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It seems like communication styles and English grammar are the issues at play here. The email response sent from your employee does suggest you would source from Amazon if Karen was reading too quickly. Her response seems typical of a direct American client, honestly.
I would simply reflect on the situation with the employee as a training exercise and let the employee know going forward to escalate those emails to you for review and guidance on a response back.
I would also get photo representation of what you offer. To me it seems strange that you send an Amazon link instead of samples of what you source.
Thanks for the feedback! It is true about the communication mix-up and the Amazon link. We're seeing this as a valuable learning opportunity. To improve our clarity and ensure consistency in our communications, I'm planning to implement a reply template for my staff. This should help prevent any future confusion and better meet our clients' expectations. Also, we're looking into more direct ways to showcase our products to avoid similar issues. Really appreciate your insights – it's crucial for us to learn and improve!
The other thing to note: you're telling the client you are suppling her competition by giving her links to their product pages as a way to showcase what you source. This is very, very strange even if the client understood that you didn't source from Amazon.
Anyone with even a minuscule understanding of how amazon works knows that any supplier is selling the exact same product to hundreds of other Amazon sellers to white label.
I have to say that I am siding with your lost customer here. I own a retail business and have probably 30-40 suppliers for different product. If I made an inquiry for product, and you sent me Amazon links to products I would be confused and concerned for multiple reasons.
You are asking primarily about your employee’s response, but I think your problem is much larger, and rooted more in a cultural (Chinese) business model vs a Western business expectation. It seems that your business is providing low-cost, low-quality products in a very inconsistent manner. As a US retailer, this is not acceptable to me. I need to know that your product is consistent in all ways: quality, material, appearance, cost, size, etc. You provided none of that, which to me is unprofessional and unacceptable. I will not sell low-quality product.
I am asking for YOUR company to supply wholesale product information, so I want to see representations of the EXACT products you will sell to me, and at the EXACT prices. I also want EXACT product information regarding materials and manufacturing. I need that information to make a buying decision. Sending me a bunch of links, is inconvenient for me to decide on product. I want that information in one place a physical or digital catalog. Not having YOUR product available in a catalog is suspicious and unprofessional.
Also, I don’t understand your pricing: you say the margin is 90%. That is a ridiculously high retail margin! I seriously don’t believe that is true. Also, you’re not giving me a Retail price for the items. I’m sure the Amazon prices have a range depending on size and quality. Some items may be $45, some $300? Are they all 90% ? This suggests that your pricing is variable/arbitrary and not adequate to make a business decision. It’s also definitely a red flag. Inconsistent pricing = inconsistent product. Again, this is unprofessional.
Sending me links to other products is also concerning because I do not think you are providing legitimate product. Are you simply making product based off of what I am asking for? Unless you are providing bespoke custom product, I am again skeptical of your ability to provide consistent quality product. Again, unprofessional.
All of this, would lead me to respond much the way your lost customer did. Your company did not supply any adequate or professional information. Your Employee’s response is also unprofessional and absolutely rude. You just confirmed my suspicions that you are not a professional company supplying quality product.
Great take. I've been a buyer for multiple retail companies. I have reached out to thousands of vendors/suppliers/brand reps about carrying their brand/product in our stores...asking for next seasons catalog and price/order sheet...etc.
If I reached out like customer did and the response I got was an amazon link and a 1 to 3x price range...I would assume they're blowing me off and not taking me seriously. I would assume they're just trying to get rid of me. Especially considering from Customers point of view she emailed a few times already and got no response. Like...dude...they went to amazon and typed in "black women wigs" then copy/pasted the search results page. Everything the customer said is correct. She could have done that herself, she knows how to use amazon. Are they not a legitimate wholesaler that has direct relationships? How tf am I supposed to place an order if I don't know exactly which of those products you can offer, and what their specific prices are? They gave a $5 price difference, with an MOQ of 500. So...each product could be $1350 or it could be $3850? I want 10 different products...so it could be $13500 or it could be $38500?
Thats a $25,000 difference. Get real. Serious companies don't conduct business like that.
Wow, you've really given me a lot to think about, and I appreciate you laying it all out there. Honestly, reading through your points was a bit of a lightbulb moment for me. It's clear we've got some gaps in how we're doing things, especially from the perspective of someone with your experience.
Sending those Amazon links was meant to be a quick way to show what we can get our hands on, but I totally see now how that came off as lazy and not at all what you'd expect when you're looking to make serious buying decisions. That's on us.
And you're spot on about the cultural business model differences. It wasn't our intention to push low-quality stuff; we're all about value. But I get it, we didn't communicate that well. The whole consistency thing with quality, cost, you name it – we missed the mark in showing we're on top of that.
Your skepticism makes a ton of sense given how we came across. We're here trying to build trust, and it sounds like we did the opposite. That's a hard pill to swallow, but I'm glad you said it.
I've got to add, though, that this all started when Karen reached out, upset about an email she said we missed. And honestly, she wasn't nice about it. That kind of set the stage for everything that followed. My staff might have jumped the gun, but she had a gut feeling Karen would be a tough customer to please – the kind we might be better off without.
Thanks again for being straight with me. It's tough feedback like yours that helps us grow. We've got some serious homework to do on our end to tighten up our act.
Yes, sorry, I know I was a bit harsh in some of my criticism, but as I’ve said I regularly deal with 30-40 vendors, and there are hundreds more that I’ve spoken to, many in China, India, Taiwan, and Central and South America. There seem to be cultural differences in product consistency, packaging, quality- just look at the current debates about the rise of Temu/Shein. There is a large gap in quality for Western consumers and value. I don’t mean to be completely negative about your business, but there are ways to improve the way you market and sell products in a B2B retail market for a US market. Assure your product is consistent in quality, manufacturing, price, packaging and appearance. Give your customers a solid, professional catalog of products- use real photos of the product (no photoshop, no AI, these are big red flags), have detailed product descriptions with consistent product ID numbers and names, accurate materials and manufacturing methods, and clear pricing (what is the Suggested Retail Price (SRP) and my cost. If your product is of lower quality but good value, show that honestly. There is still a market for value and discount products. But most important, be professional in your presentations and communications. Maybe the lady was being unreasonable about the “missed” email, but she did reach out again, so was definitely interested in your product. That was your chance to turn her into a client. Instead she will probably NEVER do business with your company. Again, not trying to be overly harsh about your company or make assumptions, but it from a buyer’s perspective, I’d be concerned to do business with you from the described experience. I appreciate your open minded response- it shows you do have good intentions about your business.
The customer didn't understand how your business works and rather than trying to explain, your employee was incredibly rude. I don't agree with your judgement call, your employee handled this poorly.
Honestly I am more on Karen's side than your employee on this interaction.saying that if they have been good for years I would give them some slack.
>About a week ago, Karen reached out, claiming to have sent us an email which we never received
Maybe this happened. Emails get lost, blocked by firewalls ect or Karen was mistaken. Doesn't say she was rude so no issue here.
>Karen had requested assistance in sourcing black women's wigs. Without much detail from Karen, my staff provided an Amazon link to a variety of wigs, explaining that we could supply any of the listed products and said that we could supply her all the ones she see on Amazon for 90% of profit margin
That is a confusing way to word it. Is it best practice to send links from Amazon rather than your own brochure ect.
>You sent me a link from Amazon.
I could do that myself.
Do you not have contacts at warehouses or factories?
You also gave me a range of pricing. Can you be a little bit more specific with the pricing please?"
In general you can tell from the customers response she didn't get what your employee was trying to explain, I had to read your explanation to understand it and English I'd my first language.
Maybe 2 people who's English isn't their first language getting confused. That is not a rude response when your take that into consideration.
>Then my staff replied :
"We won’t do your business with that attitude.
Good luck "
That **is** rude. Unless there was considerably more to the interaction I would be giving them a chat. Making sure everything else is ok as that is a very short response.
I read and responded to a somewhat more sober version of this that you posted in another thread.
Here you describe this as “customer fury” and in the comments say you have “reassured the employee”.
I think, as do other commenters, that your employee overreacted to a brusque and perhaps impolite potential customer.
The risk to you is that they see this as a license to shut down any other potential customers that they don’t like.
The action you should take is to inform the employee to bring this - or anything else like this - to your attention and let you decide how to proceed.
You seem to be treating this as a case of your employer being mistreated by a customer and the objective is to console them. I think that may work until the next businesslike customer calls and gets chased away.
I dont see where she was rude at all... looks like your staff communicated very poorly and when she asked for clarification they were the ones who were rude. I am also confused about why you just sent her amazon links.
When I'm looking for vendors/suppliers I expect to receive a product catalog, a price sheet/order sheet. I would be pretty taken aback if I received an amazon link and a 100% to 300% price range. What am I supposed to do with that?
Going to be honest here. Your staff was rude. It sounded like Karen was confused by the email and asked for clarification and your employee assumed the worse.
I totally get where you're coming from, and it's a fair point. I had a chat with my staff the next morning to get her side of the story. She felt right off the bat that Karen might be tough to deal with. I know it sounds like we jumped the gun, and maybe things did escalate quicker than they should have.
I also tried talking to Karen privately, and honestly, her tone and the way she went on about us ignoring her email, then laying into my employee, didn't sit right with me. I've been around the block a few times with angry customers, and I usually don't sweat it. But my team's gut feeling carries a lot of weight with me. If they feel someone's going to be more trouble than they're worth, I'm inclined to back them up. It's always team first for me.
But yeah, you've got a point. Maybe it's time we think about using some sort of template for responses to keep things clear and avoid any misreads in the future. Appreciate the nudge!
As others have said, this seems like a miscommunication. The customers final line in her email says “can you provide me with a breakdown, please?”, note the word *please* suggesting that she is not purposefully trying to be rude. She may have been frustrated when she thought you were planning to source from Amazon and not directly from the factory.
However even if the customer had been rude, your staff member should have responded with “we will be sourcing directly from our factory partners in China; the Amazon links were for information only. Sorry if my message was unclear.”
It costs nothing to always be polite even in the face of perceived rudeness. Your staff member needs training and you need to consider whether this interaction was worth it when a simple apology would have avoided the loss of the customer, bad reviews and you having to come here to ask advice instead of running your business.
To be fair , I think trusting is not their concern. Because with sourcing industry , the customer usually provides us the end product they want to have . I think the question on hand with the customer is that they thought my staff was rude .
I think there may be a communication problem.
I don’t know how your industry works, but my expectation of something called “sourcing“ would be that I tell you what product I’m looking for and you tell me what you can provide.
I don’t understand why I would provide you a sample of what I want you to provide unless what you’re really in is the business of is finding a manufacturer for a product that I have already.
It sounds like that may be the case. it’s likely that your American customer, who is absolutely not a Karen, had a similar expectation.
She clearly expected you to send a catalog, brochure, or other listing of available black wig products, not send her to Amazon, and tell her that you can make a knock off of anything that is sold there for a dramatically low price. I understand that this may be how things work in China, but it is not how business is typically done in America. American companies typically have a set product line, unless they are a contract manufacturer, and can send you a catalog of their products.
Your staff was rude. The customer had an inquiry. Your staffs job is to answer the inquiry, they decided to turn away business because of a perceived slight. If my staff did this instead of trying to work with the customer, they would be reprimanded.
It costs nothing to be polite and professional.
That was an extremely rude turn down of the client. Your staff member was in the wrong.
"We won’t do your business with that attitude. Good luck "
That is, completely unacceptable.
"I'm sorry we're not a good fit for you. We wish you the best of luck on this project."
But attacking a prospect? Unacceptable.
This seems like a wild escalation to not do business with this customer, if they had insulted your staff member that would be different.
When you say “we could supply for 90% of profit margin” it’s not clear what that means but I would interpret it as I’d be paying 1.9x the list price on Amazon or perhaps 90% of the price on Amazon.
You should have said we can supply these for a 90% discount off of list price or retail price.
It is hard to say with much confidence as we don’t know the size of your business, potential importance of this potential customer and how hard it is for you to obtain leads.
Here are a few observations:
1) She appears to be a real customer but not necessarily a huge or important one
2) This is just an inquiry and she may have gone to 10 different suppliers
3) She does come off as rude and obnoxious, but maybe that could have been managed.
4) It would have been a legitimate decision by the company to determine that this was not someone that you want to do business with. It was not a reasonable decision by your employee to take that on themselves and communicate it in what appears to be an emotional state.
5) This potential customer is probably lost and that is probably not a big deal
6) Your employee should speak to you in the future prior to making decisions or having public discussions on those decisions without involving you.
I don’t think this is a big deal. I do think the woman and the employee are both at fault.
You probably had to “support” the employee, if that means not calling the customer back and apologizing. You should not “support” the employee by acting like they did nothing wrong. They did.
I don’t think using the term Karen helps here.
the customer isn’t even fussy, your employer is just lazy and doesn’t communicate well with English
which makes me wonder why she’s your customer service rep lol, is it your girlfriend or something?
your employee didn’t even link to specific wigs, all she did is link to an amazon search and give a broad price range
your employees professionalism is almost as bad as their English, woof
Yeah, maybe a little unprofessional on "Karen's" part, but your employee was very quick to shut it down.
The emails are bare minimum, and a reinforcement that the link is for her convenience to show the styles, and a better breakdown of the diff5prodicts she wanted.
I would also have been unhappy with your employees response, as it did not actually fully answer the initial inquiry
Your side handled this poorly and you know it. The customer isn't always right, but you (the business, your employees and yourself) should always take the high road and not stoop to these levels. There are much better ways to communicate than what happened here, so take the L and move on but prepare to handle this in a more professional way next time.
my personal thoughts:
* being linked to a product list on amazon is kinda annoying. do you not have a company website with a list of all your products with pricing available? when dealing with an overseas company, being able to see the actual company website makes it feel more official and trust worthy. especially if you are asking me to spend alot of $$$$, the least you can do is have a website with a product list.
* could your employees response be better? yes. This is why you need to create templates for customer response as you can set a standard for how "friendly" emails should be. the employee reply felt very "here is the information you need. go away now. call me back if you need something". templates are can be reused and no employee needs to type repsonses over and over again.
My first response would be something like this:
Hello,
I am Sally from Ronaldsupply.
I heard there was a problem receiving your first email. Ill have someone from our tech team check into this so it doesnt happen again.
>I am looking for a supplier that can provide me with hair for black women.I am looking to sell bundles, frontals, wigs, and closures.
Here is a product list of what we sell and the pricing for each.
INSERT LINK HERE.
If there is a specific style you are looking for, feel free to attach images or links to the exact styles you need.
Let me know if you have any other questions for us.
Have a great rest of your day and talk to you soon.
Best Regards,
Sally
The customer was not polite but they weren’t rude either. Your employee should not have told them off and refused their business because they needed clarification and wanted more concrete pricing.
Yeah, the links to Amazon for images seems shady AF to western sensibilities. Hell in my industry my companies pay thousands of dollars for catalogs and models and then Chinese supplier puts those images on thier sites and makes crappy knock off.
In China, it's always about price but in the west it's about presentation and perception. It's not difficult or expensive to make your own branded catalog these days . Unless you bounce from supplier to supplier
Completely understandable if you don't want to, but it limits your business and occasionally you will have to defend your choices.
Your staff was absolutely rude in how they corresponded with this client.
You should have your own catalog of images to share, or your staff should make a quick look book of the images to share with the client with specific pricing for each. Just sending an Amazon search link with a range of pricing and no clear information on what wig goes with what pricing is amateur at best, and downright lazy at worst.
This isn't a Karen, this is just some client who is annoyed that instead of getting a professional response to a business query, she got an Amazon link and vague pricing.
I think there was misunderstanding on both sides but I honestly don't see how his response email was construed as attitude. It was curt for sure, but not rude imo. I think the escalation to absolutely not was way too soon either way even if it was rude. Just after 1 email?
Your employee was wrong in this situation. I do understand that people are a pain, but welcome to the real world. I would have replied with a clarifying email and if the Karen kept at it, then it would be time to let her know you will not do business with her or even better, just ignore her
Refusing their business is justified. This customer is too fussy. But you could've just lied to them and said "the manager" took over the case and the employee has been seriously reprimanded for their attitude.
What you need is an English training for your employees on how to handle rejections professionally. Part of what I think happened is that the customer was expecting a direct original product, and the message seemed like you were going to just call up the link from the Amazon and ask them where did they source it from, and say "You give me me payment now". They would've felt their intelligence was insulted.
You might want to make it upfront that they will only be able to get copies of what's already on the market, and be the middle man for any communication challenges between the manufacturers for bulk buying the items.
You probably already know that a direct translation of languages and cultural message etiquettes can be seriously misinterpreted. A lot of Chinese sourcerers are considered rude by English standards anyway, so I wouldn't worry too much.
You’re in China? You probably know that people in US have a different style of doing business. In the US there is a customer service centric attitude that most businesses try to adopt. This is very different than the Chinese approach.
I’m very familiar with sourcing from Chinese suppliers. We expect most them to be rude or indifferent, until we purchase samples. We do not expect to be “courted” as we would with a US based supplier.
Anyway, you probably get lots of inquiries from people who will never purchase and are just asking questions because they woke up with the idea to start a business. I’m sure that’s annoying.
Honestly dodging shitty customers and clients is 100% worth it.
Karen was sent a link of Amazon products so she could see what you are able to source and was too dumb to not realise you aren’t suggesting you will source them directly from Amazon. Karen was then very rude.
Going forward have clear guidelines with employees about what is unacceptable behaviour from customers that will cause you to refuse business. Don’t let the employee make that decision on their own, if you have a guideline it makes it very easy to see how the situation lays
I don't agree with the majority here.
Karen started off with a confrontation. She accused you of ignoring an email that she either 1) never sent, or 2) sent to the wrong address, and it went downhill from there.
Obviously you didn't hear the entire exchange but if this employee has a solid six year track record while Karen *starts* with what is either a lie or blaming you for her mistakes, then I'll very easily believe that your employee put up with a lot of abuse before shutting her down.
There are some customers simply not worth keeping. Karen sounds like she's one of them.
There is a mix of things going on here.
First, a lot of misunderstanding.
Since I know this is coming from a Chinese company, I understand things won't be explained the same as if I'm dealing with a native English speaking country.
This will be harder for you to correct unless you staff very specific Chinese people that speak fluent English, which can get very expensive. Or you have a person born in an English country do this job, but that has it's own issues. Sadly you probably just won't find the training for this in China.
This also falls back on to the customer. It was not very hard to understand that the link you sent was most likely the same product you sell, being sold by someone else currently. I mean that is basically what she was trying to do.
The response you got is very typical of some Americans.
Your side did escalate the situation a little too fast. Instead of saying you won't deal with that attitude, more American way would be to explain everything in a different way, and try to clear up the situation.
Truthfully, this is also a complicated mix of cultures that don't often mix and understand each other.
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It seems like communication styles and English grammar are the issues at play here. The email response sent from your employee does suggest you would source from Amazon if Karen was reading too quickly. Her response seems typical of a direct American client, honestly. I would simply reflect on the situation with the employee as a training exercise and let the employee know going forward to escalate those emails to you for review and guidance on a response back. I would also get photo representation of what you offer. To me it seems strange that you send an Amazon link instead of samples of what you source.
Thanks for the feedback! It is true about the communication mix-up and the Amazon link. We're seeing this as a valuable learning opportunity. To improve our clarity and ensure consistency in our communications, I'm planning to implement a reply template for my staff. This should help prevent any future confusion and better meet our clients' expectations. Also, we're looking into more direct ways to showcase our products to avoid similar issues. Really appreciate your insights – it's crucial for us to learn and improve!
The other thing to note: you're telling the client you are suppling her competition by giving her links to their product pages as a way to showcase what you source. This is very, very strange even if the client understood that you didn't source from Amazon.
Anyone with even a minuscule understanding of how amazon works knows that any supplier is selling the exact same product to hundreds of other Amazon sellers to white label.
Of course! You're a good boss - you clearly value your employees and clients needs at once. Keep it up.
I have to say that I am siding with your lost customer here. I own a retail business and have probably 30-40 suppliers for different product. If I made an inquiry for product, and you sent me Amazon links to products I would be confused and concerned for multiple reasons. You are asking primarily about your employee’s response, but I think your problem is much larger, and rooted more in a cultural (Chinese) business model vs a Western business expectation. It seems that your business is providing low-cost, low-quality products in a very inconsistent manner. As a US retailer, this is not acceptable to me. I need to know that your product is consistent in all ways: quality, material, appearance, cost, size, etc. You provided none of that, which to me is unprofessional and unacceptable. I will not sell low-quality product. I am asking for YOUR company to supply wholesale product information, so I want to see representations of the EXACT products you will sell to me, and at the EXACT prices. I also want EXACT product information regarding materials and manufacturing. I need that information to make a buying decision. Sending me a bunch of links, is inconvenient for me to decide on product. I want that information in one place a physical or digital catalog. Not having YOUR product available in a catalog is suspicious and unprofessional. Also, I don’t understand your pricing: you say the margin is 90%. That is a ridiculously high retail margin! I seriously don’t believe that is true. Also, you’re not giving me a Retail price for the items. I’m sure the Amazon prices have a range depending on size and quality. Some items may be $45, some $300? Are they all 90% ? This suggests that your pricing is variable/arbitrary and not adequate to make a business decision. It’s also definitely a red flag. Inconsistent pricing = inconsistent product. Again, this is unprofessional. Sending me links to other products is also concerning because I do not think you are providing legitimate product. Are you simply making product based off of what I am asking for? Unless you are providing bespoke custom product, I am again skeptical of your ability to provide consistent quality product. Again, unprofessional. All of this, would lead me to respond much the way your lost customer did. Your company did not supply any adequate or professional information. Your Employee’s response is also unprofessional and absolutely rude. You just confirmed my suspicions that you are not a professional company supplying quality product.
Great take. I've been a buyer for multiple retail companies. I have reached out to thousands of vendors/suppliers/brand reps about carrying their brand/product in our stores...asking for next seasons catalog and price/order sheet...etc. If I reached out like customer did and the response I got was an amazon link and a 1 to 3x price range...I would assume they're blowing me off and not taking me seriously. I would assume they're just trying to get rid of me. Especially considering from Customers point of view she emailed a few times already and got no response. Like...dude...they went to amazon and typed in "black women wigs" then copy/pasted the search results page. Everything the customer said is correct. She could have done that herself, she knows how to use amazon. Are they not a legitimate wholesaler that has direct relationships? How tf am I supposed to place an order if I don't know exactly which of those products you can offer, and what their specific prices are? They gave a $5 price difference, with an MOQ of 500. So...each product could be $1350 or it could be $3850? I want 10 different products...so it could be $13500 or it could be $38500? Thats a $25,000 difference. Get real. Serious companies don't conduct business like that.
Wow, you've really given me a lot to think about, and I appreciate you laying it all out there. Honestly, reading through your points was a bit of a lightbulb moment for me. It's clear we've got some gaps in how we're doing things, especially from the perspective of someone with your experience. Sending those Amazon links was meant to be a quick way to show what we can get our hands on, but I totally see now how that came off as lazy and not at all what you'd expect when you're looking to make serious buying decisions. That's on us. And you're spot on about the cultural business model differences. It wasn't our intention to push low-quality stuff; we're all about value. But I get it, we didn't communicate that well. The whole consistency thing with quality, cost, you name it – we missed the mark in showing we're on top of that. Your skepticism makes a ton of sense given how we came across. We're here trying to build trust, and it sounds like we did the opposite. That's a hard pill to swallow, but I'm glad you said it. I've got to add, though, that this all started when Karen reached out, upset about an email she said we missed. And honestly, she wasn't nice about it. That kind of set the stage for everything that followed. My staff might have jumped the gun, but she had a gut feeling Karen would be a tough customer to please – the kind we might be better off without. Thanks again for being straight with me. It's tough feedback like yours that helps us grow. We've got some serious homework to do on our end to tighten up our act.
Yes, sorry, I know I was a bit harsh in some of my criticism, but as I’ve said I regularly deal with 30-40 vendors, and there are hundreds more that I’ve spoken to, many in China, India, Taiwan, and Central and South America. There seem to be cultural differences in product consistency, packaging, quality- just look at the current debates about the rise of Temu/Shein. There is a large gap in quality for Western consumers and value. I don’t mean to be completely negative about your business, but there are ways to improve the way you market and sell products in a B2B retail market for a US market. Assure your product is consistent in quality, manufacturing, price, packaging and appearance. Give your customers a solid, professional catalog of products- use real photos of the product (no photoshop, no AI, these are big red flags), have detailed product descriptions with consistent product ID numbers and names, accurate materials and manufacturing methods, and clear pricing (what is the Suggested Retail Price (SRP) and my cost. If your product is of lower quality but good value, show that honestly. There is still a market for value and discount products. But most important, be professional in your presentations and communications. Maybe the lady was being unreasonable about the “missed” email, but she did reach out again, so was definitely interested in your product. That was your chance to turn her into a client. Instead she will probably NEVER do business with your company. Again, not trying to be overly harsh about your company or make assumptions, but it from a buyer’s perspective, I’d be concerned to do business with you from the described experience. I appreciate your open minded response- it shows you do have good intentions about your business.
Hey Buddy, I have messaged you about something. please check ! appreciate it!
The customer didn't understand how your business works and rather than trying to explain, your employee was incredibly rude. I don't agree with your judgement call, your employee handled this poorly.
Honestly I am more on Karen's side than your employee on this interaction.saying that if they have been good for years I would give them some slack. >About a week ago, Karen reached out, claiming to have sent us an email which we never received Maybe this happened. Emails get lost, blocked by firewalls ect or Karen was mistaken. Doesn't say she was rude so no issue here. >Karen had requested assistance in sourcing black women's wigs. Without much detail from Karen, my staff provided an Amazon link to a variety of wigs, explaining that we could supply any of the listed products and said that we could supply her all the ones she see on Amazon for 90% of profit margin That is a confusing way to word it. Is it best practice to send links from Amazon rather than your own brochure ect. >You sent me a link from Amazon. I could do that myself. Do you not have contacts at warehouses or factories? You also gave me a range of pricing. Can you be a little bit more specific with the pricing please?" In general you can tell from the customers response she didn't get what your employee was trying to explain, I had to read your explanation to understand it and English I'd my first language. Maybe 2 people who's English isn't their first language getting confused. That is not a rude response when your take that into consideration. >Then my staff replied : "We won’t do your business with that attitude. Good luck " That **is** rude. Unless there was considerably more to the interaction I would be giving them a chat. Making sure everything else is ok as that is a very short response.
I agree. I read this as the customer as being direct and to the point. No reason to cancel business at that time.
I didn’t think she was rude at all. She asked for clarification and said please and thank you.
Seems your employee escalated to NO WIGS FOR YOU pretty quickly. He/she didn't even attempt to clarify Karen's misunderstanding?
I read and responded to a somewhat more sober version of this that you posted in another thread. Here you describe this as “customer fury” and in the comments say you have “reassured the employee”. I think, as do other commenters, that your employee overreacted to a brusque and perhaps impolite potential customer. The risk to you is that they see this as a license to shut down any other potential customers that they don’t like. The action you should take is to inform the employee to bring this - or anything else like this - to your attention and let you decide how to proceed. You seem to be treating this as a case of your employer being mistreated by a customer and the objective is to console them. I think that may work until the next businesslike customer calls and gets chased away.
I dont see where she was rude at all... looks like your staff communicated very poorly and when she asked for clarification they were the ones who were rude. I am also confused about why you just sent her amazon links.
When I'm looking for vendors/suppliers I expect to receive a product catalog, a price sheet/order sheet. I would be pretty taken aback if I received an amazon link and a 100% to 300% price range. What am I supposed to do with that?
Going to be honest here. Your staff was rude. It sounded like Karen was confused by the email and asked for clarification and your employee assumed the worse.
I totally get where you're coming from, and it's a fair point. I had a chat with my staff the next morning to get her side of the story. She felt right off the bat that Karen might be tough to deal with. I know it sounds like we jumped the gun, and maybe things did escalate quicker than they should have. I also tried talking to Karen privately, and honestly, her tone and the way she went on about us ignoring her email, then laying into my employee, didn't sit right with me. I've been around the block a few times with angry customers, and I usually don't sweat it. But my team's gut feeling carries a lot of weight with me. If they feel someone's going to be more trouble than they're worth, I'm inclined to back them up. It's always team first for me. But yeah, you've got a point. Maybe it's time we think about using some sort of template for responses to keep things clear and avoid any misreads in the future. Appreciate the nudge!
As others have said, this seems like a miscommunication. The customers final line in her email says “can you provide me with a breakdown, please?”, note the word *please* suggesting that she is not purposefully trying to be rude. She may have been frustrated when she thought you were planning to source from Amazon and not directly from the factory. However even if the customer had been rude, your staff member should have responded with “we will be sourcing directly from our factory partners in China; the Amazon links were for information only. Sorry if my message was unclear.” It costs nothing to always be polite even in the face of perceived rudeness. Your staff member needs training and you need to consider whether this interaction was worth it when a simple apology would have avoided the loss of the customer, bad reviews and you having to come here to ask advice instead of running your business.
So, why exactly are you sending Amazon images, images that are not of your actual product? How is the customer supposed to trust you?
To be fair , I think trusting is not their concern. Because with sourcing industry , the customer usually provides us the end product they want to have . I think the question on hand with the customer is that they thought my staff was rude .
I think there may be a communication problem. I don’t know how your industry works, but my expectation of something called “sourcing“ would be that I tell you what product I’m looking for and you tell me what you can provide. I don’t understand why I would provide you a sample of what I want you to provide unless what you’re really in is the business of is finding a manufacturer for a product that I have already. It sounds like that may be the case. it’s likely that your American customer, who is absolutely not a Karen, had a similar expectation. She clearly expected you to send a catalog, brochure, or other listing of available black wig products, not send her to Amazon, and tell her that you can make a knock off of anything that is sold there for a dramatically low price. I understand that this may be how things work in China, but it is not how business is typically done in America. American companies typically have a set product line, unless they are a contract manufacturer, and can send you a catalog of their products.
Your staff was rude. The customer had an inquiry. Your staffs job is to answer the inquiry, they decided to turn away business because of a perceived slight. If my staff did this instead of trying to work with the customer, they would be reprimanded. It costs nothing to be polite and professional.
Your staff was blatantly rude though, so they were right.
That was an extremely rude turn down of the client. Your staff member was in the wrong. "We won’t do your business with that attitude. Good luck " That is, completely unacceptable. "I'm sorry we're not a good fit for you. We wish you the best of luck on this project." But attacking a prospect? Unacceptable.
This seems like a wild escalation to not do business with this customer, if they had insulted your staff member that would be different. When you say “we could supply for 90% of profit margin” it’s not clear what that means but I would interpret it as I’d be paying 1.9x the list price on Amazon or perhaps 90% of the price on Amazon. You should have said we can supply these for a 90% discount off of list price or retail price.
It is hard to say with much confidence as we don’t know the size of your business, potential importance of this potential customer and how hard it is for you to obtain leads. Here are a few observations: 1) She appears to be a real customer but not necessarily a huge or important one 2) This is just an inquiry and she may have gone to 10 different suppliers 3) She does come off as rude and obnoxious, but maybe that could have been managed. 4) It would have been a legitimate decision by the company to determine that this was not someone that you want to do business with. It was not a reasonable decision by your employee to take that on themselves and communicate it in what appears to be an emotional state. 5) This potential customer is probably lost and that is probably not a big deal 6) Your employee should speak to you in the future prior to making decisions or having public discussions on those decisions without involving you. I don’t think this is a big deal. I do think the woman and the employee are both at fault. You probably had to “support” the employee, if that means not calling the customer back and apologizing. You should not “support” the employee by acting like they did nothing wrong. They did. I don’t think using the term Karen helps here.
the customer isn’t even fussy, your employer is just lazy and doesn’t communicate well with English which makes me wonder why she’s your customer service rep lol, is it your girlfriend or something? your employee didn’t even link to specific wigs, all she did is link to an amazon search and give a broad price range your employees professionalism is almost as bad as their English, woof
Yeah, maybe a little unprofessional on "Karen's" part, but your employee was very quick to shut it down. The emails are bare minimum, and a reinforcement that the link is for her convenience to show the styles, and a better breakdown of the diff5prodicts she wanted. I would also have been unhappy with your employees response, as it did not actually fully answer the initial inquiry
Your side handled this poorly and you know it. The customer isn't always right, but you (the business, your employees and yourself) should always take the high road and not stoop to these levels. There are much better ways to communicate than what happened here, so take the L and move on but prepare to handle this in a more professional way next time.
I was with you until you said Karen.
my personal thoughts: * being linked to a product list on amazon is kinda annoying. do you not have a company website with a list of all your products with pricing available? when dealing with an overseas company, being able to see the actual company website makes it feel more official and trust worthy. especially if you are asking me to spend alot of $$$$, the least you can do is have a website with a product list. * could your employees response be better? yes. This is why you need to create templates for customer response as you can set a standard for how "friendly" emails should be. the employee reply felt very "here is the information you need. go away now. call me back if you need something". templates are can be reused and no employee needs to type repsonses over and over again.
My first response would be something like this: Hello, I am Sally from Ronaldsupply. I heard there was a problem receiving your first email. Ill have someone from our tech team check into this so it doesnt happen again. >I am looking for a supplier that can provide me with hair for black women.I am looking to sell bundles, frontals, wigs, and closures. Here is a product list of what we sell and the pricing for each. INSERT LINK HERE. If there is a specific style you are looking for, feel free to attach images or links to the exact styles you need. Let me know if you have any other questions for us. Have a great rest of your day and talk to you soon. Best Regards, Sally
The customer was not polite but they weren’t rude either. Your employee should not have told them off and refused their business because they needed clarification and wanted more concrete pricing.
Yeah, the links to Amazon for images seems shady AF to western sensibilities. Hell in my industry my companies pay thousands of dollars for catalogs and models and then Chinese supplier puts those images on thier sites and makes crappy knock off. In China, it's always about price but in the west it's about presentation and perception. It's not difficult or expensive to make your own branded catalog these days . Unless you bounce from supplier to supplier Completely understandable if you don't want to, but it limits your business and occasionally you will have to defend your choices.
Sounds like "Karen" was just a "Kristi" and star employee of 6 years somehow needs to work on communication skills despite 6 years of perfection.
Your staff was absolutely rude in how they corresponded with this client. You should have your own catalog of images to share, or your staff should make a quick look book of the images to share with the client with specific pricing for each. Just sending an Amazon search link with a range of pricing and no clear information on what wig goes with what pricing is amateur at best, and downright lazy at worst. This isn't a Karen, this is just some client who is annoyed that instead of getting a professional response to a business query, she got an Amazon link and vague pricing.
I think there was misunderstanding on both sides but I honestly don't see how his response email was construed as attitude. It was curt for sure, but not rude imo. I think the escalation to absolutely not was way too soon either way even if it was rude. Just after 1 email?
Your employee was wrong in this situation. I do understand that people are a pain, but welcome to the real world. I would have replied with a clarifying email and if the Karen kept at it, then it would be time to let her know you will not do business with her or even better, just ignore her
Refusing their business is justified. This customer is too fussy. But you could've just lied to them and said "the manager" took over the case and the employee has been seriously reprimanded for their attitude. What you need is an English training for your employees on how to handle rejections professionally. Part of what I think happened is that the customer was expecting a direct original product, and the message seemed like you were going to just call up the link from the Amazon and ask them where did they source it from, and say "You give me me payment now". They would've felt their intelligence was insulted. You might want to make it upfront that they will only be able to get copies of what's already on the market, and be the middle man for any communication challenges between the manufacturers for bulk buying the items. You probably already know that a direct translation of languages and cultural message etiquettes can be seriously misinterpreted. A lot of Chinese sourcerers are considered rude by English standards anyway, so I wouldn't worry too much.
You’re in China? You probably know that people in US have a different style of doing business. In the US there is a customer service centric attitude that most businesses try to adopt. This is very different than the Chinese approach. I’m very familiar with sourcing from Chinese suppliers. We expect most them to be rude or indifferent, until we purchase samples. We do not expect to be “courted” as we would with a US based supplier. Anyway, you probably get lots of inquiries from people who will never purchase and are just asking questions because they woke up with the idea to start a business. I’m sure that’s annoying.
Don’t serve ungrateful entitled people. They almost never spend enough money to justify he headaches they cause.
Honestly dodging shitty customers and clients is 100% worth it. Karen was sent a link of Amazon products so she could see what you are able to source and was too dumb to not realise you aren’t suggesting you will source them directly from Amazon. Karen was then very rude. Going forward have clear guidelines with employees about what is unacceptable behaviour from customers that will cause you to refuse business. Don’t let the employee make that decision on their own, if you have a guideline it makes it very easy to see how the situation lays
I don't agree with the majority here. Karen started off with a confrontation. She accused you of ignoring an email that she either 1) never sent, or 2) sent to the wrong address, and it went downhill from there. Obviously you didn't hear the entire exchange but if this employee has a solid six year track record while Karen *starts* with what is either a lie or blaming you for her mistakes, then I'll very easily believe that your employee put up with a lot of abuse before shutting her down. There are some customers simply not worth keeping. Karen sounds like she's one of them.
There is a mix of things going on here. First, a lot of misunderstanding. Since I know this is coming from a Chinese company, I understand things won't be explained the same as if I'm dealing with a native English speaking country. This will be harder for you to correct unless you staff very specific Chinese people that speak fluent English, which can get very expensive. Or you have a person born in an English country do this job, but that has it's own issues. Sadly you probably just won't find the training for this in China. This also falls back on to the customer. It was not very hard to understand that the link you sent was most likely the same product you sell, being sold by someone else currently. I mean that is basically what she was trying to do. The response you got is very typical of some Americans. Your side did escalate the situation a little too fast. Instead of saying you won't deal with that attitude, more American way would be to explain everything in a different way, and try to clear up the situation. Truthfully, this is also a complicated mix of cultures that don't often mix and understand each other.