Cancellation Process Nightmare

[dire glade]

Cancellation shouldn't require lengthy customer service wait times for goods advertised as being cancellable during extremely lengthy pre-order periods. Or in general, period.

I submitted a cancellation request and got an automated email. Had to take extra steps my end to 'put it on hold' - unsure why the customer has to do the admin. There's no predefined 'cancellation' option, which there should be, and there's a character limit on the 'on hold' text box.

The automated email says 'our focus is to provide high quality support, even it that takes extra time.' - I'm not sure who runs your customer service operations (or even if you have someone managing it), but quality customer service does not mean 'extra time'. That's just a cop out for, 'we're understaffed, our profit margins are still drowning us and we can't hire additional support so we rely on free labor from support advisors on discord to help mitigate complaints'. I feel sorry for these 'volunteers' being used as scapegoats, as they really shouldn't be the ones you leave to slaughter in these thread replies - because yes they try to help, but sometimes they are too unaware and uninformed of company process and practices to effectively make a difference in the replies.

But, on the other hand, if your profit margins aren't drowning you, and you are in the green, why aren't you hiring additional dedicated customer support - with someone who has the right qualifications and experience to run and manage it better?

I'm bored of already waiting months for a 'pre-order' item, just for there to be additional delays due to manufacturing issues. I was further put off with seeing all of the threads below with issue related to customer service, refunds and in general product issues. I'm further bored of already waiting for a reply to a previous ticket I put in, and now I'm just bored, period. This was an exciting purchase, which frankly is just more hassle than it's worth.

The entire end-to-end process of purchasing your product is held together with nothing but duct tape and dreams. Really disappointing this was my experience after a recommendation from a streamer friend.

Seeing as it would take 4 years to get a response from your customer service by the dedicated message service, I am raising this here as a formal complaint.

I requested a refund, and I would appreciate an update and an expedited approach to my refund request. Or I will be happy to submit a complaint to the UK Ombudsman regarding your trading practices and standards with your business with UK customers - further relayed to the Autoriteit Consument en Markt in the Netherlands.

[dire glade]

At this point, they aren't threats. I have legitimate intent to pursue this further if I don't hear from them regarding my refund request by the end of this week. Holding up to $400 of somebody's money with no communication is egregious.

I think calling them a victim of their own success is also inflated nonsense. A business is never 'the victim' of it's 'success' because that's what a business sets out to do-- succeed and profit. What this company is a victim of, is poor management, poor planning, a complete lack (void) of customer service leadership, and weak guiding principles on customer service strategy -- all of which bleed into the community, review forums and videos, reddit, and word of mouth - and requests for refunds on pre-orders.

It's absolutely evident they do not care to comment on their customer service strategy or current tickets. They haven't once made an announcement issuing feedback on current tickets and wait times, they don't send holding emails with updates to explain it may take longer than originally advertised to respond, their website still shows the same estimated waits (which clearly aren't being met), and they don't acknowledge any review or feedback of customer service in this Discord.

If they wanted to take it seriously, they would have curated the responses and feedback to the multiple threads in this discord related to the customer service, wait times and lack of responses - and created an announcement and update both on Discord and on their website. How can you update on every point in the manufacturing process (which is completed internationally), but not update on customer service which is dealt with by them at the local and immediate business level? The fact is they don't care and likely will continue to not care moving forward.

[dire glade]

I don't think we should take the "I'm not gonna defend them" stance and then rebuttle with: 'imagine for a moment you're a first-time business owner and you scale to 100x your size in 2 years'.

I'm not here to look for hyperboles and theoreticals. Poor business management isn't the customers responsibility, and that is what it feels like when you're having to consistently chase the company when they never respond to you.

This "first-time" business owner has owned Wooting since 2015, has a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration alongside specialities in international business, finance, human resource management, project management, and marketing. So yes, I would have expected this business owner (irrespective of size) to have foreseen that the focal point of good business practice is to have good staffing structures, streamlined recruitment mechanics and a solid customer service strategy in place. If you haven't been able to do that in 8 years of owning your business, I'm sorry but something has to give. Doubling in size in the last 2 of those 8 years is also well forecastable through financial reports, marketing insights, engagement trends etc., which are all incredibly accessible in the age of the internet and technology to even the newest of owners. Also let's not forget, this 'first-time' business owner chose to scale an international business for their first venture. Something reminiscent of 'bite off more than one can chew' is sounding applicable here.

You chose to take the 'I'm not going to defend' ... 'but ill defend' approach. So yes, even if you agree with the facts, you chose to double down and contradict yourself which is wildly counterintuitive to the conversation or your 'agreement' with the facts.

Have a good day.

[haughty pulsar]

"How can you complain that a company who charges 300$ + for keybaords doesn't have some decent customer service? Don't you know their just DROWNING in money from all the orders. Think about the feelings for the company and how big the profit margins are."

This is parasocial

The company isn't your friend, its something that provides a product

[haughty pulsar]

"You fail to consider the poor feelings of the share holders."

[haughty pulsar]

Facts

"The argument you made has the correct facts and I agree. But my feelings are hurt so you're WRONG! 😤 "

[haughty pulsar]

I feel like everyone in this server should understand this

You're not a "wooting friend" you're just a customer who is spending money and they are trying to make you feel good about it.

You are allowed to have valid complaints if the company isn't doing something well

That is you're right as a consumer

[dire glade]

It's also hilarious how the official 'Wooting Staff' would rather take time to discuss polling rates in a feedback section, rather than address critical reviews and feedback that are now causing customers to leave.

They just cherry pick what they reply to and ignore the rest. Solid professionalism, really.

@/spookmi why delete all of your messages?!

[haughty pulsar]

@bronze coral Sorry if I was to harsh, I was just a bit frustrated. I understand you mean well.

[proud socket]

Last time i got gaslit because i told someone to not order at the moment, because the keyboards are faulty and the support takes too long to respond.

orderd in april as my birthday gift

and probably have to wait until next april until it arrives again because first keyboard was not working, now im batteling with the support too to respond :P

for sure a shame and i dont know why the youtubers say its worth it to order when its obviously catastrophic atm

[haughty pulsar]

That's valid

[jaunty jasper]

I understand your issue but you have to realise 2 things

They are doing usually talking in discord outside of working because they enjoy the community in their free time

They are not obliged to do customer support or be forced to talk about stuff they want to talk about here

and that not all wooting team members know about everything, there are teams who know more about certain things than others

the 2nd thing is you can talk about statistics and forecast and all that but things just is different realistically, money isnt the issue, time and effort is, they have rapidly and extremely expanded their cs team but training takes time and training uses time of current cs team which obv hurts from sparing from doing cs

for example mansen, A CS member does Official CS Support Tickets (not discord) regularly in the thousands, then when he is not working, he regularly talks in Discord to help people out in his own time and thats excluding all the dumb drama

Money cannot solve this, a change in the support system will, and that takes time

imo yes they need to improve

slow things down and have a better foundation in general

their website bugs, batch changing issues, quality control, cs system, planning, unexpected issue control, unfinished projects that are unfinished and all that

but as a person who has been regulary in this discord and seen all the random shit has happen

its been a really really really rough and busy year on the wooting team no matter the reason why

give them a break, they have and will improve

also dont do this shit, everyone here means well, they arent arguing with you because it is fun, its fine to disagree but this not great to look at and please do not vent your frustrations on random people's community support ticket thats even more unsightly

Tldr if you don't want to read the whole stuff: I understand that you mean good, the issues are being worked on and it's quite complicated and you seem to lack context

this is a real issue of course and needs and are being worked on

[jaunty jasper]

However

this is not well thought out enough by you

and this IS a threat

it does not matter if you do it or not

[dire glade]

You fanboy persona is really something. Unfortunately no, I will not give a company "a break" when they sit idly by and not respond to support requests, but continue to take active orders without addressing the ones who have alreayd paid. They're a company, they're there to serve themselves and make profit.

I don't know what you mean by "don't do this shit", if you chose to see that as malice that's on you. I purposely didn't tag them because they removed themselves from the thread, and we hadn't been 'arguing' at any point prior. Perhaps you're blinkered to debate and instead only see "drama" and "argument". I also further don't see any moderation tags on your user, afaik you have no reason to be in here on your moral high horse telling me what to do, as I haven't broken a rule. This isn't a "random" community support ticket,if you bothered to take time to scroll to the top you'll notice its my own ticket and that this is in the Wooting discord, for a wooting product, that I ordered through the wooting site, in the feedback section.

[jaunty jasper]

well at least you know you are in the wrong

so ill take that

[dire glade]

I'm not in the wrong for wanting a company to notice of the issue. That is when I will not back down and be told I'm wrong and essentially gaslit by a poncy fanboy that my issue is irrelevant.

You'll take what you can get, because you get nothing irl, this is your only source of satisfaction - being chronically online.

[jaunty jasper]

this is my last comment

[dire glade]

Good

[jaunty jasper]

you want wooting to take feedback but our feedback ||which u dont fking read|| to you is gaslighting

good luck and have fun

[dire glade]

Nothing you've provided is feedback, it's just plain criticism that my feedback is wrong and is my own issue.

I didn't come here for feedback for me, I came here for feedback to wooting. You have nothing absolutely nothing I could want feedback on. I'm not the company taking millions and then keeping their customer service operations together by string, fairy dust and hope.

@jaunty jasper leaving doesn't exempt you from being tagged. But, thank you for showing how right I am that the fanboys are nothing more than do-gooders with no spare time and would rather gaslight the average consumer into thinking their feedback is irrelevant and their own problem and couldnt be anything other than the companys issue, than make them feel part of this so called "community".

[jaunty jasper]

no fuck it

what did i say that is wrong

i dont mind doing this actually i changed my mind || because my class just ended but rn im doing physics questions while doing this ||

[dire glade]

Of course you did.

[jaunty jasper]

note that what i say is explaining to you

[dire glade]

Here we go. Baby has a rage on.

[jaunty jasper]

and all you can reply is stuff like gaslighting and fairydust

preferably in shorter texts

i said idm doing this but im also doing work while debating

so ya if you dont mind, but either is fine

[dire glade]

You don't create a discord, implement feedback sections, signify yourself as staff and then take a lax approach to reviewing and responding to feedback when it's an evident pain point for A LOT of the customer base going through that issue. I've already explained this in my original post and even posted things they can do, that they already aren't, to manage expectations better.
I can talk about stats ans forecasting because that's exactly why business use it and implement it into their analytics, to avoid shit going like this.
I'm bored of the "training takes time" spiel. Again, the analytics would have well prepared them for this if they bothered to do it.

"Money can't solve this", well yes it can. How do you think systems are changed developed and evolved in a business - money.
How do you think more support is developed - money by investing in people.

"Its been so hard on wooting", okay so what about it now being hard on the consumer who spends 3 weeks+ chasing customer support for even a shred of recognition to their request when their currently set exepctarion on turn around aren't being met and they don't bother to update it. Oh wait, that's because saying getting a response in 4-6 weeks would make people go "WTF?"

Nothing you have said is cohesive to the conversation, or something I haven't already made a point on. You tried to dismantle my feedback to try and gaslight me into thinking it's my problem for wanting good quality and timely customer service all because I should be feeling sorry for the company that expanded to rapidly and didn't have proper planning in place to deal with it.

[dire glade]

Kid, take yourself off the Internet, actually focus on your studies and get some real world work and business exposure before you sit here trying to fanboy over a company that will continue to happily take your money and has no clue who you are.

[jaunty jasper]

nah im here cos i like to debate

ive used wooting as an example in a few of my courses actually

[dire glade]

But you don't debate - you try to respond critically without justification and that's just criticism not debate.

You can have criticism in debate for sure, but you don't pose questions, you don't acknowledge fact and instead resort to just criticising people's, valid, thoughts and experiences they have had with a completely lackluster company that takes no accountability or responsibility for it's extremely poor customer service, all while withholding those customers money (typically in the hundereds).

[jaunty jasper]

i have acknowledged everything

you resorted to name calling

multiple occasions i have said your point is valid

i am just letting you know the context that you dont have

[jaunty jasper]

i have added some crude things like this

[dire glade]

You don't have context.

[jaunty jasper]

but they are to vent frustration at your own double standards

[dire glade]

You don't work for the company. You've speculated and assumed information.

[dire glade]

So you're not better than the person you're intending to "debate".

[jaunty jasper]

if you do not believe anything i say

send all the messages ive sent to wooting's and ask them to verify it

they can fix any mistakes i have

[dire glade]

You have nothing for me to believe, you haven't back anything up with credible source or information from their website. You aren't debating you're just arguing.

[jaunty jasper]

i dont need to

this IS arguing yes, not debate

i am arguing because you are rude to people who try to help you

rude to customer support team members who help out extra on discord in the free time

and clogging up another person's support ticket to vent

[dire glade]

Kid I've done all of this in the same time I've been getting ready for work, and before I've finished my morning coffee at 8am.

You cannot debate on something, when you don't even start debate in the first place and just argue with someone's valid opinion. Nothing you have said is opinion, you've posed it as fact. I never asked for your help, I posted in a feedback thread direct at wooting. None of my original message is rude and that's just your maturity showing if you're unable to discern feedback and rudeness.

You're just making yourself look silly now.

[jaunty jasper]

is calling me kid and a gaslighter debate?

[dire glade]

That's literally not even a comparison

What should be a debate is if kids should have access to better education.

[jaunty jasper]

you are too biased to see how rude you are

[dire glade]

Biased on what exactly?

What am I being bias against?

[jaunty jasper]

to your own opinions

and initial impressions

[jaunty jasper]

you know this is wrong

debate can be anything

it is not some holier than thou thing that should only be used in major world issues

[dire glade]

Ding ding ding we have a winner - my opinion.
And I hate to break it to you but consumers go by first impressions. If a company sets out to advertise '2 day response time' and takes 3+ weeks, yes that consumers initial reaction is going to be very upset, especially when they then don't get further replies.

You're just straying further and further away from my points in my original post, to which this entire thread is about my feedback and my post - just to try and continue this wholly unsatisfying conversation you consider 'debate'.

[jaunty jasper]

you think that you was not rude?

even in the first message you were rude

[dire glade]

I think the only person being bias here, is the indiviudal with the product, that had 0 bad experiences with their order and customer service journey

[dire glade]

Highlight where.

[dire glade]

That's not rude

[dire glade]

Ho wis 'a streamer friend' being rude?

[dire glade]

That's complete intent to pursue actions further, being transparent in my actions - unlike what this company is being.

[dire glade]

Again, fact. Because they haven't refuted it otherwise, and don't update their time expectations or respond

[jaunty jasper]

:)

to quote yourself

[dire glade]

Oh my, you're literally just taking any wording you think is 'rude' and screenshotting it. You literally have no sense of the defdefinitionintition for 'rude'.

[jaunty jasper]

"Nothing you have said is opinion, you've posed it as fact."

[dire glade]

Now I really know this isn't wrong. Apparently, reading comprehension went out of the window at some places.

[dire glade]

That's the entire point of a feedback thread. Feedback is opinion.

[jaunty jasper]

is that not another unrelated personal attack?

[dire glade]

Feedback doesn't have to be solidified in fact, it is opinion.

[dire glade]

Sorry, next time I'll label it so you're aware it was.

[jaunty jasper]

another one no?

[dire glade]

Jesus. You're tough work, and not because you're right - because you're so thick-skulled and ignorant.

(yes another one)

[jaunty jasper]

The fact that you have sent tens of personal attacks in this conversation tells me that you know you are wrong

i understand you feel the need to double down

show some fking class man you are a working adult

[dire glade]

No, it's because dealing with a kid who thinks they're right when they've done absolutely NOTHING to respond to the original point, when they asked for further response when 'they have time'

[dire glade]

and you think that excuses your behaviour because you're learning physics? You don't instigate arguments and get off scotch free

[jaunty jasper]

my behaviour?

[low trellis]

I'll stop it right there. Feedback is always welcome, but this spiraled into a senseless bickering that has nothing in common with original message.