Unprofessional & Abusive email reply

CorkGuy

Hi, this is my first post. I have read the rules and hope that this thread conforms to them.

I felt I had to share this with everyone.

In response to a web designer who sent me an email asking for feedback and how things were going with the site (some 5 or 6 months after go live), I unfortunetly had nothing much good to say about the site and noted my reasons for this, i.e. hard to manage/maintain, lack of templates, the over-use of tables and a flimsy menu design along with the fact that I have decided to get someone else in to re-design it again to set it right, I received the following email from him:

Nitty <My name Here>,

You contracted me as web designer to design a corporate website for your software company and when the website was complete , you were very happy with it.

Everyone I have done websites for over the years have been very happy with my work and the professional advice and help I have provided has enabled so many people to succeed in the Internet Marketing business. You are the only ONE who has ever had a problem with my web design service.

It has to be said that over the years that I have been involved in web design I have never met a most disgruntled, bitter and nasty person such as you Mr <my name>. You showed no appreciation to the long hours that I worked to get your website up and running. And I did you a favour by not charging you any 50% deposit that I require from ALL my customers. If you are having trouble updating your website there are many courses available that teach people like you to update their own websites, but I doubt you would learn very much with the dreadful attitude you possess.

You have alot to learn about people and business. You won't go very far with that disgraceful attitude of yours. I will glady remove any urls or images that associate to your crapy company from website portfolio. Good luck to the next web design company because they will need dealing with a prick like you.

Yours Truly,

Simon

ENDS

Now, without going into any detail about this, I have highlighted this guys personal abuse in his email. I run a professional well established company and have clients all over Ireland, in the UK and US and I have never in my life seen such an example of unprofessional behavious and personal abuse in the context of a business dealings. I am still shocked at his reply and I feel it is my duty to fore-warn any other people out there who might be looking for such a service to make sure of the entegrity and personality of the people they deal with in business.

As for me, at least I have learned a lesson out of this but I would also be interested to hear your opinions as to the content of this email and if you have ever had any like encounter and how you delt with it. The name of the particular person and his company can be provided for those who wish to know!

Thanks for reading!!

dahamsta

Customer service works both ways. Whatever about the reasons behind it, this guy obviously wasn't happy with you as a customer and didn't want to deal with you, so he said his piece. Kowtowing to the customer might be the default these days, but not everyone has to subscribe to it. I for one have told people point blank several times that I'm simply not interested in dealing with them, because they're not suited to my business model.

That's my polite way of saying that they're too stupid to own a computer, or too arrogant to realise that I know more than them when it comes to the item I'm consulting with them on, but sometimes I've needed to be more blunt, nearly as blunt as yerman above. Some people need to be told in no uncertain terms. (I'm not suggesting that you're in that category, but that some are.)

Perhaps you were a bit too frank with him when you complained? Some people take offense to having their talents questioned, often rightly so.

adam

heggie

I work in a similar industry, and while I accept there are some customers we all need to kick to touch, that email is very unprofessional. You don't need to get personal with someone (providing you were not personal with him), and calling the clients company 'crappy' is a bit sad.

dahamsta

heggie wrote:

I(providing you were not personal with him)

This is the thing, we don't know what he was responding to.

calling the clients company 'crappy' is a bit sad.

Neither do we know whether the client's company is crappy or not.

adam

CorkGuy

Thanks for your response. Interesting to hear others opinion on this.

In reply, I have not delt with this guy since the site went live, as I was not happy with his service and level of knowledge about what I wanted. Indeed, I put as much work into getting the site to a deployable state than he did. So, rather than cause any issues, I worked until the site was in a state to go live and have had no delaings with him since and at all times was civil and courteous and I also paid his invoice immediately on receipt, as opposed to the usual 30 days credit as I recieve from all other suppliers ( and give to all clients)

I also purposely did not reply to an email he sent not long after go live looking for a testimonial, as I felt I could not give him one that would in anyway help sell his business. I felt that this was more prudent than to reply and refuse and also to avoid insulting the guy by providing a frank and honest one at that time.

This email from him was bourne from a response to an email I sent to him where I was replying to him when he asked how things were going etc so I simply pointed out my issues then.

Again, thanks for your opinion, but I do feel I am a fair and true businessman who does not provoke such situations

heggie

true. altho no matter what corkguy said. i dont think the responder should go down that route. corkguy, in the interest of fairness, how about posting your original mail to him

ballooba

Cork Guy, could you post verbatim the email you sent him?

[edit]Sounds like you should have spoke your mind at the time rather than waiting until the contract was complete.[/edit]

CorkGuy

Ken Shabby wrote:

This is the thing, we don't know what he was responding to.

Neither do we know whether the client's company is crappy or not.

adam

Hi again,

To save the guy from further embarrassment, I do not particularily post the emai lI sent to him. Suffice it to say, it was in no way personal or derogatory, rather simply pointing out my dis-satisfaction and issues with the site in general.

As I have pointed out to him, I believe you should never burn your bridges in business, or life, as you never know when you might need that person or business again, and I would therefore never take a personal approach or act so unprofessionally as to bring the persons business into disrepute.

CorkGuy

ballooba wrote:

Cork Guy, could you post verbatim the email you sent him?

[edit]Sounds like you should have spoke your mind at the time rather than waiting until the contract was complete.[/edit]

OK, I can see you will need to see my email to him in order to make educated opinions, so, here it is, in full and un-edited>

Mail>

Simon,

To be perfectly honest, I am regretting my decision to have commissioned you to prepare the website.

Not only did it involve way more work for myself and Sean than what I expected in the intial development of the site, but the maintenance and management of the site is very difficult because of the lack of templates, the layout and use of tables within the site as well as the flimsy menu layout.

Just this weekend I have been trying to update it with new images and information and have found it very frustrating because of the lack of control and fleaxibility I have in managing the images against text brought about by the complex use of tables and lack of templates.

I have decidied to invest in a more professional outfit to re-design the website to allow for this flexibility and self management that I wanted in the first place, which was pointed out to you which in all means a wasye of my time and money as already invested in the site.

I would also appreciate it, therefore, if you would immediately remove any link that you migt have from your own website to our one.

ENDS

That's it in full, including my spelling mistakes!

heggie

yeh Irelands way to small to handle things badly, although there are some people I would never deal with again, no matter how much work they could offer, maybe he feels the same about you, or maybe it was just a reactionary email to your negative feedback, either way It's a bad email to bother writing.

edit: btw, it just occured to me, did you pay for a self updatable website? or a brochure site? if its the latter you can hardly expect him to make it easy for you to update!

kellxor.1337

CorkGuy wrote:

If you are having trouble updating your website there are many courses available that teach people like you to update their own websites, but I doubt you would learn very much with the dreadful attitude you possess.

You have alot to learn about people and business. You won't go very far with that disgraceful attitude of yours. I will glady remove any urls or images that associate to your crapy company from website portfolio. Good luck to the next web design company because they will need dealing with a prick like you.

Yours Truly,

Simon

I dont believe any respectful buisnessman would send an employer such a rude mail, Thats way out of line, Since i'm from Cork aswell lol I'll take your word that your mail was not undermining his work but stating that you didnt like some aspects of it, Thats perfectly fair, If i got a reply like that i'd have a fit, and thats honest,

If you want to pm me the details of his company, i.e the website, and maybe even your company, What is it exaclty you do, Maybe show us your new website?



Kellxor

delly

Its hard to know what to say when only one side of the picture is provided, also a link to the site to see the work would be good, but i know thats not going to happen.

That said, i think the email he sent you is beyond unprofessional, regardless of what went before. We have all had bad customer experiences before and would be tempted to tell them what we think, but this is were most people would draw the line. But to express these opinions in black and white is a joke, as unlike verbal abuse, he can't exactly deny it happened.

dahamsta

CorkGuy wrote:

I believe you should never burn your bridges in business

I don't subscribe to this philosophy. Sure, I'm often more polite to people than I'd normally be, but some bridges need to be burned, pounded into dust, and shot into the heart of the sun. I don't believe that being a carpet and running a business should be mutually inclusive, and I don't believe in absolutes. Some people just need to be told to get bent.

On the subject of your email, I have to say that although it isn't as blatantly offensive as yerman's, it does come across as rude, demeaning and arrogant. Obviously it's hard to judge how deserved it is without seeing the site, but assuming his work /wasn't/ atrociously bad, I think if I was in his shoes, I wouldn't care to deal with you again. I'd also probably find myself thinking something along the lines of "if you had a problem with it, why didn't you just say?"

That being said, I get the impression for some reason that english isn't your first language, would I be right in saying that? This would certainly be a factor when it comes to the former issue, although not the latter. (This isn't intended as a slight on your english, I've just noticed that some of your phrasing doesn't come across naturally.)

adam

CorkGuy

Ken Shabby wrote:

That being said, I get the impression for some reason that english isn't your first language, would I be right in saying that? This would certainly be a factor when it comes to the former issue, although not the latter.

adam

Ok, that is a bit embarrassin. I guess I could defend myself and so you're right, Irishis my first language but I dont think I'd get away with that but yes, english is my first language!

He asked me how things were going with it, I had spent many hours over the weekend trying to update some iamges and fix some new text with great difficulty (I can use dreamweaver, not an expert but can get around it) so his email came at a time when I was most frustrated with it. I had told him during the time we were working on it that I wasn't happy by certain things and I felt I needed a hammer to drum into his head certain simple requests like "Consistency!!" etc.

Regardless of any email, I would never had considered him for work again.

Sleipnir

The content of Corkguys email is not in question here for the simple reason that he honestly didn't think he got a good service/website from the supplier.
He was polite yet (totally!) honest.

The response is shocking and no way to do business in this day and agem no matter how he feels about you personally.

heggie

heggie wrote:

did you pay for a self updatable website? or a brochure site? if its the latter you can hardly expect him to make it easy for you to update!

well? because by him making it easy for an amateur to update, costs him extra time, as well as loss of earnings from an update contract.
(not excusing the email at all though)

CorkGuy

heggie wrote:

well? because by him making it easy for an amateur to update, costs him extra time, as well as loss of earnings from an update contract.
(not excusing the email at all though)

I have to disagree. He DID NOT make it easy for an amateur to update, in fact, quite the opposite, even though I did request this and this was all laid out BEFORE an agreement of pricing was undertaken.

He did spend a lot of time ,it woudl seem, on having to fix mundane things like spellings and lack of consistemcy as well as not been able to follow specific instructions with regard to layout as provided in word document formats to make things easier on him.

So, we did try to make it as easy as possible for him, but it still seemed like a lot of work including the time and effort I and one of my employees had to put into it.

dahamsta

Heggie has a point, given your reply. If you were clear with him from the off that you'd be updating the site, and you agreed update procedures with each other, then the developer certainly has a case to answer. If procedures weren't agreed, then you should have returned to the developer for help.

Going by the information we have so far, although I agree that the developer's response was unprofessional, I still find it difficult to find them totally to blame. Sometimes people just need to vent, and sometimes it can be totally justified.

EDIT: In response to the above, fair enough if it was all laid out beforehand. I still get the impression that you might be what we in the trade politely refer to as "an exacting customer" though. I'm afraid that's not a term of endearment.

adam

heggie

Corkguy, im not saying this should be the case for all website work undertaken. But it is a standard question, will the end user update himself, or pay us to update it, if its the latter, less work goes into things like content management, if however, you need to update it yourself, then more development work is involved, and it costs more.

CorkGuy

heggie wrote:

Corkguy, im not saying this should be the case for all website work undertaken. But it is a standard question, will the end user update himself, or pay us to update it, if its the latter, less work goes into things like content management, if however, you need to update it yourself, then more development work is involved, and it costs more.

It was clearly defined at the outset that I would require the ability to update it myself and that it should therefore be designed in such a way as this could happen.

This was agreed BEFORE pricing was agreed. It is his concern to take pricing into consideration after that, and mine whether I want to accept that project at the price or not

heggie

CorkGuy wrote:

This was agreed BEFORE pricing was agreed. It is his concern to take pricing into consideration after that, and mine whether I want to accept that project at the price or not

Thats fair enough, absolutely i dont disagree, you should never have had to touch dreamweaver if this is the case.

Red Alert

That's a shocking way to do business. My own central heating system is similar. The installer was leaving the company so we made a few allowances (like allowing late nite working) so that he could get done in a week. The result is that the heating system didn't work properly at all and I (who am not a plumber or electrician altho' doing engineering in college) have replaced all the controls at considerable time and expense to my parents. The system now does work adequetly but still we didn't get what we paid for. There are also no wiring diagrams or labels on the pipes - doesn't this sound familiar like above?

To note on the above - you can get Content Manager Systems (CMS's) for (legally) free on the internet like PostNuke or Geeklog. There are even other ones suitable for e-commerce. They're very easy to update through your browser and you can delegate tasks to different people. Some hosting companies include them for free and you can install your choice with only a few mouse clicks. They're definitely the way to go - then you can pay a developer to do the templating and the like to work the way you want. Routine updates (like a new product) shouldn't need file editing at all is my 0.02. (Check out http://www.ucdengsoc.com/ if you want to see an example of one in action).

Enii

I think that website guys reply was so unprofessional and rude. Does he not know that a huge amount of work comes from word of mouth and personal recommendations. I think the OP should let as many of his friends know how bad a job this guy originally did and then the rude correspondance that he carried on with afterwards.

Tiesto

THats poor form to receive that sort of business email. It got way too personal which shouldnt happen. God if he takes that sort of attitude towards every customer that is not happy with the service he wont be in business much longer....

Whos to say he is a respectful professional business.
Maybe he is just some 17 year old kid that learnt how to make web sites in his free time??

rsynnott

Ken Shabby wrote:

Customer service works both ways. Whatever about the reasons behind it, this guy obviously wasn't happy with you as a customer and didn't want to deal with you, so he said his piece. Kowtowing to the customer might be the default these days, but not everyone has to subscribe to it.

Quite right; no cause to be this rude, though. (Always assuming the OP wasn't horribly rude to him, of course; if he was, then fair enough).

Actually, on reading the email the OP sent, it (the OP's email) is perfectly reasonable (maybe a little on the impersonally rude side), although the designer is under no legal obligation to remove the link to the OP's website.

Ken Shabby wrote:

Perhaps you were a bit too frank with him when you complained? Some people take offense to having their talents questioned, often rightly so.

There's no such thing as being 'too frank'.

On a separate note, I'd be unhappy dealing with any designer or particularly programmer with such a poor grasp of the English language, assuming that it is his first language.

The OP

To the OP: if you have a problem with him, why not let us know who he is so we can spread the word not to use him? Why bitch and moan anonymously about it?? We all agree he was out of order, so now what?

BrianD

Seems to me that there was a lack of communication between both parties while the site was being designed. Perhaps if there was a brief in place a web site that met your expectations would have been delivered? You seem to know what is wrong/missing but seems odd that these weren't spotted before the site went live or shortly afterwards. The supplier is obviously under the impression that he delivered what was required otherwise he wouldn't have requested a testimonial.

It still doesn't justify the web designers e-mail but I can see why he was irked.

BTW anybody written a brief for a web site that guides the design and functionality for a designer?

homeOwner

BrianD wrote:

You seem to know what is wrong/missing but seems odd that these weren't spotted before the site went live or shortly afterwards. The supplier is obviously under the impression that he delivered what was required otherwise he wouldn't have requested a testimonial.

I agree with the above. Surely if you were not happy you would not have paid the final invoice until the developer fixed the problems. It seems very odd that you paid him either knowing that it wasnt what you wanted or without checking it properly first.

I guess you learnt a hard lesson here.

In any case, there have been no consequences for the developer. He got paid and you havent named him. He will continue to treat people like this unless word gets around about what he is really like. I am a contractor and would never dream of sending someone an email like this no matter what I thought of them.

Savman

Ken Shabby wrote:

Customer service works both ways. Whatever about the reasons behind it, this guy obviously wasn't happy with you as a customer and didn't want to deal with you, so he said his piece. Kowtowing to the customer might be the default these days, but not everyone has to subscribe to it. I for one have told people point blank several times that I'm simply not interested in dealing with them, because they're not suited to my business model.

That's my polite way of saying that they're too stupid to own a computer, or too arrogant to realise that I know more than them when it comes to the item I'm consulting with them on, but sometimes I've needed to be more blunt, nearly as blunt as yerman above. Some people need to be told in no uncertain terms. (I'm not suggesting that you're in that category, but that some are.)

You don't sound like someone I'd ever like to do business with :mad:

There is absolutely no excuse for that ridiculous reply from that "company", no matter what your customers/clientele say to you, if you're a professional service provider you do not sink to that kind of level, EVER.

It'd be really shocking if it wasnt so stupidly funny :rolleyes:

dahamsta

Ask any experienced web developer or Internet consultant if there were any accounts they would have refused, in hindsight. I'd guess every single one of them will give you at least one example, and a fair portion will give you a half dozen.

I have the benefit of hindsight, I know which customers are going to be more trouble than they're worth, so I either reject them or give them extremely stringent terms and conditions to deal with; which of course depend on how troublesome they're going to be.

It's unlikely I would deal with them in the way the developer did, but I would certainly be frustrated if the client handled it the way he did - see BrianD's post above - and I can understand why a younger or less experienced developer would lose the rag like that.

I doubt it would have happened if the client had chosen a reputable developer to deal with in the first place.

Customer is only king to greedy people. My customers get respect, not brownnosing.

Savman wrote:

You don't sound like someone I'd ever like to do business with

See, I'd say the same, because you're not someone that takes the time to examine issues properly.

Sorry, you're not client material, please try somewhere else.

adam

Sponge Bob

Ken Shabby wrote:

Ask any experienced web developer or Internet consultant if there were any accounts they would have refused, in hindsight. I'd guess every single one of them will give you at least one example, and a fair portion will give you a half dozen.

How Very true.

The most lethal variant is the customer who does not know what they want , changes their mind all the time and refuses to accept that they themselves are seriously at fault when the project does not work as expected.... because their expectations change on a whim .

If you are lucky you get them to admit their whims by email , if not then its a bloody disaster and you never want to see the fools again.

I would forgive any developer who ultimately sent one of those fools a rude email ....even though they should not in a way but what the hell