Untitled at author's request

Shelby

Active member
Well done with the condescending comments.

If you're never shown the areas in which you can improve, how can I expect you to? Then again, maybe today is just April fools day and you're playing some kind of customer service joke on your customers. I guess that might be funny to some people. I always try to remind myself that with all of our communities, we can always improve communication in a few ways.
  • Whatever you do, do not take it personally. The people reading this site get to do that, staff do not have that privilege.
  • People who criticize usually do so because they feel powerless. Helplessness is one of the biggest sources of frustration and anger for a customer.
  • In a customers eyes you are the one with all the power. Be beneficient. Assume that what customers are doing is because something is causing this frustration and approach the issue from that direction.
  • Do not respond in a way that will make them feel even more powerless. If you’re not going to respond to a rant or complaint with sympathy, do not respond to the post.
  • Criticism tend to be indicative of a larger problem, and are valuable in the sense of measuring the strength of a person’s feelings on a given subject.
If you're going to post, only post to help someone through a problem, not to defend what is causing their problem. Even if there is no problem.
  • When you present yourself as someone who is desperately trying to help someone fix a problem will make you appear sympathetic. That, in turn, will cause other customers to jump in and defend you in cases where things actually are working. You avoid being the bad guy.
  • As soon as someone thinks of you as "the bad guy" once, that label will color other things they hear you say in the future. Even worse, the proof of your appearing in this light will be available and searchable on the internet forever.
  • No one ever made a customer happy by proving to them just exactly how much smarter the staff is than they are.
But hey, that's just me. We all make mistakes, I make them on a daily basis. When someone points out my mistakes, I try to readily admit them. It's sometimes more difficulty than others. Ultimately, this allows those that you are leading to build a greater sense of trust.
 
If you're never shown the areas in which you can improve, how can I expect you to?

To avoid the other thread going even more off topic, I've split your post off to here.

In the mean time, if you have any other advice for how I can improve as a person, please do say.
 
Not to go against everybody's kiss ass'ism, but there is a lot of good advice in the original post. I'm not saying Brogan is doing a bad job here, because I don't think that's the case at all, despite the disagreements I've had with him and the other staff members in the past. But I think that post was quite constructive on ways to better deal with customers. The last paragraph could have been left out, but overall it was a good post. Instead of jumping down Shelby's throat right away, actually read what was written and think about it for a bit. Everyone has areas they can improve upon. Everybody.
 
I do not necessarily agree with the OP, but Kier doesn't need to be so defensive about Brogan. Also, most of the time stuff like these happen only because there's some sort of ego clash on either side. If I was the receiving party of the OP, i would have just sent a PM, saying hey mate, sorry if you felt bad about my comment, it wasn't personal...

and be done with it, and not start a new thread moving the guy's post into a new thread where other people who have no idea of what the matter was initially about, give their ill-informed opinions.
 
Jmurrayhead,

Well, the title of the post was chosen by Paul himself. From my own perspective, the thread title unfairly characterizes the post as a diatribe against him rather than for the constructive comments that I belive can help improve all communities, including my own, including this one. It's perhaps an unfortunate mistake, but one I belive he should undo.
 
Jmurrayhead,

Well, the title of the post was chosen by Paul himself. From my own perspective, the thread title unfairly characterizes the post as a diatribe against him rather than for the constructive comments that I belive can help improve all communities, including my own, including this one. It's perhaps an unfortunate mistake, but one I belive he should undo.
I agree. I remember seeing a similar post (I believe) at vBulletin, regarding dealing with customers, and I thought, that too, was a good post.
 
I may be mistaken, but isn't Brogan just a moderator? Personally I don't think he has to treat people as if they are his "customers"? Not trying to say that he shouldn't, but that he doesn't have to. I think too many people associate voluntary support with the actual company. If he actually "works" for XF, then ignore this. ;)

Anyways, I think it's not too uncommon to be a bit aggravated sometimes when you have to repeat yourself over and over again. Not everyone is perfect and sometimes some things do slip out. You might even just be having a bad day... Considering he has "over 9000!" posts and just a couple of his posts may have tiny bit of problems with some users, I don't see it as much of an issue at all. Now if users are constantly having problems with a particular person, then that's a different story.
 
Well, the title of the post was chosen by Paul himself.
Considering you referred to me directly, twice, I considered the title appropriate.

If you're willing to post the comments criticising me personally, surely you're willing to stand by them?
 
Looks like it's Webholic sydrome Paul is going through he needs some xenmed capsules so he can sleep and get proper rest before he makes another comment :p
 
Considering you referred to me directly, twice, I considered the title appropriate.

If you're willing to post the comments criticising me personally, surely you're willing to stand by them?

Again,

My post is a testiment to the processes that all communities can undertake to improve. Including how you manage, and continue to manage this one. I stand by my post, but I tend to let my words speak for themselves, and do not appreciate other people putting words in my mouth, or letting other people title my posts.
 
Again,

My post is a testiment to the processes that all communities can undertake to improve. Including how you manage, and continue to manage this one. I stand by my post, but I tend to let my words speak for themselves, and do not appreciate other people putting words in my mouth, or letting other people title my posts.
Suggest a different title then; I think the title fits perfectly well with what you said :rolleyes:.
 
But hey, that's just me. We all make mistakes, I make them on a daily basis. When someone points out my mistakes, I try to readily admit them. It's sometimes more difficulty than others. Ultimately, this allows those that you are leading to build a greater sense of trust.
This is a great point in a general to make as a philosophy but there was little thought taken as to whether this was appropriate to be posted in public or as a private sincere message to an individual be it whomever you are directly addressing.

In my opinion this is not appropriate to post this in this manner without at least the consent or a detailed discussion of your concerns with said individual in private first and then if as Brogan did in this case take a serious stance and ask you if you had anything else you could point out... he could have just started a thread asking how he could improve his skills in assisting the community here. Point is if you called me out publicly like that with out permission I would be pissed never mind that he IS a moderator. Either way no hard feelings or nothing just trying to be progressive here.

I'm sure there will be a chorus of voices agreeing with you about what a shockingly bad job Paul does here.

I wanted to like that but it would be misinterpreted probably...funny joke :-)
 
Top Bottom