sometimes situations do unfortunately come to that, but why wouldn’t you try the sane, normal, mature way first?

[dkcbr]

I want one (or two) of those hats to remind me of the value of being polite and not always assuming the worst in every single human transaction. :yes:

All this spew over a daggone baseball hat?! Priceless. :no::lol:

But 'twas an entertaining thread. And no, I couldn’t resist reading the whole thing and posting on it.

[toady123]

“The customer is always right” is a pretty outdated customer service concept. However, treating a customer with a professional attitude never goes out of style. Every time you deal with a customer is a chance to get feedback about your products and services which can help you do better - what he should have said is “Sorry you didn’t like the hat - I’d like to know what you didn’t like about it so we can consider that in the future. In the meantime I will refund your money.”

This way you have collected some market research, done damage control and at the end of the day politely dismissed someone who will likely not be a customer again (hence not worth the extra drama that will ultimately only damage your reputation).

I agree that CSR should not have to deal with really cranky people - respect is a two way street. But they should have the skills to politely disengage.

[Thoroughbred1201]

Interesting on many fronts. Customers are difficult. Anybody in retail will tell you that.

But honestly? The running commentary for years as custom saddles have become vogue, is how unpleasent saddle reps/companies are. I’m sure some people have had great experiences, but frankly, most of my friends have not. They are looked down on, etc. And they are the ones spending several thousands! Me? Never bought a custom saddle, so don’t know. And from what I heard about the companies, probably won’t ever.

So does the response from the saddle company surprise me? Not particularly. “The customer is always right” may be gone, but treating badly behaving customers with respect isn’t. Kill 'em with kindness gots a lot farther to keep business.

[AffirmedHope]

Acting the same way as the rude customer, is never okay either. Both parties were at fault here.

[horsepoor]

My quick read leaves me thinking that Claude learned a valuable lesson from this, while the OP learned nothing. I hope he doesn’t get fired as I do think he will be a better rep after this little encounter, where the OP will be the exact same customer…or worse.

[Thoroughbred1201]

Also, a quick thought - clearly the rep didn’t expect the customer to go ‘public’ with this. The world is a smaller place these days, and bad behavior that would have gone unnoticed expcept the by receipiant years ago, today will be seen by thousands of prospective customers on a major forum board.

Let that be a lesson to any customer rep. You may be ‘right’ in your response to a nasty customer, and it may feel great at the time, but is it more important to be ‘right’ and lose your reputation and customers by your nasty reponse to the nasty customer, or be ‘wrong’, but professional, take the high road and keep your reputation.

In accounting, this used to be called ‘Goodwill’ on the balance sheet, and was considered an intangible asset.

[WillowB]

You do not handle angry/irrate customers with an emotional response back!! Rookie/beginner mistake.

I think you should apologize apologize apologize and offer a solution. Business owners needs to swallow their pride. They could have easily turned OP back into a fan with their first reply back.

But then again, I rarely see good customer service anymore.

OP i’m on your side, and I have been at the other end of those angry emails or phone calls from customers.

[JSwan]

Dang - I hope that boyfriend minds his p’s and 's.

He better hope he doesn’t get the OP the wrong brand of chocolates on Valentine’s Day - the OP might smother him with a pillow.

Son, I hope she’s worth it.

[Alagirl]

[QUOTE=JSwan;7439808]
Dang - I hope that boyfriend minds his p’s and 's.

He better hope he doesn’t get the OP the wrong brand of chocolates on Valentine’s Day - the OP might smother him with a pillow.

Son, I hope she’s worth it.[/QUOTE]

A thought I have often, reading some posters’ contributions at times, but really not very material to the issue.

[Lady_Eboshi]

[QUOTE=anev;7438888]
:mad:
I should preface the following emails with a little background:

I believe if you treat customers with such disrespect you should have to “wear it” so-to-speak so I am publishing our correspondence here because I feel that if others want to purchase anything through Voltaire, even something so lowly as a baseball cap, they should be aware of the type of person may have to deal with in customer relations.

I have been coveting a Voltaire baseball cap since I saw one at Devon last spring but figured I would buy one come May when I go back to Devon. My boyfriend, being very sweet, decided to surprise me on Valentine’s Day with the cap. I love hats. I wear baseball caps at least once a day - taking the dog out, running errands, leaving the barn with hat hair, lazy days that I don’t feel like doing my hair, etc - so I have a small collection of them from all my favorite places and brands.

When the cap arrived at my house (boyfriend and I are long distance for the time being) and I opened the box was really disappointed. The shape of the hat was Elmer Fudd meets ironic Trucker hat and the color was a very different brown than the hat I saw at Devon. Most markedly, the adjustment at the back of the hat was their “signature” blue stripes on grosgrain ribbon which meant when I went to put it on my head, the adjustment slipped open and it was automatically too big.
Side note: There were TWO hats in the box instead of one.

I called Boyfriend so he could get his money back and we could return the hats. A little while later he called to tell me that he called Voltaire but got a machine so he would call back Monday.

I’ll admit that I wrote a less-than-friendly email to them that Sunday when I rediscovered the hats in my foyer and got reignited. That email read:
"Hi!

My boyfriend bought me one of your hats for Valentine’s Day - I had seen it at a horse show and thought it was very cute - but the hat(s) you shipped me are very poor quality and a very unattractive brown color. Also, I received two. I don’t know if the thought was to send two poor quality hats for the price of one good quality hat but I would expect a company whose reputation hinges on craftsmanship to pay attention to the quality of all its goods, not just the expensive ones. There was no receipt in the box nor return shipping label so I would like to know how to give these back to you.

Best,
A**"

I know, I know I’m an as*hole and should not have been so harsh but the message I received the following morning floored me. Again, the email read:

"Dear A*****,

Thank you for your very nice message, very pleasant at 10 pm on Sunday night. We appreciate it.
Generally, when a customer request a refund for a product, they can do it in a professional way, not by insulting us, our products and our reputation. You know, a sentence like this one would be more appreciated “I do not like the hats I received, How can I return them and get refunded, Thank you”

We have been successfully marketing and selling the same hat for four years and our customers love it. I can understand if you do not, but I cannot accept your insulting message just by respect for our employees. I am sorry.
If you do not like the color, this is our brand color and we never produced any other color. If you expected a yellow one or a green one, you had to buy from another brand. All our hats are the same Chocolate color.
You received two hats because our company is dedicated to customer service and we understood it was a Valentine’s gift. We wanted to be nice to you and offer you a second one for free for your boyfriend to match during Valentine’s day, but it looks like you do not appreciate anything.
I am sorry, I would love to receive two pieces from a company when I order only one.
So enclosed please a find a prepaid UPS label to ship back our products and when we receive them, we will issue a full refund to your credit card.

Thank you and have a beautiful day

–
C**** M***
Voltaire Design Inc."

Now, I realize my initial email was a bit harsh but my intention was to let this company know that the product this customer received was not up to par with expectations so they could either a.) lie and tell me they were addressing the quality issue or b.) actually address the quality issue. My big mouth had to send a reply but it was my last:

"Dear C****,

I apologize if you found my message insulting. Upon re-reading it, I do not see what was unprofessional about it but… to each their own. However, if this is the same hat that you have been marketing for four years than the hat I have seen in person must have been older. 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.

I, at no point in my message, insulted you as an individual, a company, or your reputation. I did, however, state my surprise at the poor quality of the hats considering what your business is. Quality. I do appreciate many, many things. Quality happens to be one of those things and had the merchandise been worth wearing I may have a different perspective towards your “gift” of customer service but, alas, I do not.
If this is the kind of email you send to your customers, you can count me out of that crowd.

As I’m sure you are well aware, your reputation as a company does teeter between terrible and terrific. As a young company, people like me are not good for business.

Best,
A*****"

At this point I was FURIOUS and am still more than a little upset by the way Voltaire handles its customers. Wasn’t part of the problem at Devoucoux, the sellier these employees left, the customer relations department, and the one of their aims to improve in that area because Devoucoux is so notorious? Well, it only got more insulting. Here are the final two emails that I received from Mr. Mode:

"Dear A*****,

The picture on our website and the one I sent you is the same hat. Chocolate with the embroidery logo.
I do not understand what you call poor quality for this hats, it is $20 and I have seen many thousand of hats for $35.00 or $50 from other companies that are the same.
Unfortunately, in the USA, there are no more factory that makes hats so all of them are made in China.
Our hats are fine, what do you mean by poor quality for this $20 hat.

I am sorry if you found my email a little bit too much but your message was not a regular message to ask for a refund. Poor quality, two piece of poor quality instead of one nice hat, unattractive brown color. Why not stay nice and just ask for a refund?

I am sending nice emails to all my customers, the ones who buy a saddle, as well as the ones who buy a jar of grease, I also stay nice with customers who do not like our products and ask for a refund. For me each customer is important and we try to offer a very good customer service as you can read everywhere on forums. You cannot satisfy everybody unfortunately so it happens that a customer ask for a refund. We issue the refund and we stay friends with them. Some customers got refunded last year and bought a saddle this year because they were very satisfied by our customer service. They do not send us a message regarding the poor quality of the product, of the color, of the customer service, etc…

I never said that people like you are not good for business but I said that you can ask for a refund in a nice way. life is better if we respect each other.

I bought a dress to my wife at Macy for Valentine’s day, she did not like it, she went to the store and ask for a refund, she did not tell them that the dress was a poor quality, the color was bad and their company bad.

So, I understood you do not like the poor quality of the $20 hat you received, you do not like the brown color and you will not be our customer anymore. Fine, I sent you a return label, I just refunded your boyfriend (enclosed please find the refund receipt) so let me know if there is something else I can do.

Thank you."

-and-

"Dear A*****,

This will be my last email to you as I do not want you or me to spend more time on this matter.
Please accept my apologies if you think that my first email was wrong. I am sorry again, I felt offended for my employees, for the company and I though it was not fair to read your first message this message. I can promise you that we make good products every day (except the hats according to you) every day in a nice factory in France, people are working hard and we do at the office to try to satisfy our customers.
So if you feel that I was wrong by responding to you, I want to apologize again to you.
If you want to keep the hats that I sent you, you can keep them also, I already refunded your boyfriend credit card first thing this morning.

At the end, I just want you to be happy.
Have a beautiful day"

It seems to me that the second-to-last email was written by a different author because the English is so broken but, as they are both signed by the same person, I must do nothing but assume they are all written by the same person.

I have so many issues with these emails I hardly know where to begin. 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. Clearly, I did no such thing. I do, however, have a few comments:

1. If you GOOGLE “American hat manufacturing” or any combination of words that reference hats being manufactured in the United States, there are at least a thousand hits. Do not tell me that there are no hat manufactures in the US and that all hats have to be made in China.
2. I do not care how much the hat cost. I have received hats for free that were better quality than these.
3. I have already addressed that I was telling the company about the poor quality of these hats because I knew they were not made in your French workshop and I would not be offending your craftsman. I was, possibly, insulting your company’s choice in hat manufacturer.
4. Hats are a walking advertisement for your company - Sell ugly hats and no one is going to pay you to promote your company. I find it very hard to believe that your customers “love” these hats. They are not flattering.
5. This isn’t about the hats. They are just hats, I don’t care what the price range is, they don’t matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. However, telling the customer they are wrong, being condescending and rude, and cursing on the telephone are completely inappropriate and unprofessional.

I will never buy a thing from Voltaire (yes, all based on a stupid hat) and I will encourage anyone I am affiliated with to find an alternative to any product of theirs.[/QUOTE]

Wasn’t the full moon LAST week???

[amastrike]

[QUOTE=horsepoor;7439792]
My quick read leaves me thinking that Claude learned a valuable lesson from this, while the OP learned nothing. I hope he doesn’t get fired as I do think he will be a better rep after this little encounter, where the OP will be the exact same customer…or worse.[/QUOTE]
Really? OP admitted she behaved badly. I think she did learn a thing or two from this.

[almighty.peanut]

In the end, the company did apologize and not only gave an immediate refund, but let the customer keep 2 hats (paying for only 1). Nevermind the emotional response, they not only swallowed pride, but swallowed a revenue loss to make things right.

I saw the owner as taking pride in his business and did take the insult personal, especially when the buyer wasn’t even sure this was the hat they saw. The owner was attacked for his product over the buyer’s own recollection. But yeah… CSR’s have to have a thick skin.

I think both were wrong, but in the end, I don’t know what the owner could have done better to make it right, aside from turning back time on the emails. How much more do these small business owners have to give to make somebody happy that had no intention of coming out of this happy to begin with? Knowing it wasn’t what they wanted. Both apologized and hopefully happy. This comment is more for those folks thinking the owner is still in the wrong after all this. Both are cleared of all wrong doing as far as this transaction goes now!

BUT! …I feel bad for the boyfriend… Even if I did not get the color quite right on something my wife liked, she wouldn’t tell me she’s returning a gift because she did not like the shade of color on the hat. Despicable and ungrateful from the gift standpoint. Wonder how often this type of thing happens where presents have to be sent back.

[Long_Spot]

I’d be horrified if my SO found out I’d behaved that way over what was intended to be a very thoughtful gift from him.

And my SO would also be horrified if I behaved that way. Ever. Even if it were over an actual real issue instead of a hat that I ended up not caring for once I actually got it in my hot little hand instead of seeing it on someone else’s head.

[AffirmedHope]

Oh dear, I was wondering how long it would take for people to bring out the accusations and assumptions regarding the OP’s personal life.

[Ruby2shoes]

Do I need to tell you people EVERYTHING??? Claude was OBVIOUSLY hurt and offended by his wife’s reaction to the dress he so lovingly picked out for her. He was not so much defending Voltaire but more his brother from another mother, OP’s boyfriend… Or more accurately, males in general. He’s fed up with the constant trying to please women and they’re never happy anyway… SHEESH it’s enough to make you go all “fruitbat” and “wad your panties”. DA#N WOMEN

[Horse_with_No_Name]

[QUOTE=anev;7439018]
Fine, I’m a cow. Had it been a saddle? Would I still be a cow? Would my “having a sad” been more deserved? I admit I was ripe but even had I told that man to go fondle his mother his response should never have been what it was. Good customer service means the customer is always right… even if it is just for the 5 seconds it takes you to write the email.[/QUOTE]

Why is it acceptable for you to send a rude, snippy email and expect him to take it lying down? The customer is not always right.

It’s a hat, a $20 hat. Talk about first world. Sheesh.

[FineAlready]

All this drama over a $20 hat that you received as a GIFT? Good grief. You know what I do when my husband goes out of his way to buy something for me that he thinks I will love, and then I end up not loving it? I say “thank you.” I don’t crank the volume all the way up to NINJA level crazy and start e-mailing customer service about how crappy their products are.

[Long_Spot]

[QUOTE=AffirmedHope;7439896]
Oh dear, I was wondering how long it would take for people to bring out the accusations and assumptions regarding the OP’s personal life.[/QUOTE]

I did neither. I stated how I would feel and how my SO would feel. I said nothing about the OP, her relationship, or her BF.

BTW, Ruby2shoes, you have a very plausible point there. :lol: