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Be honest and understand your customer – it makes them happier

I have recently had a very frustrating experience with a company who sold me a product. I have never been a fan of people who use their blogs to drag down a company so I will do my best not to do this here (although I really do feel like naming the company).

The truth is I made a mistake in buying a software based product before double checking with the company that the software runs on a Mac computer. To my annoyance it did not. I take complete blame at this point, it was my mistake for not checking.

Frustration?

Here’s the frustrating bit. I contacted the support department to see if there was anyway to make this software run. Their answer was simple.

“the software definitely does run on a Mac. You just need to boot it using windows software.”

Now let me explain, asking a Mac user reboot their computer into a Windows operating system is not only an insult but also hugely inconvenient.

This leads me to my point. There was a clear misunderstanding of a Mac user by this company. They felt they had a great solution but the solution only frustrates and infuriates the user at the end of the day.

It would have been better to offer an immediate refund at this point and let me know it only runs on windows. I would have been happy to send the product back at this point and restart my search for the right product.

I really liked the product and would have recommended it to other windows users I met. However now I have a personal frustration with the people at the company that makes me irritated with them. I was impressed with the company (even as a windows only platform) before but now I am annoyed with them. Enough to write something about it.

My annoyance is in that they are trying to be something they are not. They have not created a product for Mac users. That’s fine. Mac people can go elsewhere.

The problem is that they happily claim they have found a Mac based solution. They have not. They have simply kept their windows solution and asked the customer to change.

In order to use this software I would need to:

1) Pay R900 for it
2) Buy a windows operating system R1700
3) spend hours researching how to install windows on my Mac using Bootcamp.
4) or buy a Programme like Parallels to run windows on R800

This is not a customer focused solution. It is a quick fix for the company that costs the customer a fortune to make up for a bad solution.

I have one suggestion that would have helped in building a better customer experience.

Be honest

Honesty would have bought to light that the Mac solution was not actually a solution at the end of the day. Honesty would have clearly defined the problem and shown the truth before the solution was even implemented into the business.

Honesty begs people to deal with the tough facts after doing all the right research. In other words, to make the most informed and correct move given your current circumstances and knowledge of what’s right.

Honesty would have challenged the business to offer a better product to their customers.
If they made the decision to provide a Mac solution it would have come in the form of a Mac driver and not a windows emulator.

Should their honesty lead them to decide not to support Mac, this honesty would have lead to a clear and direct customer engagement that would have avoided the dissatisfaction experienced.

Your Thoughts

I would,love,to hear what you have to say about this, comment below!

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