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Stop leaving 1-star reviews on items you didn't receive!


Aili Panthar
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Pamela Galli wrote:

Dakota, it would be simple enough to put some kind of info up when someone starts a review, stating something to the effect that:

* reviews should not involve delivery problems, as these are not done by the merchant

* merchants should not be negatively rated for customer service if the customer has never contacted them

 

These things are only fair. A merchant should only be held responsible for what he has control over; we can't control deliveries and we can't handle customer problems if they do not contact us.  It is not right to be negatively reviewed for things we have not done wrong.

 

Agree. Kudos for Pamela :P

 

 

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I would not involve customer service/tech support in this in any case, because I think it would only slow things down. A polite notecard to the seller always has cleared up failed deliveries for me. Imagine if every time some noob doesn't receive his freenis from the Marketplace they go bother Linden Lab about it. :matte-motes-sarcasm:

As for IM's vs notecards, I check my email about once a month so that wouldn't work for me, and most businesspeople in SL seem to prefer notecards from what I've seen.

I think the main issue here is that a lot of people don't know how the Marketplace works and don't realize it is subject to lag, region restarts, script timeout, etc. When they don't get their item they immediately assume they are being ripped off and use the reviews to vent their frustrations. The person who left me a 1-star review bought the item, didn't receive it, so they bought it again. Never contacted me by notecard or IM - not even to yell at me, then left a nasty review. I ended up giving her a full refund for both purchases and sending her the item for free. What really threw me for a loop is this person is a seller on the Martketplace herself so she should know better.

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Aili Panthar wrote:

I would not involve customer service/tech support in this in any case, because I think it would only slow things down. A polite notecard to the seller always has cleared up failed deliveries for me. Imagine if every time some noob doesn't receive his freenis from the Marketplace they go bother Linden Lab about it. :matte-motes-sarcasm:

As for IM's vs notecards, I check my email about once a month so that wouldn't work for me, and most businesspeople in SL seem to prefer notecards from what I've seen.

I think the main issue here is that a lot of people don't know how the Marketplace works and don't realize it is subject to lag, region restarts, script timeout, etc. When they don't get their item they immediately assume they are being ripped off and use the reviews to vent their frustrations. The person who left me a 1-star review bought the item, didn't receive it, so they bought it again. Never contacted me by notecard or IM - not even to yell at me, then left a nasty review. I ended up giving her a full refund for both purchases and sending her the item for free. What really threw me for a loop is this person is a seller on the Martketplace herself so she should know better.

It would be great if every time a delivery failure occurred that those newbs contacted LL since they should feel the extent of the issue, not the merchant.

With regard to IM's v Notecards, the other thread "send a note?" suggests that most merchants posting there prefer IM's by a long way.  It's an email world that most of us work in RL, on a daily basis, I send emails to communicate, the concept of sending a postcard is just too quaint to contemplate.  I have strong opinions about the reasons why some say "send a notecard" and i'm usually not disappointed.  I've had too many experiences of notecards being ignored too, not that an IM would prove any more successful but there appears to be an element amongst us that just doesn't care about helping customers and anything which makes it more effort to contact merchants seems to be a plan.

Either way "My IM's get capped so i'll miss messages" seems a cheap cop out, even if emails are only reviewed once a month, wouldn't it be better to get it there than not at all?  What I don't understand is when i'm online and someone sends me a notecard, why?  It really does get silly when notecards get exchanged when people are online.

Anyway, direct delivery should address the delivery issues as it will not rely on exterior to inworld scripted communication.

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Aili Panthar wrote:

I would not involve customer service/tech support in this in any case, because I think it would only slow things down. A polite notecard to the seller always has cleared up failed deliveries for me. Imagine if every time some noob doesn't receive his freenis from the Marketplace they go bother Linden Lab about it. :matte-motes-sarcasm:

As for IM's vs notecards, I check my email about once a month so that wouldn't work for me, and most businesspeople in SL seem to prefer notecards from what I've seen.

I think the main issue here is that a lot of people don't know how the Marketplace works and don't realize it is subject to lag, region restarts, script timeout, etc. When they don't get their item they immediately assume they are being ripped off and use the reviews to vent their frustrations. The person who left me a 1-star review bought the item, didn't receive it, so they bought it again. Never contacted me by notecard or IM - not even to yell at me, then left a nasty review. I ended up giving her a full refund for both purchases and sending her the item for free. What really threw me for a loop is this person is a seller on the Martketplace herself so she should know better.

On Xstreet/SL Exchange, the policy was that ALL delivery problems were to be reported to and handled by them, not the merchant -- because they wanted that information to know the level of failed deliveries AND also they kept track of "serial" misdelivery reporters.

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Aili Panthar wrote:

You shouldn't use the review section of a Marketplace listing to leave a 1-star review to complain about items that didn't get delivered. I see this
all over
SL Marketplace and I had it in my own store too. This is abusive behavior. People will surf the Marketplace, see that an item has a 1-star review and decide the product is crap. You should only review things after you receive them!

This is a flaw in the review process but if someone is reviewing an experience and didn't get their item, then yes they will often leave a poor review, it's not abusive, it's also not the fault of the seller.

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Pamela Galli wrote:

Dakota, it would be simple enough to put some kind of info up when someone starts a review, stating something to the effect that:

* reviews should not involve delivery problems, as these are not done by the merchant

* merchants should not be negatively rated for customer service if the customer has never contacted them

 

These things are only fair. A merchant should only be held responsible for what he has control over; we can't control deliveries and we can't handle customer problems if they do not contact us.  It is not right to be negatively reviewed for things we have not done wrong.

 

 

Hey Pamela,

This is a fantastic idea.

And now for typical reply:

Have you created a Jira Feature Request for this? LOL

This is something that would need to be added to the site by the Dev Team so creating a Jira asking for that feature would put this on their radar for future updates once DD is rolled out.

 

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Dakota Linden wrote:


Pamela Galli wrote:

Dakota, it would be simple enough to put some kind of info up when someone starts a review, stating something to the effect that:

* reviews should not involve delivery problems, as these are not done by the merchant

* merchants should not be negatively rated for customer service if the customer has never contacted them

 

These things are only fair. A merchant should only be held responsible for what he has control over; we can't control deliveries and we can't handle customer problems if they do not contact us.  It is not right to be negatively reviewed for things we have not done wrong.

 

 

Hey Pamela,

This is a fantastic idea.

And now for typical reply:

Have you created a Jira Feature Request for this? LOL

This is something that would need to be added to the site by the Dev Team so creating a Jira asking for that feature would put this on their radar for future updates once DD is rolled out.

 

ROFL!!!!!!!  hehehehe LOL !!

Sorry for laughing.... LL Commerce Team / Deve Team actually listening to one of the Merchant's requested features???

ROFL!   Yeah history has clearly shown how often LL listens and responds to Merchant's requests to fix SLM missing, unimplemented xstreet features or implement new functions.   JIRA or NO JIRA.

LL has to first get through your private list of internal goodies they want for SLM - like the FB LIKE button.

 

ROFL!   Well thanks Dakota for making my day - I had something to smile / laugh at on a Monday.

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Toysoldier Thor wrote:


ROFL!!!!!!!  hehehehe LOL !!

Sorry for laughing.... LL Commerce Team / Deve Team actually listening to one of the Merchant's requested features???

ROFL!   Yeah history has clearly shown how often LL listens and responds to Merchant's requests to fix SLM missing, unimplemented xstreet features or implement new functions.   JIRA or NO JIRA.

LL has to first get through your private list of internal goodies they want for SLM - like the FB LIKE button.

 

ROFL!   Well thanks Dakota for making my day - I had something to smile / laugh at on a Monday.

Oh come on, you can't slap them for doing stuff you don't like then slap them when they do something good too.

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OK Pam...

Lets see how fast LL will respond to your JIRA on a Merchant suggested SLM enhancement then we will see why I might be giggling here in RL.

Although I will give you this much... the fact that YOU are submitting the Jira and that a Linden has publicly asking you to submit the Jira... the chances that LL will act on the Jira within the year moves it to the FAINT HOPE phase.

I am involved in a JIRA regarding a bug that was detected and reported to LL as a JIRA back in 2008.  This bug impacts all creators and SL residents that work with animated textures on a prim or are looking at this animated prim.  The JIRA sat completelely dead in LL's eyes for almost 2 years.  It only got actioned because I publicly embarassed LL on Twitter by getting the Phoenix Team to agree to look at the bug.  I suspect Rodvik told the LL development team to look at it so LL doesnt look like a bunch of goofs.

Sadly, LL has now simply moved the JIRA to "we see the problem but it might be considered to be a fix in some future version of code upgrade".... ie.  this bug will never be fixed.

So... slapping LL for suggesting a JIRA get created in order to get action.... well justified.

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Got a bunch of ancient bugs I'd like to see fixed myself. I know when an issue does get attention, it may gain some traction as you see happening here. Some bugs, somewhere, somehow get fixed or so I hear. This one is actually nice to see as one of those.

And professionally speaking, you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

Laugh away, it's really helping the process of improving that communication and that process.

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Working with LL on getting their attention to fix bugs or moving forward good ideas is best done by Honey instead of Vinegar?

Hmmm I think the JIRA i just pointed out which flavor got LL to at least look at the JIRA....  All the formal sweet sugary follow the JIRA process got us ABSOLUTELY NO WHERE!

The day I escalated it by getting Phoenix involved and pointing it out in the Jira and tweeting @secondlife and @rodvik... THE DAY I DID IT.... Oz Linden engaged in the Jira.  the first time in over two years a Linden looked at the Jira and it happened when I was forced to use Vinegar.

So Dart... exactly which flavor makes LL move?

See I am not you with your special inside means to get LL to do things.  I am just an average LL Customer.  Sugar dont work for us regular customers.

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I do agree that it shouldn't take yelling and screaming to get a bug fixed. I do agree that bug fixes and the communication process needs improving.

I also think part of the solution on LL's part is to not only improve communication, but to reward good behavior, not bad behavior.

In the context of bugs and merchants, that can be casual, but should reflect the nature of Merchants and business in general. Because Merchants do understand their businesses very well, and are intimate with their issues, that means a certain degree of professionalism.

How seriously do you want to be taken? Be that, and you stop perpetuating part of the problem.

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Dart,

I will be perfectly honest with you.  I would love nothing better then to have a good healthy mutually respected relationship with the LL teams.  Sadly, since 2009, I have been burned by the LL Commerce Team time and time again. 

Where I lost all respect for LL Commerce Team was back in the fall of 2009 during the Freebies/Clutter Listing Tax fiasco.  Prior to Collosus's shocking release of that Clutter Tax announcement, I actually felt there was some communications happening and that some of the discussions me and several merhcant were having about the topic was being listened to.  I was open to actually giving Pink and Collosus anothe chance because I saw hints of good two-way intereaction.

Then Collosus destroyed that in my eyes and the eyes of countless Merchants.  LL Commerce Team destroyed what little respect and trust they were building on that annoucement.  And how Pink and team handled the aftermath of up-rising anger from the community even further crystalized the fact that there was no having a healthy interaction relationship with LL. 

Unless you are one of the "LL Insiders" where you can get the private ear of the LL team (which still happens to this day), the only effective communications with LL is one where you have to basically expose and embarrass the LL Team for yet another screw up and/or for not listening (or only listening to the few "special" merchants).

Why do I continue to use this strategy?  Because sadly with LL - it works!

There have been a rare few Lindens that I have respected and that I truly believe they can be honest and open and willing to listen to residents, merchants, RL experts outside their normal favored few.  Sadly many of those that I did truly respect and that gave me the time have been fired.  Strangely and as a ray of hope, the one person that I know does listen to me - even though he wont acknowledge it is Rodvik himself.

So there you go Dart.  We do agree on something.... LL has never, does not now, nor I suspect will never change their communication strategy with LL Outsiders.

And you are completely right.... LL should reward Healthy communications.  That would involve LL taking the first step of allowing "outsiders" into their inner circle of trusted merchants.

I even tried to join Brooke's February idea of being one of the "focus group" members.  Hmmmm... after asking countless times how one can join or be considered.... guess what response I got?   NOTHING!  Meanwhile some Merchants - some of the obvious ones - were invited without even asking to participate at multiple focus group meetings.

Nuff said on that.  As such, until I see a change with LL, the only way I will keep communicating with LL is via the proven effective means - with Vinegar.  LL Likes me to communicate with them this way - otherwise they would have changed.

 

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Sassy Romano wrote:

Toy, it isn't FACEBOOK a question FaCeBoOk of honey or facebook vinegar.  You (facebook) are LIKE THIS! using words fACEBook that just F-A-C-E-B-O-O-K just don't catch LL's FAAAAAACCEEEEEBOOOOOKK attention.

Ok Sassy - I read your post 5 times.  You totally lost me.  Not sure what you might be wanting to say. lol  thought I would tell you.

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I think that you've crossed the line into an abusive stage with the way you speak to Brooke, and surprised you get away with it.  I would remove a customer like that from the environment, and have before.

It's a shame that fair and balanced voices are not heard, and that some of those voices will choose to go to the ranting option as a last attempt.  (raises hand).

Not much faith in a company that lets their employees be abused like that in front of other customers.

But they are the ones making the millions...not I.

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