Pull Off the E-mail Mask When Irritated

What do you think about this reply to a customer’s complaint about late delivery on a preorder?

     “When you preorder, the delivery date can get moved. If you ordered some video game before the final release, delivery might be delayed due to the tweaks and bugs not being worked out in time.
     “I’m sure you wouldn’t complain to GameStop if they held your cash in that case. So put on your big boy hat and wait it out like everybody else. No one is special.
     “Anyway, feel free to cancel your order. The items are backordered, so your two will be gone fast. Maybe I’ll keep them for myself and resell them at a premium price.”

     A response very much like that was made to a customer who had preordered two videogame controllers from N-Control and complained that the controllers hadn’t arrived when promised. According to a RetailCustomerExperience.com posting, the man giving that response to the customer was subsequently fired.
     Oh, yes. There are two important details of this tale I’ve intentionally left out so far:

• The toxic reply was made after a few cordial exchanges between the customer and the retailer’s complaint desk.
• The toxic reply was made in an e-mail message to the customer, not face-to-face.

     Toxic replies are more likely when the retailer forgets they’re dealing with a customer. I can imagine some retail employee saying to a child at home when off work, “So put on your big boy hat and wait it out like everybody else.” There are employees in retailing who carry into the store rude behavior from their outside lives.
     Making it worse in the N-Control case, when behind the mask of e-mail, we can too easily forget the rules of retailer-to-customer communication. Check yourself and train your staff to guard against it happening. It’s more likely when the retailer is irritated, as it appears was the case here. The exchanges before the toxic reply were polite. But the customer kept pushing. Anger management is a valuable skill for retail employees.
     The mask of e-mail can work to your benefit. Smaller retailers can make at least as big an impression as larger competitors. Just remember the power of the mask.
     One of the most frequently reproduced New Yorker cartoons shows a canine sitting before a computer screen, paw on keyboard. The Peter Steiner caption: “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”

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