- Recon Number 54
- |
- Master Forum Ninja
- gamertag: [none]
- user homepage:
Well, here we are. I guess that it was destined to come to this.
I honestly feel for the customer in that case.
Though I do feel the need to disclose that more than a few members who have been banned in the past have adopted a "I am the customer and the customer is always right" strategy when attempting to appeal their forum bans.
I can tell you that after multiple attempts to explain to the irate "customer" (actually community member) that:
1) Bungie.Net is a community site/service provided to the fan community.
2) The service is provided without any fee(s).
3) The service is conditional on any visitor honoring and following their membership agreement.
4) The site is Bungie dot NET, not dot COM, which should explain that while it is Bungie's offering to their fans, it is not a business and/or product support site.
5) That I do not work for, act, speak or serve as a representative of Bungie, but as a member of the same community and member pool that they are/were a part of.
6) So, they are not "a customer" but rather "a member". I am not "customer service" but rather "a fellow member". So, we are both members of a community, a community that allows some members to enforce the rules and regulations that all members agreed to follow when they joined. That none of us "bought anything" to become a member and since we didn't purchase anything, we're not customers of Bungie.Net. None of us. We're here of our own choosing and can remain here as long as we follow our promise to obey the conditions to which we all agreed.
7) So, any expectation of "customer service" is going to be met with this volunteers best effort at politeness, common courtesy, and civility. Unless those efforts of mine are not returned. Then, since I have no obligation to provide the individual with "customer service", and because in fact both the angry member and I are "customers" as they are mistakenly choosing to define it... and they are basically "being rude to another guy in the crowd". Eventually, this "fellow customer" is going to share his thoughts on the ability of the banned member to "properly assess their situation and direct their complaints appropriately". And when I get to that point, I am probably not too polite about it.
The problem is, once I start giving them back what they've been shoveling from the start... somehow I "am the douche".
Oh well, at least I smell like a spring breeze. With an interesting sort of tang.
So, why the long story from Uncle Recon? Just this (and I guess that you can call this the TL:DR summary). Customers DO deserve to be treated properly. They have paid for the privilege. But if you are being bumped around by life, the Internet, or on account of your own sense of entitlement... calling yourself a "customer" when you aren't one, isn't going to make you "always right". It's constantly tried and all it does it make it harder for real customers to get treated as they should. Fairly, decently and with some gratitude for their business.