unethical business experience *LONG READ*

[RichieRich]

after that wall of text with the gold at the end maybe the OP can request this thread be subjected to euthanasia. It's analogous to an old pet that keeps hiding it's illness except for the odd bout of diarrhea. Yet still unexpectedly provides excitement once in a while when a basic feral instinct is triggered.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Wormius

If I buy a used item from a company that sells both new and used items, I'd expect more. It's not like he bought a hot tub off Kijiji. If I bought a certified pre-owned vehicle from a dealer, I'd have higher expectations for what I was paying for.

Nice move of the goalposts with the bolded inclusion. CPOs have warranties usually extended by the manufacturer and can be serviced at any dealership of your choice. Not quite the same as buying from Farmer Jonez. You look for a CPO so you have that manufacturer backing and not reliant on a warranty that may be more fly-by-night than helpful. If you aren't looking at the warranty and understanding the warranty prior to making the purchase, the warranty likely isn't going to be worth the paper it is printed on. Go into situations eyes wide open, not eyes wide shut.

I think there are things that you should never buy second hand unless you are looking for problems, hot tubs being one of them. Just the sanitary aspect of buying a hot tub is sketchy, since you have no idea how it was maintained, properly serviced, or properly cleaned prior to your purchase. You might as well be buying used underwear. Hot tubs are also made from components that don't take to being moved very well. This likely should have been investigated and the dealer explain this stuff. Hot tub dealers are pretty sketchy to begin with, so I can't imagine they would disclose the concerns a consumer should be aware of. A consumer should also recognize a warranty not provided by the manufacturer would be worth anything more than nudge and a wink to get the deal done. FG has the right to post bad reviews, make complaints, and pursue this any way they want, but they should have thought long and hard about buying someone else's underwear and thinking a dealer provided warranty was the protection they were looking for should the first #### stain be found.

[Superflyer]

So here is a question, this happened to be a couple weeks ago when I was looking for a gift. My daughter wanted the newest Taylor Swift album. I went to two Sunrise Records to look for it.

The first one had two employees. I went in and looked through their selection and could not find the one I was looking for so I thought I would ask if it is somewhere else or if I could get it in. The first employee was working the till and had about five people waiting in line. The other employee was at the back of the store talking to someone so I approached that one. I waited a bit back but could hear them talking. They were obviously friends and not customers as they were talking about last weekend and what they did. The friend tapped the employee to let him know I was waiting so he turned around to me. I asked if they had the record, I just got a "No" and as he was starting to turn around to talk again to his friend I asked if they can order it in. Again I just got a "No". He then went back to his friend so I left.

The other one I went to also had two employees. I again looked by myself at first and did not find it. The employee that was not working till approached me and asked if she could help. I told her what I was looking for and she "Oh, that is really popular, we had two copies yesterday so lets see if they are still here." She looked where it should be. She then said that sometimes it gets moved over a row or two and she looked through all of them. She could not find it. She then said we can see if any of the other locations have it. She found one way down south but I did not want to travel that far. She then checked the incoming shipments and saw that there were 8 coming in and offered to put one aside for me. I said that was great. About four days later I got a call that it came in so I went and got it.

Now, my question is, are these both 5 star interactions? One treated me like wanting to spend money was an inconvenience because I asked for help. The other one went out of their way to get me a copy of what I wanted.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Superflyer

So here is a question, this happened to be a couple weeks ago when I was looking for a gift. My daughter wanted the newest Taylor Swift album. I went to two Sunrise Records to look for it.

The first one had two employees. I went in and looked through their selection and could not find the one I was looking for so I thought I would ask if it is somewhere else or if I could get it in. The first employee was working the till and had about five people waiting in line. The other employee was at the back of the store talking to someone so I approached that one. I waited a bit back but could hear them talking. They were obviously friends and not customers as they were talking about last weekend and what they did. The friend tapped the employee to let him know I was waiting so he turned around to me. I asked if they had the record, I just got a "No" and as he was starting to turn around to talk again to his friend I asked if they can order it in. Again I just got a "No". He then went back to his friend so I left.

The other one I went to also had two employees. I again looked by myself at first and did not find it. The employee that was not working till approached me and asked if she could help. I told her what I was looking for and she "Oh, that is really popular, we had two copies yesterday so lets see if they are still here." She looked where it should be. She then said that sometimes it gets moved over a row or two and she looked through all of them. She could not find it. She then said we can see if any of the other locations have it. She found one way down south but I did not want to travel that far. She then checked the incoming shipments and saw that there were 8 coming in and offered to put one aside for me. I said that was great. About four days later I got a call that it came in so I went and got it.

Now, my question is, are these both 5 star interactions? One treated me like wanting to spend money was an inconvenience because I asked for help. The other one went out of their way to get me a copy of what I wanted.

Is this a rhetorical question? Of course they're not both five star interactions.

Nobody would give both those places five stars, especially with the differences between the two so obvious and glaring.

For the one that gave you worse service, though, you have the option of just not reviewing them. Sounds like the person at the front was very busy, so you'd hate to penalize him and his livelihood for the bad experience you had with his coworker. Additionally, all workers are just humans and can't be expected to be "given'r" 110% of the time. Sometimes you'll get a guy at a bad moment catching up with his friend. It would have been great had he helped you more, but he didn't, c'est la vie.

If you were really bothered by it, you could always call and ask for the manager to let him know about your wasted time and the poor service. Or you could send an email to corporate. Or you could publicly humiliate the entire business, the owner and all the employees in a permanent way that can never be removed by anybody unless you deem the punishment over (if you even remember five years down the road you wrote the review).

In your shoes, I'd not review the bad one, would likely review the good one, and then just move on. I'd probably do what I could to never go back to the first one, too, but I would not opt for the permanent and enduring public humiliation of the business.

[PeteMoss]

Likely been mentioned 50 times - but I'll click into the 1 star reviews and read the business response. If it sounds reasonable - I'll trust it.

[PepsiFree]

You should contact Sunrise Records head office and tell them to staff their stores properly, pay people more than minimum wage, and pay their distributors so that they actually have stock of things people want instead of loads of garbage supplied by the owner’s toy company.

[undercoverbrother]

Man, the legs on this thread.

[Sliver]

Know what I just thought of? Remember when we used to be able to rate threads here, but the mods had to take that privilege away? What was the explanation for that? Was it because people weaponized the rating system against posters they didn't like and uprated threads by posters they did like regardless of the content or quality of the threads?

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Know what I just thought of? Remember when we used to be able to rate threads here, but the mods had to take that privilege away? What was the explanation for that? Was it because people weaponized the rating system against posters they didn't like and uprated threads by posters they did like regardless of the content or quality of the threads?

I think it was because the thread rating, like the points on Who's Line Is It Anyway?

[Superflyer]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Is this a rhetorical question? Of course they're not both five star interactions.

Nobody would give both those places five stars, especially with the differences between the two so obvious and glaring.

For the one that gave you worse service, though, you have the option of just not reviewing them. Sounds like the person at the front was very busy, so you'd hate to penalize him and his livelihood for the bad experience you had with his coworker. Additionally, all workers are just humans and can't be expected to be "given'r" 110% of the time. Sometimes you'll get a guy at a bad moment catching up with his friend. It would have been great had he helped you more, but he didn't, c'est la vie.

If you were really bothered by it, you could always call and ask for the manager to let him know about your wasted time and the poor service. Or you could send an email to corporate. Or you could publicly humiliate the entire business, the owner and all the employees in a permanent way that can never be removed by anybody unless you deem the punishment over (if you even remember five years down the road you wrote the review).

In your shoes, I'd not review the bad one, would likely review the good one, and then just move on. I'd probably do what I could to never go back to the first one, too, but I would not opt for the permanent and enduring public humiliation of the business.

So I should rate the one that was great but the other one just leave them alone? Why? I will not go back to the location with poor service just because it is in an area that I am hardly ever at but still. What if it was the location closest to my home? Say I went back a couple times to give them the benefit of the doubt and it was bad each time? According to you just because I get bad service at a place I should just let it go?

Also "all workers are just humans and can't be expected to be "given'r" 110% of the time. Sometimes you'll get a guy at a bad moment catching up with his friend. It would have been great had he helped you more, but he didn't, c'est la vie"
WTF? If this was your store and an employee blew off a customer would you just say "Oh well!" It could also be said that he did lie to me when I asked if they can get it in. The other location was able to and it took her less then a few minutes. I am not a business owner but if I was I would expect an employee in a customer area to be focusing on customers.

For the record I did not rate either one. I have rated maybe 5 places ever and they have all been 5 stars. I am also not a person who wants to speak with the manager for any little thing. I find if stuff like this is happening, either the manager is ok with it or does not pay attention.

[GGG]

In a world absent of reviews on what basis should a consumer choose a business they and their circle of friends are unfamiliar with?

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Superflyer

So I should rate the one that was great but the other one just leave them alone? Why? I will not go back to the location with poor service just because it is in an area that I am hardly ever at but still. What if it was the location closest to my home? Say I went back a couple times to give them the benefit of the doubt and it was bad each time? According to you just because I get bad service at a place I should just let it go?

Yes. Exactly. If you get bad service you should just let it go. That is what I'm saying. Not going back to the store is reasonable, too.

Or, I think it's also reasonable to address it with the business directly if you really feel strongly about it, but I do not think a permanent public shaming via an online review that becomes tethered to the business for the rest of time is warranted or fair.

Why? I think it comes back to the golden rule. And also, a negative review is too strong of a weapon for 99.99999% of cases.

Originally Posted by Superflyer

Also "all workers are just humans and can't be expected to be "given'r" 110% of the time. Sometimes you'll get a guy at a bad moment catching up with his friend. It would have been great had he helped you more, but he didn't, c'est la vie"
WTF? If this was your store and an employee blew off a customer would you just say "Oh well!" It could also be said that he did lie to me when I asked if they can get it in. The other location was able to and it took her less then a few minutes. I am not a business owner but if I was I would expect an employee in a customer area to be focusing on customers.

Well, all people are living their lives in context of the things going on around them. I've had my business over 16 years now. In that time, I've had staff members go through divorce, lose children, lose parents, suffer injuries, lose friends, get in car accidents, get sick, become parents (that can be stressful and tiring, leading to decreased performance), etc. Sometimes people can just become depressed or unmotivated for stretches. I try to be forgiving of all of that. I don't expect people to be operating at 110% at all times. I know sometimes even my star employees are going to have off days, weeks or months.

Maybe this guy is a great employee and a great person and was struggling that day. Maybe his friend came in to check on him and he needed that care and concern from his friend at that moment. Maybe his coworker knew he needed that and was fine with taking the extra load of the rush so his colleague could get a bit of a break. And maybe - at that moment - assisting you with a Taylor Swift record was less important than taking care of himself.

Or maybe he was just a jerk and he'll be fired today. I don't know.

I do know that I don't know what was happening in his life at that moment and I also know that with such limited context I would not write a review admonishing him or the business.

I do support my staff when they are less than perfect. I don't expect perfection from them and I don't expect it of myself. I like when people can go home feeling good and that they were treated well by me. We also treat customers as well as we can. Sometimes - with our limited numbers and in light of the greater context of our lives - customers have an experience here that is inferior to what they can typically expect. C'est la vie. We're only human and we do generally do our best.

Originally Posted by Superflyer

For the record I did not rate either one. I have rated maybe 5 places ever and they have all been 5 stars. I am also not a person who wants to speak with the manager for any little thing. I find if stuff like this is happening, either the manager is ok with it or does not pay attention.

There is a third option - sometimes the manager knows what his people need and sometimes that's at odds with what the customer needs. Not every interaction can be a win-win. But we can always just, sort of, move on without publicly shaming them.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by GGG

In a world absent of reviews on what basis should a consumer choose a business they and their circle of friends are unfamiliar with?

Wait, how old are you? Reviews are new as of 10 years ago. Not once prior to reviews did I - or anybody I know - struggle to find somewhere to go or something to do.

[Scroopy Noopers]

I don’t even know what a 4 star business is anyway… the whole thing is dumb to me and I’ve never paid attention to it. Outside of maybe hotels and restaurants, how can a mercantile establishment be less than 5 stars if they gave me the product I wanted for the amount of money they asked for? I see posts in here like “maybe it’s only a 4 star business” and have no idea what that even means. Was the employee who was probably turned over 4 times in the last year not smiling enough?

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Scroopy Noopers

I don’t even know what a 4 star business is anyway… the whole thing is dumb to me and I’ve never paid attention to it. Outside of maybe hotels and restaurants, how can a mercantile establishment be less than 5 stars if they gave me the product I wanted for the amount of money they asked for? I see posts in here like “maybe it’s only a 4 star business” and have no idea what that even means. Was the employee who was probably turned over 4 times in the last year not smiling enough?

Who knows? Some people have arbitrary criteria they want you to meet.

I used to have a Facebook page for my business and I had fun posting on it because we make a lot of neat stuff that people like seeing. I closed it about five years ago and have never re-opened it after a weird interaction I had.

This guy came in and needed something made. We were on a two-week production schedule, but he was desperate. I felt bad for him, so said we'd try to have it done by the end of the week, but if we couldn't get it done, I'd courier it to him at his jobsite - at my expense - no later than the following Monday.

Well, we didn't get it done by Friday, but I did courier it to him Monday morning.

Seems nice, right? Like, I let him jump the queue, we busted our backs to get it done, and then I shipped it directly to him for free.

3 stars with a review of something to the effect of, 'they said they could do it for Friday but ended up being late. they did ship it out, but careful here if you need something quick.'

I spent half of the next morning discussing him over Facebook Messenger what we could have done to make him happy. He agreed we met his expectations and our promise, but that's three-star service to him and we shouldn't have said there was a chance for Friday if there wasn't. Well there was! Anyway, I did the little dance of contrition some of these guys want of, "I appreciate your feedback and the time you took to give your perspective. We'll re-evaluate how we communicate our commitments, blah blah blah". He then takes down his review and messages me that he was really just testing us to see how we'd react to his review.

Thanks you fataing a-hole. I just shut Facebook down right there. Shut our Instagram and Twitter, too. Who wants to give these people more avenues to make your life harder? Now we're just stuck with Google, which is bad enough.

[ResAlien]

Everyone should learn of bad businesses the old fashioned way: by getting screwed by the company and never going back. No one should ever be allowed to notify anyone about the quality of service they receive anywhere unless it’s five stars. Bad experience? Welp thems the breaks kids sorry, better luck next time.

Don’t you dare tell anyone though or the company might be forced to *gasp* improve their service or provide what was agreed upon. Won’t someone please think of the business owners? They’re the true victims. Some idiot customer whose hard earned cash and time went wasted because of an incompetent business? Sucks for you pal next time try randomly picking a better place. But there aren’t any reviews for you to check cause they all say five star, hahaha sucker!

[Scroopy Noopers]

I honestly feel like half the responses in here are being deliberately obtuse just because Sliver had a take. The flawed review system strikes again.

[jammies]

Sliver, do you use reviews to decide where you'll spend your personal money? Do you assume a one-star review means the business is not worth patronizing? If not, why do you assume other people do indeed treat a one-star (or three-star) review as a mark of shame?

Not one person in this thread has said they reject a business based on a single, or even multiple reviews with less than 5 stars. Not one. Yet you continually claim it's a mark of shame like getting branded a witch in 17th century Salem, forever to be shunned. On what facts do you base this assumption? Not personal feelings - facts.

I can agree that ratings systems are flawed, but the hyperbole that giving a poor review online is going to kill a business is ridiculous. Nobody uses reviews like that. You might as well be ranting about flying saucers stealing the cows off your ranch.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Scroopy Noopers

I honestly feel like half the responses in here are being deliberately obtuse just because Sliver had a take. The flawed review system strikes again.

They have to be, right? Like, I can see their side. Why is the business owner side impossible for them to empathize with? Disagree, sure, but to pretend it's wildly irrational makes no sense.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by jammies

Sliver, do you use reviews to decide where you'll spend your personal money? Do you assume a one-star review means the business is not worth patronizing? If not, why do you assume other people do indeed treat a one-star (or three-star) review as a mark of shame?

Not one person in this thread has said they reject a business based on a single, or even multiple reviews with less than 5 stars. Not one. Yet you continually claim it's a mark of shame like getting branded a witch in 17th century Salem, forever to be shunned. On what facts do you base this assumption? Not personal feelings - facts.

I can agree that ratings systems are flawed, but the hyperbole that giving a poor review online is going to kill a business is ridiculous. Nobody uses reviews like that. You might as well be ranting about flying saucers stealing the cows off your ranch.

It's the aggregate of the stars that have a compounding affect that can harm businesses. I just looked at one of my competitors. He's got a 4.9 with eight reviews (all a little suspect, if you know what I mean) and I have a 4.5 with about 30 reviews.

On no planet is his company better than ours, but you wouldn't know that if you just looked at the stars.

If you read the reviews and our responses to negative ones, I think it would really put anybody's mind at ease about working with us. Fortunately, the negative reviews we have are primarily from wingnuts and I think it shows, but my concern is you have to actually click and then put in the effort of reading the reviews to come to that conclusion. The star rating is what's visible and can lead somebody to going one way versus another.

Spending my personal money - yes, I can't help but notice the star review because it is so front and centre when you Google a business. You can't miss it. If a company has a below four-star rating, it absolutely catches my attention and - in spite of my best efforts - colours my first impression of the company.

If a company had a one-star rating, I would be very suspect of working with them. If I had time to dig, I could maybe put my mind at ease. If I'm in a rush, I could see just moving on to the next company without that red flag. That flag - btw - could be falsely and/or maliciously planted, but here I am making decisions based on it.

So every time I get a one-, two-, three- or four-star rating, it drags me down a little more. I think that negatively affects my business and I'm defenseless against it. I would like to opt out of being rated, but I can't. And I can't prevent people from one-star bombing me unfairly. And while I can reply to their comments, I can't mitigate the downward pressure on that star rating.