Don’t try to tell the customer what he wants. If you want to be smart, be smart in the shower. Then get out, go to work and serve the customer!
Gene Buckley, President, Sikorsky Aircraft
Today is Easter Sunday, but even if it weren’t, sending out eMails asking for positive ratings, yet not allowing the recipients to reply to those eMails, would be a bad idea anyway.
Which is what Globetrotter.de did.
Don’t get me wrong. I like(d) the company. I did buy my climbing gear from them, and so far, they were exemplary in their deliveries. There are some horror stories about shops who deliver faulty or “fixed” equipment, e.g., a rope for climbing consisting of two separate pieces of rope joined by some duct tape (no joke), but Globetrotter.de was never among those idiots.
They were a company I like to order from and trusted.
Until they send me an eMail asking me to provide some positive ratings, yet not allowing me to answer to that email:
The eMail they send:
Unser gewissenhaft ausgewähltes Sortiment liegt uns genauso am Herzen wie die Meinung unserer Kunden. Deshalb wollen wir wissen, was du denkst!
Du hast vor einiger Zeit bei uns im Shop eingekauft, haben sich deine Erwartungen erfüllt? Sag uns und anderen Kunden, was du vom Produkt hältst:
Artikel
[redacted]
Gib uns gerne auch eine Online-Shop Bewertung bei IDEALO oder TRUSTPILOT!
Roughly translated, they speak positively about the goods they offer and ask for a rating on two online rating platforms.
But if you reply to that eMail and ask them to remove you from that spam eMail list, the auto-reply (i.e., they did receive the message yet chose to ignore it) says:
Leider kannst Du auf diese Nachricht nicht antworten. Besuche uns gern online! In unseren FAQs findest Du bereits die Antworten auf die häufigsten Fragen und bei Bedarf auch unser Kontaktformular https://www.globetrotter.de/service/hilfe/
Roughly translated: you can’t answer to this message, but visit us online. Check the FAQs or use our help form.
Yeah, fuck that shit.
Who the fuck did think this was a good idea? Asking customers to rate their products (after waiting long enough to ensure they weren’t dissatisfied customers who send them back) and yet preventing them from replying.
Yeah, fuck that shit … again.
Frankly, Globetrotter was a good store, useful in providing me an overview of products I might be interested in. But in the future — while I may visit their store to check out products, I try to buy them directly from the manufacturer. Or if that isn’t possible, even from Amazon. At least they don’t do these crappy games. And only if I really can’t find an alternative in time, I might consider using Globetrotter. But against my better judgement.
And that’s how you lose (some) customers.
And yeah, I did leave ratings at idealo and trustpilot. Just perhaps not the kind of ratings Globetrotter wanted.
So, yeah, I’m cranky, I admit. But if you ever offer goods online, and fish for positive ratings, play the receiving side for a while, after a bad day. And imagine how your eMail might be received. After all, that store might be important for you, but for me, when I’m not using it to get something I want, it’s not something I want to be reminded of. And if you prevent me from being removed from that spam list … well, that idiot who came up with this idea deserves the reaction this evokes.
At least one lost customer and a huge fuck you.
So yeah, customers are flimsy. Be better than Globetrotter.
P.S.: One other thing. As far as I know, Globetrotter does not manufacture the products I did buy. They just collect and sell them. And while I might be very happy with the products I have bought, the question “Sag uns und anderen Kunden, was du vom Produkt hältst” (“tell us and other customers what you think about the product”) is rather misleading. The products are one thing. But Globetrotter is just a store I bought these products in. The links to the stores ask me to evaluate Globetrotter itself, not the (admittedly good products they have in store and which are available somewhere else as well). So yeah, this is rather misleading, mixing products with the story itself. So, third time’s the charm: Fuck you, Globetrotter.
And yeah … Globetrotter … not recommended.
First: Buy directly from the manufacturer. Second: Buy from a general store. Third: Yeah, if there is no other way, buy it from stores like those.
