World's Worst PR Guy Gives His Side 576
First time accepted submitter Narnie writes "Follow up to Tuesday's story of a PR rep's lack of professionalism. Kyle Orland provides a follow up interview with Paul Christoforo after a simple email chain escalated into internet infamy. N-Control official response to Paul Chrostoforo's actions can be found here. Kotaku.com even has a whole section devoted to covering the entire ordeal. I for one found myself caught following the news releases and in awe of the combined load forced on penny-arcade's servers from Slashdot, Reddit, Digg, Kotaku, and other news sites covering the story."
Schadenfreude (Score:5, Interesting)
Even then though, I start to feel like maybe this all just got out of hand...
Then you read the part where Ocean Marketing's website was DIRECTLY PLAGIARIZED from websites like forbes.com.
Thats it, no more excuses. This man is A CON ARTIST. He has been running a SCAM. He has this coming 100%
Oh, the lulz.
Two Slashdot stories and a PA comic = Epic Fail! (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to be clinical here but a thousand times as many people now know about the Avenger then before.
If the product dose what it is design to, most of its target market (including Dave) won't be put off by a 1 month delay or a poor choice of PR firm. The whole fiasco is almost certainly a net positive for the product's sales.
Re:So he hasn't learned a thing. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yet despite all the drama, Christoforo said he hasn't lost any of his other accounts, aside from Avenger.
So could someone please dig up the names of his other clients and post them?
Re:I never got why this became so big (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of the douches that made this story "big" aren't really the kind that would act like they expected this guy to act. I've had my own shop so I "work in retail", face to face, and I'm a short-fused person. I can tell you, people can really get you because they think the "The customer is always right" card is a license to be assholes.
I had a person throw come in to buy stuff, and when he paid he throw the money on the floor and say "come on now, pick it up. the customer's always right" (it had been escalating actually). I don't know what my face looked like at that time but judging from his expression, the guy almost shat his pants. I walked to the door and opened it. I took what he was buying and said "pick up your money and get the fuck out of here, and don't come back ever again". He tried to say it was a joke and stuff but I didn't care anymore.
People need to understand two things:
1) 'The customer is always right' means that a company should look for ways to please the customer. If the customer comes looking for something and you don't have it, you don't tell the customer "oh no X sucks, you need to buy Y". If customer wants X, you get him X. It doesn't mean the customer has a license to treat you like a slave. The salesman/customer service rep/tech support guy/whatever is just another person. And he will give you the same treatment you give him.
2) You can yell and be mad and do all you want at a "customer service" agent. These guys usually can't do anything about your problem, they're just there to "take the heat". When you get mad at one of those guys, all you do is make HIS life miserable, and you get stressed. No one wins.
I can assure you, most slashdotters wouldn't last a week. Hell, not even a day, when working for customer service. They would get violent, or just break down to tears. You need a really thick skin, and if you're whining about who's right and who's wrong in a site like slashdot, it just means you don't have what it takes.
Re:Customer service (Score:5, Interesting)
You've not been in customer service, have you? "Call control" is a frequent feedback point when calls start to run long, and I assume that's what he was talking about here.
Keep the customer focused on the issue, don't let them blabber and complain, instead get the problem fixed and the customer back to their day. Some people don't really want the problem solved, they want people to hear about it and point out all of the problems, an "I told you so" kind of rant, or "when I worked for a company like yours this would never have happened" or "I used to respect your brand, now you've let it go into the crapper". They think they are talking to someone who has the power to change something. And you can't let those people tie you up.
Yes it sounds bad phrased like that, but anyone who does any kind of support or customer contact should have been coached on controlling the customer. He realizes that he could have phrased things differently and not pissed this guy off, that's "controlling the customer". What he doesn't realize is that his natural personality is quite dick-ish and won't allow him to do that. Especially when you have piles of people asking the same thing, and are afraid to give some bad news that stuff won't be under the Christmas tree as promised, and you're too arrogant to apologise.
Give it time (Score:5, Interesting)
Yet despite all the drama, Christoforo said he hasn't lost any of his other accounts, aside from Avenger. "It hasn't affected my business yet," he said. "Clients have brought it up, but they've mainly laughed about it. I haven't lost any clients."
That's because most of the people who have the authority to sever ties with you are on vacation. Next week's gonna be a pile of suck.
Re:Keep digging Paul (Score:5, Interesting)
Also attending PAX and not knowing who Gabe is is barely competent. Finding out who he is and saying "He has a lot of connections, ones I want too." is a clear indicator that reality burns up on entry of the atmosphere of planet Christoforo.
I deal with sales critters on a professional basis. The best ones are the ones who honestly want to do right by their customers. Which requires a bit of empathy. I watched a sales rep of my company giving a potential customer the phone number of the competitions sales rep because they will do better by them. A sales critter at my local electronics shop told me I don't want a G15 if all I want is a good keyboard. Sold me a generic Cherry keyboard for 20 bucks. Both did build a bond with their customer and both generated huge repeat business.
A masive ego only impresses for the first few moments and needs to be followed up by substance. That substance better not be warm, stinky and brown.
That's pretty much what they did (Score:4, Interesting)
The best move, from his company's perspective, would be to fire him and go "under new management."
Did you read the response from N-Control? They are trying to put as much distance between that guy and the company as they can.
I wonder if this Paul Cristoforo has pioneered a new PR strategy for startups though. . . hire him, or someone like him, to stir up a big pot of controversy, publicly fire him saying you had NO IDEA he was going to abuse his position, and release press releases talking about how great your products are for disabled people/kids/other sympathetic group, etc. Get the public to view your company as another victim of his abuse and try to get them to feel bad for you and good about your products, while transferring their rage to the "rogue employee/consultant".
Sort of Good Cop/Bad Cop for startups.
Comment removed (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Still continues to be an asshole (Score:5, Interesting)
I would guess that he's a sociopath given his grandiose view of himself, can't do any wrong, lies constantly, is always the victim, etc. However, most sociopaths aren't that stupid. I've only ever known one personally, and he was brilliant--which is a hell of a lot worse than a guy like this turkey.
Re:Let me rephrase that (Score:5, Interesting)
As a professional, you're not entitled to having bad days.
This goes double because email isn't exactly an immediate medium. It is utterly trivial to delay responding to a given email(or even fake an out-of-office if you simply must have more time).
In situations where you can't escape and you have somebody physically in your face, right now, some risk of snapping inevitably exists. Some people bear up better than others; but it can happen. Flipping out over email, though, is flipping out even after you've had the benefit of choosing how much time you need to calm down, drafting as many revisions as you need, and knowing for certain that this text is on the record... Everybody has a breaking point, and a sufficiently bad situation can push you to it; but email is far lower pressure than most situations.
Re:Let me rephrase that (Score:4, Interesting)
it's likely that religion is so successful because it deals with arseholes effectively.
reason and empathy doesn't cut with some people, and the fear of being fucked up for eternity by a malevolent power that sees your every move can be a good substitute for reason and empathy, at least in these cases.
of course, the rest of this religion stuff is not much use.
Re:I commend Mike at PA for doing this. (Score:2, Interesting)
Huh? The guy clearly stated he didn't care where it was posted or to whom. Nothing illegal about any of it. PA's lawyers would eat him alive.
Obviously you didn't actually read the initial email thread, did you? Just giving an opinion on baseless facts. Typical slashdot fucktard at work here.
PA did nothing illegal. They had permission. From the douche himself.