Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Terrible Customer Service: By Night Studios

This post is inspired by Bien Aimee's recent post about a customer service experience she had with a popular shoe brand. That got me thinking to my customer service horror story with By Night Studios, which many of you may know via Vampire: The Masquerade.



As you know, I am a fan of the games, and I remember they used to have these clan pins in the 90s, and then they reissued them. I always played in Sabbat games (the evil vampires) and wanted this pin (far right) since forever. I order the pin early December 2016. Instead, they send me an ANARCH pin. I'll be real--the anarchs suck. I would maybe wear the Camarilla pin, but they fucked up the order in the worst way.

I send an email THAT NIGHT telling them they sent the wrong pin. I never get a response. I emailed again a week later. Nothing. Finally, on January 7, a month later, I go on the very active Facebook page, wait till there's a new launch for a new product. And be the first comment. I complain about customer service, that I was sent the wrong product, and hoped that maybe it'll get the attention of SOMEONE. ANYONE who could help me with my order. They were launching a brand-new Werewolf addition, and this would look very bad.

I got the attention of the CEO. He sends me a private Facebook message, asking what happened. I told him. He said he was sorry and he'd make sure I'd get the right pin. He was so nice that I thought the problem was solved. Wrong! On January 17, I send a follow-up message:



and then he ghosts me! I try again 2/7, and then again 2/21...and then I gave up. At this point, I was trying for 3 whole months. If I didn't get it by then and after the CEO was so polite and kind, I wasn't going to. I was out $20 and a pin I wanted since the early 90s. So much so I had considered actually buying it again and starting over. :( But no, seriously.

I was thinking of doing an impotent rage blog post at the time, then decided that it was too mean...I guess until now lol.  How on earth can your customer service email not work. I was a manager--if I told an underling "send this package to this person," they'd listen to me and do it. At this point I just want to know what happened. (and yes I still want the pin, if this post somehow gets back to someone.) skuzzlite @ gmail . com

I just wrote another email to info@bynightstudios.com. Will let you know how it goes.

HEY. I think a PIN MIGHT GO GREAT WITH THIS OUTFIT
look at this shitty mani I did. I put the design ON THE WRONG FINGER
Any customer service horror stories you'd like to get off your chest???

4 comments:

  1. You look cute in that photo! I work in retail for some major brands.In fact, we have many brands under our belt. A customer is a customer and we make sure that our customers are happy. This is BS. Maybe you should post a link to this blog post on their site?

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    1. How could so many links in the customer service chain be broken?

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  2. Arrgh! So frustrating >:( You never expect this kind of crap when you're buying alt and Goth fashion. I mean perhaps I'm assuming too much, but I always felt like brands that promote individuality, self expression and are ethically or morally upright would have the best customer service. It confuses me that they can't get things together and treat their customers respectfully, as if you were purchasing from a brick and mortar shop. Yet somehow they still manage to mess up royally! They hide behind their computer screens, deliberately leave no phone number or email, and do their best to avoid contact through social media platforms. I've seen Facebook and Instagram accounts littered with remarks from angry customers, a brand's PR people can only delete so many of these comments at a time. It's a tell tale sign of bad business.

    When I was looking into buying from YRU the first thing I did was look for reviews, sadly mostly of which were vlogs from obnoxious teenagers parading around with their daddy's credit card and gushing over how awesome everything is - because they didn't have to work to pay for the shoes, and how likely is it that anyone would complain about free shoes? I had nothing to go off of and I never considered visiting their Facebook page. I know better now, anytime I think I'm going to order from an unfamiliar brand, I'm heading straight to social media and I'm combing through the visitor comments.

    I'm sorry for your crap experience, the pin looks really cool and at $20 bucks it's not a huge loss for them to replace it. Keep at them on social media, in the very least you'll let future buyers know of the mistake and they can make an educated decision about buying from a company that doesn't value good customer service.

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    1. Yeah I'm also surprised when there's terrible customer service because you'd assume that the people have some sort of enthusiasm and pride for what they are selling, especially in these small operations

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