Good Warranty vs. Good Manners

JoeWayneRhea

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Apr 5, 2015
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I've been reading a LOT lately about airgun scope warranty's , or lack of warranty and thought I might add a little something to the conversation. 
Years ago I spent a week working a customer service line as part of my training and it was a Huge eye opener ..Imagine all day long hearing folks bitch and complain and jump down your throat over stuff you are not in the least bit responsible for .! It sucks Ass !! 
But I did learn one very good lesson , when I got a call from someone who was patient and courteous I did all I could for them . We were given quite a bit of leeway actually in how to handle a dissatisfied customer. 
Most folks are upset naturally to have a problem with an item they thought they could count on . 
BUT the folks who were courteous even though frustrated got the " Grey area " warranty work. The kind of stuff thats not spelled out exactly in their owners packet , but the kind of good PR things that could help out future sales 
We would say stuff like send it in and let us have a look at it . Which almost always meant that we would make it right unless it showed signs of Serious abuse on the owners part . 
But when a world class A-hole called and refused to calm down and became abusive or hateful we would use the written warranty to make SURE this jerk didn't get anything but a chapped ass . 
My supervisor at the time told me ....Joe some folks are just born to bitch and bellyache , and no matter what you do for them they will continue to bad mouth the company , So don't waste your time on them ....
In other words Screw Em .... If the warranty is out they are S.O.L.period . 
I have NEVER had anything but good luck when dealing with any scope makers warranty or customer service department . A little common courtesy for someone in a crummy job can go a long way ....I'm just saying :)
 
"JoeWayneRhea" I've been reading a LOT lately about airgun scope warranty's , or lack of warranty and thought I might add a little something to the conversation. 
Years ago I spent a week working a customer service line as part of my training and it was a Huge eye opener ..Imagine all day long hearing folks bitch and complain and jump down your throat over stuff you are not in the least bit responsible for .! It sucks Ass !! 
But I did learn one very good lesson , when I got a call from someone who was patient and courteous I did all I could for them . We were given quite a bit of leeway actually in how to handle a dissatisfied customer. 
Most folks are upset naturally to have a problem with an item they thought they could count on . 
BUT the folks who were courteous even though frustrated got the " Grey area " warranty work. The kind of stuff thats not spelled out exactly in their owners packet , but the kind of good PR things that could help out future sales 
We would say stuff like send it in and let us have a look at it . Which almost always meant that we would make it right unless it showed signs of Serious abuse on the owners part . 
But when a world class A-hole called and refused to calm down and became abusive or hateful we would use the written warranty to make SURE this jerk didn't get anything but a chapped ass . 
My supervisor at the time told me ....Joe some folks are just born to bitch and bellyache , and no matter what you do for them they will continue to bad mouth the company , So don't waste your time on them ....
In other words Screw Em .... If the warranty is out they are S.O.L.period . 
I have NEVER had anything but good luck when dealing with any scope makers warranty or customer service department . A little common courtesy for someone in a crummy job can go a long way ....I'm just saying :)




For many years my wife and I owned and operated a high quality internet battery sales for radio control cars and trucks. When it came to warranty concerns, we typically found there were three types of customer related product complaints:

1. A customer who was not sure why the battery failure occurred, but once we spoke with the person and explained the mechanics of the failure as related to use, they typically were understanding. If the person was pleasant on the phone, we would usually meet them half way on some type of warranty assistance, even though the product failure was not due to a manufactured defect.

2. The customer's tone was confrontational right from the get-go, and went down hill from there. No matter how nicely I tried to explain how the battery pack failed, they did not want to hear it and many times they became vulgar; even going so far as to make threats against the company name (online complaints) and sometimes personal threats. At that point, the conversation was over. 

3. A failure due to a true factory defect. But because of the factory testing and our final in-house testing just prior to shipping; true factory defects were exceptionally rare. In this case the customer received direct warranty product replacement.

But with all of this said, you are correct, some people are just going to complain and bad mouth.





 
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Used to work an IT Service Desk. Crap, if the Coffee was cold, they called us and complained. Hey, just because you stacked a foot of paper on each side of the case, blocked all the air vents and the thing started to smoke, it's MY FAULT?

​Had one incident where a rather difficult person wanted a new computer to run a spreadsheet. (Thid dates me, she had an original IBM PC, 4.77 mhz type machine). She wanted the brandy spanking new and brain dead 286, 'cause she'd heard it was faster! After getting bitched at for an hour, she headed off to the VP over our area and was just steaming. I got my boss on the horn and he got to the VP first. The VP shut the situation down, but you can bet she never got anyone to come over after that. I did find a "Math Coprocessor" to help her poor tired old 8086 machine along, but she went to the bottom of my list because I had much nicer people that needed help. I tried, but nothing would have fixed that situation.

​Yeah, be nice to the support people and help wherever you can. If you are frustrated, help them to understand why without taking it out on them.

​Another one comes to memory though. I used Comcast for years for Internet. After a year and a Half of dodgy service, and level one support being real little turds, I finally exploded and the little **** hung up on me. I probably deserved it but it made me extraordinarily angry. After the internet connection came back up, I got on Comcast's web site, got the name of the president of the company, and the mailing address and sent him a letter.

​I explained my frustration, and accepted responsibility for being really nasty and that I probably deserved to be hung up on. But then proceeded to explain how the frustrations of the past 18 months was impacting, not only me, but my entire neighborhood.

​About a week later, I got a call from line 2 support, they sent an engineer out to figure out what the problem was. Turns out it was a defective seal on a wire connector on a pole. every time it rained, it shorted out. All fixed, and he kicked off a bunch of people leaching services at the same time.

​Having said all that, be as nice as you can be, but there may come a time when ya just gotta get past Level 1 support and they are a stone wall. Do, however pick your battles carefully, no reason to burn the first person in line to help you. Don't do what I did and explode at some poor devil that is handicapped by his management