Required Online Etiquette for Businesses 101
We make a lot of fuss about when a commenter or blogger is violating some spoken or unspoken rule of conduct, but MAN do we let companies off the hook for some obvious things that are just terribly rude and inconsiderate! Here are some of the worst, IMO:
- If you take an order / allow sign up online, you must allow canceling an order or unsubscribing online. Giving someone a convenient way to give you money and making them switch to a less convenient one to get it back is just pure shady. And don't give me shit about how it costs *you* more money somehow - no it doesn't. If you have the infra to take an order, you have it to cancel one, and if you won't cancel it the same way you took it, you're just a jerk.
- If you allow customers to deal with you online, and they contact you online, do not ever ever call them, but most especially do not call them a) during business hours, when you know damn well you're interrupting their work, or b) over any simple or easy question that could easily be resolved by using the email address you almost certainly have. We know it's rude when you call to ask a company a question and the next day a door-to-door salesman shows up uninvited at your house; why don't we ream companies for forcing conversations onto the phone for no good reason? My phone is on in case people who know me want to use it to reach me, thank you; and even they know better than to call me when I'm working unless it's important.
- Your security measures should be as obnoxious as needed and no more; if in doubt, let your customers pick the level of protection they want. If one more little retail site forces me to create a hardened 16-digit two-factor-auth password, I'm going to seriously slap a techie. (Might be any techie, so look out.)
- And for gods' sakes treat online customer service like customer service. It's fine if Billy Teenpunk turns into a raging shithead when given a difficult email to answer, but he's not being paid to do it. The number of snide, terse, flippant, or outright rude online exhanges I've been subjected to from various companies is truly shocking. You know you'd fire any employee who acted like that to a customer's face…so what's the deal? Not paying attention, perhaps? THEN SELL YOUR COMPUTERS and stick to business you're actually willing to do the work for.
…Yes, I'm having a tough day, but come on, all of that needed to be said. ;)
Here's to relaxing times later! (It's underwater hockey night! That usually beats all the tension out of me pretty well.)
Originally published at *Transcendental *Logic. You can comment here or there.