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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



Joined: 07 Mar 2009
Posts: 23667
PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 7:00 pm Reply with quote
No, I will sweat over it. I couldn't care less if you or anyone else would react differently than I would in my place. I like dealing with companies that understand good customer service. Their point allotment system clearly sucks ass since my points were not deducted even though I clicked the box to do so and then they refuse to make good on it. In my opinion, I did not get good customer service from AmiAmi. Ergo, I will never deal with them again.
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Mesonoxian Eve



Joined: 10 Jan 2012
Posts: 1858
PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 7:07 pm Reply with quote
Blood- wrote:
I'm merely pointing out that they had the option of doing something very simple: i.e. refunding 725 Yen to my Paypal account.

Are we really going to go over this again? They didn't put the policy in place to be facetious against their customers, Blood. Has it occurred to you that giving you a refund would be more costly than the action itself?

In case you're not aware, businesses are charged a fee for every transaction they do with Paypal. Yes, 725 Yen isn't anything to get upset over, but imagine if it was 725,000 Yen.

Considering Paypal's fees, which is currently 2.9% + .30 cents, what you see as a simple refund can be a significant loss to the business if more customers find themselves demanding refunds for invoices they're not reading.

Quote:
It's completely their choice whether they feel it is worth it or not.

Let's assume they did this for you, then what's to stop someone else from asking for the exception?

Quote:
Naturally, you will disagree because you have zero understanding of good customer service.

You can make snide comments all you want, but your entire argument is based on how you see it, and doesn't take into consideration the reason why the business has the policy in place.

I have no idea why you think you're in a position to receive special treatment, but it's ludicrous.

Quote:
Clearly, in your mind, it is more important to stubbornly stick to the letter of the law instead of honouring the spirit of good customer relations.

You're right, because to me, it's more important to focus on the customers who don't make stupid authorizations and ridiculous demands of refunds to risk jeopardizing the business they've been using two years without a problem.

Quote:
Sure glad TRSI thinks differently than you do.

No, you should be more thankful they have the ability to refund you money, at their loss, to placate your stupidity at authorizing a payment you clearly found no issue with when it was delivered to you.

Don't get so cocky as to think TRSI won't boot you from their store if you continue making ridiculous demands of them at their expense.

Because I can promise you: they'll show you to the door.

Any business would.

You can whine all you want over your predicament you caused yourself, but you're only showing us you're acting like a 5 year old who was just told "no" having asked for candy. I'm rather surprised you didn't top this discussion off with "I hate them!" It would have been fitting.

In my opinion, someone needs to spank you, and not in the way you'd enjoy it.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



Joined: 07 Mar 2009
Posts: 23667
PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 7:40 pm Reply with quote
Yeah, all those factors you mention are valid. That's why I say it is their choice whether they feel it is worth it or not. What is the point in carrying on this discussion? You have your view, I have mine. We are never going to agree.
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relentlessflame



Joined: 14 Dec 2004
Posts: 188
PostPosted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 3:56 am Reply with quote
By the way, I wanted to follow-up on the Amiami issue, because I think I figured out why the confusion happened.

The payment screen has a box where you can type the number of points you want to use, and next to that text box there's an "Update" button. The idea being that you type the number of points, click Update, and the invoice updates with the discount. Underneath those two UI elements, there's a checkbox that says "Use all available points: ". BUT what you're supposed to do is click that box and then click "Update". Basically, the checkbox there is just a "shortcut" so you don't actually have to type a number into the box. This was clear to me when I looked at the form, but I can understand why someone may not make the connection because the update button is next to the text box and not under the checkbox.

Basically, what they should do instead is have radio buttons like:

( ) Don't use points
( ) Use the following amount of points: ______________
( ) Use all available points

[ Apply Points to Invoice ]

(Even then someone may not remember to click the Apply button... but at least it's clearer what you need to do.)

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with the argument that already occurred about whether or not it's the customer's responsibility to look for this... but I also wanted to point out, in the interest of fairness, how this is a UI issue that isn't *wrong* but potentially confusing. I don't think any malice was intended by any means or that it was bugged or deliberately misleading (I'm sure it made total sense to the programmer the way it was set-up, and I too realized I should click Update in that case)... just there's a potential for confusion.

For anyone else who uses Amiami and wants to use that checkbox, be sure to click "Update" to see the change in the final price before continuing to submit payment.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



Joined: 07 Mar 2009
Posts: 23667
PostPosted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 4:26 am Reply with quote
@ relentlessflame - yep, that's exactly what happened. I think it's a lousy system - when you check the "use all available points" box, the natural inclination is to assume you don't then have to click something else. Again, if amiami actually had decent customer service they would have taken that into account but sadly they are staffed with people of M.E.'s ilk so good customer service is of course impossible.
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relentlessflame



Joined: 14 Dec 2004
Posts: 188
PostPosted: Wed Jan 02, 2013 5:34 am Reply with quote
Blood- wrote:
Again, if amiami actually had decent customer service they would have taken that into account but sadly they are staffed with people of M.E.'s ilk so good customer service is of course impossible.

I'm not going to regurgitate the earlier argument, but I do think it's quite possible that simply are not able to perform the action that you requested due to business process and accounting restrictions. But as I thought about it, the "failure" (such that it is) was that they didn't offer any alternative. If it were me, and if the business processes and accounting rules can allow it, I would have provided some sort of coupon or points to make up for the issue. That way you at least feel that they did something to make up for your trouble, even if they couldn't do what you really wanted (plus it encourages you to come back and order again). I'm not sure how the tone of the conversation with them went, and if you left the door open to other options (or if you were just insistent on the refund which they likely are not be able to do, as was very clearly stated in their terms). The language barrier can make these sorts of "negotiations" more difficult.

As a former boss used to say, "the customer is not always right, but they are still the customer".

(And for the rest of us, this is just "buyer beware" that all fees paid are, indeed, final.)
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



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PostPosted: Wed Jan 02, 2013 6:22 am Reply with quote
I don't buy the "business processes and accounting rules" thing. No one can tell me that if a company wanted to do so that it is physically impossible to refund a customer's Paypal account, regardless of "official policy."

It would have been a simple matter for them to look at how much I've spent at amiami over the last few years and think, "hmm, for 750 yen is it really worth losing this customer?" As I've said before it's not about the money - it's about the attitude. I can assure you my first few emails about the matter were quite polite. Even my final email, while curt, was not abusive. Even if they had attempted to offer something along the lines that you suggested, that would have been better.
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Polycell



Joined: 16 Jan 2012
Posts: 4623
PostPosted: Wed Jan 02, 2013 12:45 pm Reply with quote
I can tell you my company's certainly blocked customers over less. That said, "good" customer service is almost certainly impossible without fluent English speakers in their employ; judging by their reply to a "Will this order be split?" inquiry I made("We cannot combine items with different release dates"), they've got nothing but canned responses to work with. With that in mind, they could have easily judged that a satisfactory resolution to you was impossible with great cost to them and risked losing you to save the larger amount that would've been needed to upgrade their infrastructure(ie, add a new response - translators are expensive).
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



Joined: 07 Mar 2009
Posts: 23667
PostPosted: Wed Jan 02, 2013 1:04 pm Reply with quote
Polycell wrote:
I can tell you my company's certainly blocked customers over less.


Then you work for an utterly shit company. That's just effin' ridiculous.
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crosswithyou



Joined: 15 Dec 2007
Posts: 2892
Location: California
PostPosted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 9:42 pm Reply with quote
@Blood-

This is just my personal opinion, but I think you're being a little unfair on AmiAmi. (Sorry to suddenly jump into the discussion-- I was looking for the sales thread but it's Subscribers-only. Sad)

You were supposed to click the update button but didn't, and continued to checkout even though your order total displayed the full amount with any points applied. Yeah, I can imagine that you didn't realize you had to click the update button, but you should have been able to see that your points weren't being applied yet you still paid the amount. That said, I don't think it's fair of you to blame AmiAmi solely for this, and it's not unreasonable of them to decline your request for cash redemption of the points. I didn't read it but I'm sure it says somewhere in their points TOS that you can't redeem the points for cash.

It would've been nice if they could give you what you want, but just because they aren't able to it doesn't mean that they have bad customer service. (You were basically asking them to do something against their store policy.) Good customer service does not mean being able to get whatever you want all the time.

Just my two cents.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



Joined: 07 Mar 2009
Posts: 23667
PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 6:29 am Reply with quote
Yep, that's worth about two cents.

I don't dispute that I failed to see the Update button after I selected the "Use All Points" button. I don't dispute that I neglected to note that the 725 yen had not been deducted from my amount when I hit "Send Payment." I don't dispute that AmiAmi's official policy is not to retroactively award the points after the sale.

However, good customer service BY DEFINITION entails making sure you don't lose a customer who has spent a fair amount at your business over a trifling amount like 725 yen. You seem to think that them refunding me that amount would be some kind of huge deal. Well, what can I say? Please never go into business if that is your attitude.

AmiAmi took a lazy, bureaucratic approach to my request and have lost me for all time as a customer for it. I can't help but contrast that with Shawne K. at TRSI who has bent over backwards to make things right for me recently, including phoning me directly. TRSI has my loyalty and my business. THAT's good customer service.
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crosswithyou



Joined: 15 Dec 2007
Posts: 2892
Location: California
PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 8:16 am Reply with quote
You know, even though we don't agree on everything, I thought we at least had some kind of mutual respect.

You're obviously very biased on this issue as it was something you had the non-pleasure of experiencing first hand, but I could have been an ass and just bluntly said that you're wrong and everyone else thinks you're wrong too. I made a point to not sound like I was blaming you in my post, and was just merely saying that you probably shouldn't put this all on AmiAmi as, like you mentioned, this was an error on your part and not on their system as you had previously thought. I think your "Yep, that's worth about two cents" just because I'm not agreeing with you seems a bit immature because it sounds like you feel only comments or opinions that agree with you are worth anything.

Anyway, back to the discussion at hand, say you went to the grocery store and bought some canned food and had some coupons for them. You were going to buy them because you have coupons, but by the time you got to the register, you forgot to take them out and ended up paying full price. When you get to your car, you remembered about the coupons and how you wanted to use them. Do you think the grocery store is going to give you a refund for the value of the coupons if you went back? Probably not. Does that mean the grocery store has bad customer service? I don't think so. You bringing the coupons with you is like you checking the use points box on the website, and you forgetting to present the coupons to the cashier when paying is like you forgetting to click the update button. (I probably didn't need to write all that but what can I say, I like analogies.)

That said, AmiAmi has no obligation to give you a cash refund of your points. If you choose not to shop there because they didn't do something they weren't obligated to do and what started because of an issue on your end, not theirs, well, that's your choice and I'm sure you're going to stick to it. All I am saying is that I don't think it is fair of you to go around saying a perfectly reputable shop like AmiAmi has "bad customer service" because you didn't get what you want. To me it's sounding like you posted this experience here expecting people to agree with you but are now all pouty and irritable because no one does and they're saying things you don't want to hear.

I don't think AmiAmi refunding the 700 odd yen is a big deal, but you seem to since them not granting you that refund is your reason for not shopping with them anymore.

I do agree that TRSI does have some pretty crazy good customer service, but they're at the "extraordinary" level so you can't really keep that as your standard and expect every store to follow suit. AmiAmi did nothing wrong, and frankly, you're probably losing out more than they are since they probably have plenty of other customers who will continue buying whereas you're left shop hunting for a place that has comparable prices. But if you're moving on from collecting then I guess it doesn't really matter to you.

Well, I've said my piece and there's no point in taking this any further since you're not going to change your opinion anyway. Sorry you had a sour experience with AmiAmi.


Blood- wrote:
Yep, that's worth about two cents.

I don't dispute that I failed to see the Update button after I selected the "Use All Points" button. I don't dispute that I neglected to note that the 725 yen had not been deducted from my amount when I hit "Send Payment." I don't dispute that AmiAmi's official policy is not to retroactively award the points after the sale.

However, good customer service BY DEFINITION entails making sure you don't lose a customer who has spent a fair amount at your business over a trifling amount like 725 yen. You seem to think that them refunding me that amount would be some kind of huge deal. Well, what can I say? Please never go into business if that is your attitude.

AmiAmi took a lazy, bureaucratic approach to my request and have lost me for all time as a customer for it. I can't help but contrast that with Shawne K. at TRSI who has bent over backwards to make things right for me recently, including phoning me directly. TRSI has my loyalty and my business. THAT's good customer service.


Last edited by crosswithyou on Fri Jan 04, 2013 9:25 am; edited 1 time in total
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



Joined: 07 Mar 2009
Posts: 23667
PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 9:21 am Reply with quote
GokuMew2 wrote:
Good customer service does not mean being able to get whatever you want all the time..


This is the part of your post that got up my nose. The inference is "ZOMG, WHAT YOU ARE ASKING FOR IS SOOOOOOOOO UNREASONABLE!!!" Perhaps that is your opinion. Perhaps you think me asking to be refunded 750 Yen is the height of spoiled consumer entitlement. Rolling Eyes I think that is an idiotic position. I can only conclude you have never experienced good customer service or you'd know what the hell you are talking about. YAY, LET'S LOSE A CUSTOMER WHO HAS SPENT A BUNCH OF MONEY WITH US OVER 750 YEN!!! THAT'S AN INTELLIGENT, GOOD CUSTOMER POSITION, ISN'T IT!!! YAY!!!

Can we at least agree that if AmiAmi had agreed to my request that that would have been an example of good customer service? Rolling Eyes
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crosswithyou



Joined: 15 Dec 2007
Posts: 2892
Location: California
PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 9:41 am Reply with quote
Blood- wrote:
GokuMew2 wrote:
Good customer service does not mean being able to get whatever you want all the time..


This is the part of your post that got up my nose. The inference is "ZOMG, WHAT YOU ARE ASKING FOR IS SOOOOOOOOO UNREASONABLE!!!" Perhaps that is your opinion. Perhaps you think me asking to be refunded 750 Yen is the height of spoiled consumer entitlement. Rolling Eyes I think that is an idiotic position. I can only conclude you have never experienced good customer service or you'd know what the hell you are talking about. YAY, LET'S LOSE A CUSTOMER WHO HAS SPENT A BUNCH OF MONEY WITH US OVER 750 YEN!!! THAT'S AN INTELLIGENT, GOOD CUSTOMER POSITION, ISN'T IT!!! YAY!!!

Perhaps I should have phrased that in the opposite way-- Not getting what you want does not equal bad customer service.

I think it's pretty much common sense that coupons, or in this case points which are kind of like coupons, aren't redeemable for cash. (Or if they are, it's like, 1/1000th of a cent.) I won't go so far as to say that you were asking for something unreasonable, but I do think that you were asking for something that is not normally done, so I personally find it odd that you were expecting them to do it and are all mad because they didn't.

It's like you were black-mailing them. "Refund my points or I'm shopping elsewhere." From AmiAmi's perspective, they might not want to continue dealing with someone who is demanding things "or else," so maybe they felt it was better to cut ties with you rather than put up with whatever else might happen in the future. I'm certainly not saying that you're that kind of person. I can understand that you just wanted to use your points, made a mistake, and wanted that amount refunded because you don't plan on shopping there again soon. But hey, give some customers an inch and they'll take mile. How are they to know you aren't one of them?

Quote:
Can we at least agree that if AmiAmi had agreed to my request that that would have been an example of good customer service? Rolling Eyes

Yes we can.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter



Joined: 07 Mar 2009
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 10:40 am Reply with quote
I didn't start out saying, "refund my points or I won't shop with you again." That only became my position once it was clear they wouldn't. Not that it would matter. You have a very servile attitude towards business so you don't understand my position. As a consumer, I am a reasonable person. I didn't ask for the president of AmiAmi to personally fly to Toronto and fluff my pillow for me. I didn't ask to be given a figure worth no less that 10,000 Yen to compensate for mental aggravation. All I asked for was to be able to use the 750 points I had coming to me in any case. But yeah, I guess I want the world. Rolling Eyes

As I pointed out, AmiAmi clearly wants to encourage people to shop with them - that's why the have a points system in the first place. So it's ironic that their inept handling of my case has actually cost them (in business from me) in the long run.

How can anyone argue that not doing something that is simple and doesn't cost much to keep a customer isn't bad customer service? It astounds me.
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