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."
Still continues to be an asshole (Score:5, Insightful)
"If I had known, I would have treated the situation a little better."
Referring to the email thread that started the whole mess, Christoforo said that he didn't know who he was talking to in his initial, flippant response to Penny Arcade's Mike Krahulik.
"I didn't know who that guy at Penny Arcade was," he admitted. "If I had known, I would have treated the situation a little better. PAX is a great show. What he does is what I've been idolizing since I was a kid. It's admirable he's put that together. He has a lot of connections, ones I want too."
He just doesn't get it. You should treat people, especially your customers, good no matter who they are. He still isn't sorry for what happened, he is "sorry" because someone famous caught him.
And he wasn't caught at bad time either like he says now. There's many similar stories about how he treated customers for a long time.
Let me rephrase that (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Let me rephrase that (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't compare him to a car thief. A dick, yes, but not exactly a criminal.
Actually, I thought a lot about this. My first thoughts when I read the penny arcade e-mail chain was this guy needs to be strung. And I even had some of his rationale of "you don't know who you're fucking with!"
Then it hit me. As much as this guy is being a douche and is on a very high ego trip, the mob mentality of the Internet is going to ruin him.. For nothing more than having a very bad day. It's something that should be looked at.. I'm all for putting someone in their place, and this guy should be fired. On the other hand, the press this gets means this guys life is over. At least his online life... Has the Internet Mob Mentality become the modern day witch hunt?
In any case, the customer reigns high and mighty, and any response to them needs to be very carefully weighed, cause the internet hath fury.
Re:Let me rephrase that (Score:5, Informative)
And no, his life isn't over. Nor IRL or online. It's just how you handle the backlash. At the moment he isn't doing very well, but only because he cannot stop his ego trip and humble down.
Re:Let me rephrase that (Score:5, Insightful)
It's very likely he literally needs mental help (Score:5, Informative)
He completely flew off the handle when the customer complained about being treated badly (Reacts to criticism with anger, shame, or humiliation), doesn't seem to care about or even really understand why the customer is pissed off (Obsessed with oneself and Lacks empathy and disregards the feelings of others)
.
The entire thing describes him almost to the letter.
Re:It's very likely he literally needs mental help (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let me rephrase that (Score:5, Insightful)
"the mob mentality of the Internet is going to ruin him.. For nothing more than having a very bad day"
Several days really, if you see the email chain, and a repeating pattern shown on a few other sites.
this guy should be fired. On the other hand, the press this gets means this guys life is over. At least his online life... Has the Internet Mob Mentality become the modern day witch hunt?
He runs a one-man PR firm, and has shown himself utterly unsuited for such a task. I'm sure he's not the only one, but ruining that firm is really not a bad thing. He'll have to find something else to do.
And it's not a witch hunt because you have the evidence right in front of you. A witch hunt is where you don't have any and you look for scapegoats anyway, surely?
Also I get the feeling this would go away a lot faster if he had actually admitted he had been a jerk, instead of repeatedly blaming anyone and everyone around himself.
Re:Let me rephrase that (Score:5, Insightful)
To an extent I agree with you conceptually, but not really in this particular situation. The mob mentality of the internet definitely has a tendency to crucify people before the facts have even been established which is definitely a problem. But here, the guy brought this on himself. He can claim it was "just a bad day" but previous examples of poor behavior combined with his non-apology point to that not really being the case. More likely, he's just an asshole.
But more to the point, saying his "life is over" is definitely an exaggeration. The internet never forgets, but people forget pretty quickly. Yea, he'll likely never work in PR again, but the fact is that's because his actions show that he has no business working in that industry. Yea, he'll suffer a lot this week, and be dealing with the fallout for at least a year or two, but, well, actions have consequences, and sometimes we have put on our big boy hats and deal with that. But he'll get another job, and if he works hard and acts like something vaguely resembling a human being he can definitely bounce back. If he doesn't, it will be because he's learned nothing from this whole ordeal (and his non-apology suggests this may very well be the case) and continues to treat people like shit whenever he thinks he can get away with it. And if he does that, he was going to fail at life whether all this happened or not.
Re:Let me rephrase that (Score:5, Insightful)
If he doesn't, it will be because he's learned nothing from this whole ordeal (and his non-apology suggests this may very well be the case) and continues to treat people like shit whenever he thinks he can get away with it. And if he does that, he was going to fail at life whether all this happened or not.
And he said:
"I could have nipped this all in the bud by being a little nicer. You never know who knows who, and lesson learned."
Lesson definitely not learned. It is his character, he'll be an asshole for life. Sad thing is his son have a good chance of following his father's footsteps, joining the uncountable assholes of the world. That's life...
Re:Let me rephrase that (Score:5, Insightful)
The best we can hope for is that this unexpected blowup will inspire a degree of caution verging on paranoia, and he'll be rendered relatively innocuous by fear of possible punishment. Ideally, somebody should introduce him to a particularly nasty fire-and-brimstone religion. If somebody is actually so depraved that they act only through fear of power, the notion that power that could crush them like a bug is watching at all times can be quite useful....
I, for one, can only wonder how he managed to get married and spawn.
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:Let me rephrase that (Score:5, Insightful)
As a professional, you're not entitled to having bad days. Get a day off, or stuff yourself with round pink pills that make you not care, or go shout in the toilet, whatever. It's your fucking job, deal with it.
Imagine an automechanic who's having a bad day, so he fucks his client's car over with a wrench. Whoopsie, the client is a big automotive dealer, poor automechanic is SoL and has to learn a new profession as there's noone who wants to work with him now.
It doesn't really take internet to get your career ruined, internet just makes it easier, faster and more profound.
Morale is: don't be a dick. Even any fast-food manager could teach him that proper response would have been "We're terribly sorry. You know what, as you're our valuable customer we'll throw in a free extra to compensate" and everything would be alright. But he didn't get even over the burger-flipper "Meh, I'll spit in his meal" level.
Re:Let me rephrase that (Score:5, Funny)
Morale[sic] is: don't be a dick.
Wheaton's law strikes again!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wil_Wheaton#Wheaton.27s_Law [wikipedia.org]
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:5, Funny)
The only people with fucking jobs are porn actors.
Re:Let me rephrase that (Score:5, Funny)
And Congressmen
Re: (Score:3)
Had the emails he sent to Dave been kept to the subject at hand IE when the orders will ship, why it's taking so long and the like, he'd still have his career bad day or not. No matter how bad your day is, you can not afford to piss off one customer by treating people like this. No matter if it was done to whom it was, or if it were some random 12 year old.
A professional doesn't cond
Re:Let me rephrase that (Score:5, Insightful)
PR dude failed at his very job title PUBLIC RELATIONS. No amount of blame goes on the customer at all, the company had collected his payment immediately and had by that point been holding (or even spending) his payment for two months with nothing in return, not even any shipping updates. Compare this to my online shopping experience this Christmas, one item I ordered was back ordered, the company let me know it was delayed. Then they let me know when it was expected. Then they let me know when it shipped, and they didn't charge my card until after it was delivered. That is how you handle business like this, you don't charge for the item and then sit with zero updates for two months, going past the promised delivery date with still no information. Mr Christoforo failed totally and deserves the response he's getting.
Re:Let me rephrase that (Score:5, Insightful)
Customers are allowed to be grumpy, especially when a thing that was promised is taking longer than was promised.
Re:Let me rephrase that (Score:5, Insightful)
@Soluzar, you are correct they are both in the wrong.
Re:Let me rephrase that (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let me rephrase that (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't go quite that far. But like many people (perhaps even more so), a sociopath has to be allowed to hit rock bottom in order to build back up. That's the only way to get the message across: when the ego becomes too big of a barrier to get around, the alternative is to smash it.
Infinite second chances are often thought of as the compassionate thing to do, the way to enable people to break out of the cycles that are destroying them. Sometimes this is even correct. Quite often, however, it's an enabler only in a much darker sense: the thing that lets people stay in their destructive cycles, rather than the thing that lets them break out.
In any case, this is not going to ruin his life. It may precipitate some major changes, including some that in his current state he would rather not happen, but that's not ruin: a grand inconvenience, but nothing fatal.
Re:Let me rephrase that (Score:5, Insightful)
Aren't sociopaths supposed to be glib, charming, and expertly manipulative?
no, only the successful ones are. They learn this as a coping mechanism.
There are still plenty of primary psychopaths who are just rotten assholes.
Re:Let me rephrase that (Score:4, Insightful)
There was a story a while back about a guy who was pretending to be a girl on Craigslist, trolling for sex, getting guys to send their names and pictures, and then posting them online. That sucks. That has the potential to ruin lives.
This guy? Meh. He was a dick, and now his bad behavior has been publicly exposed. This will hurt his career, but his career deserves to be hurt. The Internet will be vicious with him, but the Internet has a short attention span. I bet there won't be much harassment 6 months from now. If I had to place bets, I'd bet that his guy will even land on his feet and still have a career in PR after this. There are lots of stupid people to hire him, and incompetence doesn't stop companies from hiring people into very high positions.
Re:Let me rephrase that (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy's life isn't over because he had a bad day, his life is over because he can no longer hide from how big of a douche he is... If you are having a bad day you can a) ignore emails and calls, b) reply tersely to emails and calls, or c) reply with hubris and hostility to emails and calls. He chose C, and not many people who aren't huge douchey assholes would do the same. Now, everyone knows his rap and I have to say that in this case (but not every case) the "mob" on the internet did the world a favor. This guy deserves to have a very very shitty reputation, as he had many MANY opportunities to not be a complete dick but chose instead, to be a complete dick.
His "bad day" was the one where he got caught, called out, and summarily e-persecuted for it.
Re:Let me rephrase that (Score:5, Informative)
I just looked at his twitter....
Holy crap, it was not just a bad day...
@tonycline How does it fel to be a ginger that no one loves or wants.
OK ENOUGH! Just fuck off already u god damn fucking gaming cunts. Boo Hoo I yelled at a customer big deal. Ge over it
@TrafficKidPT I don't need a degree I'm just naturally smart.
Look at all these gamers. Bunch of fucking losers, everyone in the biz makes fun of you fucks. All the sites you like laugh at yuo.
Penny Arcade is for autsitic preteens that can handle good entertianment. I'm suprised you can even read at all.
@threetimestrue Bullshit, I'm a hot commodity. Everyone will pay to have my services after this. Because I'm a survivor.
@IamPter Don't make me come over there and smack the dick out of your mouth sunshine.
@ChibiUFO No Pax = Penis Addiction Experts. Cause they love dick
That's all from just TODAY.
Riiiight.. bad day.
Re:Let me rephrase that (Score:4, Informative)
So he hasn't learned a thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically his stance is, "I'm sorry I was a d!ck to someone important. I thought he was just another nobody I could abuse at will."
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:So he hasn't learned a thing. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure these "other clients" are similar to the Mayor of Boston. This guy has a major superiority complex and narcissism to spare. He's that guy you knew that could do no wrong. He was always a smooth talker (or thought he was) and went into business for himself. Even though his kid could make a better wwebsite his looks like it was slapped together (and it was plagiarized from numerous sources).
No matter what he does he's always the victim. Look at all of his postings even when he realized who Mike (Gabe) was. He thinks that all PR is good PR and probably thinks he won the lottery. "Forbes, MSNBC, AND Slashdot want an interview!". Anyone that has basic skills of google will never hire him again. Unfortunately other MBAs most likely don't, they'll meet him on the golf course or in the bar and he'll be the smooth talker and get another job that way. Having not learned a thing from this.
But IANAP (I am not a Psychologist).
Re:So he hasn't learned a thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do slashdotters use MBA as an interchangeable term for "idiot"?
Past experience, maybe?
Re:So he hasn't learned a thing. (Score:5, Informative)
I don't understand the constant Slashdot slurring against MBAs. Yes, I have one. But MBA means you can't use Google now? It means you can't understand anything related to IT in any form? Why do slashdotters use MBA as an interchangeable term for "idiot"?
Because most of us are the technical type that clash with management, management with MBAs. Though unfair, you chose a degree that many here consider of low practical value. Our heroes in management are those that never even heard of "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" or "Six Sigma Lean". They got there because they were charismatic, bad-ass techies with a flair for business. And often, we believe that MBA techniques are political window dressing designed to enrich the manager at the expense of the talent. See: Programming Motherfucker, Do You Speak It? [programmin...fucker.com]
Oh it's unfair I know. MBAs, Law, PR, and other degrees and their professions grew out of need. But you're on a site that is "News for Nerds." I'm surprised you need an answer as to why there is bias against your degree. Hell, having a degree in general is under attack and probably always will be. We venerate the self-educated genius, not the above average guy that needed someone to teach him or her the basics.
Re:So he hasn't learned a thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a MBA from a top tier school, but I also have a decade of experience as senior sysadmin for a large academic computer cluster and a large chunk of a Ph.D. in theoretical physics, so hopefully I'll have some street cred when I say this.
I promise you, if Wall Street paid $500k a year to geology majors, you'd see that discipline packed with money-grubbing psychopaths too. You're confusing the body of knowledge, with the people who learn it.
Yes, I know MBA's who are parasitic, narcissistic sociopaths. I also know MBA's who are good decent people with honest ambition and a desire to make their mark and be their own master.
Believe it or not, there are nerds in business and politics, just as much as in computers and physics. I happen to enjoy economics, finance, entrepreneurship, and public policy. A MBA allowed me to scratch those itches.
Saying "MBA's are all PHB's" is like saying IT people are all BOFH's. You're painting with a mighty broad brush.
Re:So he hasn't learned a thing. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So he hasn't learned a thing. (Score:5, Funny)
It's the Christian message: be nice to people, because the father of the person you just crucified might turn out to be God...
Much better than "My dad owns a dealership".
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
At least we know he's honest at least this one time. "I'm sorry I got caught" is obviously true. "I'm sorry for being a hostile, juvenile dickweed who never learned English grammar, spelling, manners, customer service skills, the Golden Rule, or basic human communication skills" is expected, but is impossible to figure out if it's true or not.
Re:Still continues to be an asshole (Score:5, Funny)
>>He still isn't sorry for what happened, he is "sorry" because someone famous caught him.
Right. He's like a bully who is "sorry" after some kid he was picking on turns out to be a jiu-jitsu black belt, and chokes him unconscious.
Sorry. Replace 'like' with 'is'. He IS a bully shedding alligator tears after being exposed for who he really is.
To me, the hilariously painful bit of the story was the bully's poor command of the English language. TFA has a typo, his company is not "Ocean Marketing". It's "Ocean Marketting". ;) Two t's - at least that's how he he codified it on Twitter.
I honestly love it when the Internet does this kind of stuff. I remember the great exposés back in the day over how hard it was to cancel AOL and so forth.
Re:Still continues to be an asshole (Score:5, Funny)
In Michael Vick's defense he was a big Pokemon fan.
Re:Still continues to be an asshole (Score:5, Insightful)
He just doesn't get it. You should treat people, especially your customers, good no matter who they are. He still isn't sorry for what happened, he is "sorry" because someone famous caught him.
What's fascinating to me is that most people who are really only sorry to have been caught know better than to tell everyone that's why they're sorry. You know, they're smart enough to fake having learned a lesson.
He honestly believes the reason everyone is pissed off at him is because he mistreated Mike Krahulik, not the customer. I actually feel sorry for the guy, who truly believes somebody's worth is dictated by how much power they have. He says, "I want to have connections Mike has, I want to have the power to destroy people like he destroyed me. Look Mike, I respect your power, I know my place is beneath you, and I'd never have overstepped my bounds had I known who you were. You don't need to be angry at me, I know my place, honestly. I was just putting that nobody in HIS place, you have to agree he's beneath me."
He's a sociopath (Score:5, Insightful)
He cannot empathize with other people, as such his feelings are the only ones that matter. So he sees himself as the victim here, because he is the only one who got hurt in his worldview.
It is how people like that act. They hurt others freely because to them it doesn't matter, other people don't have feelings like they do. However when they are hurt they go off the rails with the victim thing because it is so unfair.
They don't behave themselves, obey laws, do right by others, or any of that because of any sort of moral or human understanding. They do it because they don't want to get in trouble. If they think they can get away with it, they will.
Re:Still continues to be an asshole (Score:5, Insightful)
He honestly believes the reason everyone is pissed off at him is because he mistreated Mike Krahulik, not the customer.
He probably got that part right... Lots of people know about it and got pissed off about it because Mike jumped in the FFA.
That's how we found out there was something to be angry about, yes. Nobody is denying Mike indeed has the power and the connections that the customer didn't have. That's why the customer copied his correspondence to the press guys, so they could use their influence.
That said, that's also why nobody (who isn't a psychopath) cares that Mike was mistreated. Mike can take care of himself. We're angry at his bullying of the guy who couldn't, and happy that Mike stood up for him.
Re:Still continues to be an asshole (Score:5, Insightful)
"He has a lot of connections, ones I want too." - Paul Christoforo referring to Mike Krahulik
Yup, still a big asshole. Paul still considers your worth by who you know. Thinks Mike helped make Pax by knowing a lot of high up people. Doesn't think your important unless you know someone else who is. Anyone who still has business relations with this guy really need to seriously evaluate what he's doing for you.
Re:Still continues to be an asshole (Score:5, Insightful)
The world is full of boors, narcissists, assholes, and general scum; but the ones that make it to positions of visibility usually have some sort of compensatory traits(many of them also vices; but still). This guy doesn't seem to. No glib lying, no superficial charm, just some really hollow name-dropping and chest thumping about unit sales, in an email exchange prompted by the fact that their supply chain is sucking right now...
That is what befuddles me. Does this guy have charisma indistinguishable from magic in person? Was he 'roid raging when he wrote those emails? Are the standards of freelance PR flacks so pitifully low that they can't even afford unemployed English majors who have at least mastered sentence construction?
It doesn't surprise me that he is a bad person, that is quite common, especially among marketing weasels. What confounds me is that he is so utterly bad at being a bad person. This situation seems like it would have been smooth-talk 101 to walk away from at, at most, the cost of a $10 credit to an enthusiastic customer. Instead, he managed to score frontpage mockery on the who's-who of gaming websites, make some n00b mistakes on twitter, sockpuppet from an email address linked to some hilarious posts about his attempts at muscle building, and generally snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, the jaws of the bystanders, and anywhere else it could be found. Where do they get people like that?
Re: (Score:3)
He's psychopathic, not schizophrenic.
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:Still continues to be an asshole (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree that people shouldn't be threatening his wife and kid ... whether that's actually happened remains to be seen. It's a claim that the jerk repeatedly made, but he's proven himself to be untrustworthy.
However, I don't have a problem with people flooding his wife with friend-requests on facebook. At least they've made her aware that her husband's an asshole at work, and not the genius he has probably snowed her into thinking he is.
Same thought-process for the device on Amazon. N-Gadget would have never taken notice if they hadn't seen this hitting them in the bank-account. The fact is that they hired an asshole. Either they were too incompetent to be able to determine he was an asshole, or they thought it was a good idea to hire assholes. Their former marketing firm (The Hand Media, I think?) pulled out because this guy was an asshole. They told N-gadget the guy was an asshole. So, the obvious conclusion is that N-Gadget thought it was a good idea to hire assholes. Ruining their product's ratings on Amazon is one way to teach them that it's not okay to hire assholes.
Hopefully, N-Gadget will serve as an example to other companies, and the general quantity of assholes being hired will go down across the board. I've had more than one gig ruined because the bosses thought it was a good idea to hire an asshole, so I feel like I have a stake in this.
Lack of character shines through.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Lack of character shines through.... (Score:5, Funny)
Geico is already using it. [twitter.com]
+1 internets for their PR person being up on current events.
Re:Lack of character shines through.... (Score:5, Informative)
And since this is Slashdot and a lot of us presumably live in California it's worth mentioning that barring a warrant only one party to a phone call needs to be aware that it's being taped in this state.
Nope, that's wrong. California is a two-party consent state:
"without the consent of all parties to the communication..." [ca.gov]
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
You're probably right. If I could afford a lawyer there are many questions I would ask.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Keep digging Paul (Score:5, Informative)
YknowwhatImean?
This is a very brief demonstration to a semi-professional gaming enthusiast journalist. At no point does he demo the thing properly. He comes over like he only had a couple of cue cards and no real concept of how he wants to sell the idea to the punters.
He misses the heartwarming story of a teacher who came up with the idea to help out a student with a disability. Which would have taken all of 20 seconds of his 2 minutes pitch.
He didn't show the mechanics behind the thing and how and why it is so customizable. which would have taken one minute of his two minutes pitch.
He didn't hand it over to the punter so he could at least have touched it for a couple of seconds. The tactile experience is an important factor when you sell physical goods. While the guy was holding a mike he could have held it for at least 30 seconds while Christoforo points out that the thing is optimized for 1st person shooters or talk about plans for the PS3 version or answer questions for future improvements.
Tap into the PS3 market. Yeah, right. That's the right choice of words when talking to N-Control but a big no-no when talking to punters. That's grandstanding and fairly ridiculous.
All in all it shows he is no professional. A booth-babe showing her perlies and not saying a word would have done a better job.
FTG. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:FTG. (Score:5, Funny)
I dunno, maybe they'll name a psychological disorder after the guy.
Christoforo's Syndrome - a psychological disorder characterized by pathological lying, shallow affect, a noted lack of empathy and consistent abusive behavior. It is distinguished from Antisocial Personality Disorder chiefly by poor spelling and grammar.
Notable excerpt (Score:5, Insightful)
[Emphasis added.]
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.
Re: (Score:3)
"Ultimately, if I was able to control the customer, it never would have happened..."
[Emphasis added.]
From the point of view of a PR person, this isn't exactly wrong. Setting expectations and such is a key part of doing customer support, and if the customer gets incorrect ideas about what's going to happen, the support person should attempt to bring them around (i.e. control the situation, which is to some degree controlling the customer.) It doesn't always work, but after doing support for a while you get a feel for how to take control of things that are going bad and fix them. Good customer support pe
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.
It is a misunderstanding. (Score:3)
What people fail to realize here is that this is fairly normal. This is the way marketing people think about the customers of their clients. It's really a job requirement.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Schadenfreude (Score:5, Insightful)
Typical... (Score:3)
This guy still diesn't get it. He blames everyone else, they were "being a bully" or acting like a "punk or jerk".
Then there's this gem: "Ultimately, if I was able to control the customer, it never would have happened. I've dealt with thousands and thousands of customers with similar complaints, they were all asking the same question." Control the customer? When has anyone been able to "control the customer"? Where the hell did he learn to provide customer service? Even in Fast Food they're trained better than that...
How fucking clueless can someone be? It boggles the mind that this guy actually worked as a professional in any industry, let alone one that focuses on these sort of interactions.
What an idiot...
Re:Typical... (Score:5, Informative)
You don't know shit.
He's just being politically incorrect. He shouldn't have said "control the customer", because it sounds bad. But believe me, there are ways to do it.
You have no idea the jedi tricks these people can pull on you, and you don't even notice and fall right into their trap. How do you think "social engineering" works?
Let me teach you a little bit:
B is the caller, let's say a bank. C is the customer ("victim" if you want a politically incorrect term).
B: Hello?
C: Good day sir, is this John Doe?
B: Yes, who's this? --"yes" #1
C: This is X from Bank Y, do you have a minute? -- it's more than a minute, but if i say "a minute" i'm more likely to get your attention
B: Um...okay? --didn't say yes, try again
C: Excuse me? I can't hear you?
B: Yes, I have a minute --- "yes" #2
C: Oh very good. Just a minute, I'll check the computer...ohh it's slow today, it's one of those days, how is your day? -- fake slow day to get him into small talk
B: I'm doing fine
C: Oh it's so good to hear you're having a good day, it's been crazy here! --show him how good he is, and how bad you are, so he'll feel sorry for you
B: Oh i see, yes, it's been good --great, you got him on a positive mood!
C: OK, here we are.. let me check, are you John F. Doe, yes? - ask with yes, not "right". you want him to say "yes", not "right
B: Right -- try again
C: Excuse me? I can't hear you
B: Yes, I'm John F. Doe
C: Oh ok, and your address is 123 Fake St.?
B: Yes. --good
C: And your date of birth is 12/23/55?
B: Yes ---ooh man, we're on a roll!
C: Oh OK, everything sounds right. So, let me tell you about the deal we got for you: because you've been a great customer to us, we're offering a new *whatever* blah blah blah
then you explain how much he's gaining from this "deal", why he wants it, etc.
Why did i make such an emphasis on getting a YES answer? Because ultimately you're going to ask him if he wants, say, a new credit card. You want him to say "yes", not "right", "uh-huh", "OK". You need a "yes". So you ask him a lot of questions that will get him saying "yes", so he's more willing to say "yes" later on.
THAT's how it works. THAT's what "controlling" a customer is. When you get a call from some sales person you say "I'm not interested" and hang up right away. The moment you let them speak, they get into your head. They have all sorts of tricks to get even the most "uninterested" person in buying things they don't want or need. This has been true for decades. They have teams of psychologysts to understand people, and millions of hours of conversations to learn from.
Re:Typical... (Score:4, Informative)
That gave me a headache... You mixed up the caller and customer.
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:Two Slashdot stories and a PA comic = Epic Fail (Score:4, Insightful)
And the company ended up having to give everyone on pre-order a $10 discount. How does the joke go? "I know this widget costs $10 to make and we sell it for $5, but we'll make it up in volume!"
This is a huge fiasco for the company that is going to cost them dearly. Yes, brand recognition might be up, but if it costs them more to clean up that recognition"than they make from sales (and I bet you that their margins aren't that awesome to begin with), this is a net loss.
So the current "marketting" so far has cost the company $10 on every controller ordered so far, a one-star review on Amazon, required the revamp of their marketing department, their CS methods and another PR campaign to put out the message "Sorry about that". These are real costs that I'm pretty sure aren't covered by the exposure. Not to mention that now everyone also knows about the shitty delivery time frames.
Re: (Score:3)
The whole fiasco is almost certainly a net positive for the product's sales.
Except, of course, the fire bombing of it's ratings on Amazon. I doubt something like 300 1-star reviews will do it much good.
The First Law of Holes (Score:5, Funny)
Someone needs to tell this guy about the First Law of Holes: "When you find yourself in one, stop digging!!"
Re: (Score:3)
I think he's going for the "or dig really, really far and you'll come out on the other side" alternative. Which works even less in the abstract sense than the literal one.
Nice Pic (Score:3)
'Roid Rage (Score:5, Informative)
They connected him to a user id, TheAngryPimp, on a steroid board. http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/12/cut-paul-oceanmarketting-christoforo-a-breakhe-might-just-have-roid-rage/ [kotaku.com.au]
I commend Mike at PA for doing this. (Score:4, Insightful)
If this hadn't gone viral, who knows where this guy would have gone. Can you imagine this guy in public office? Or leading a real company, or worse yet,being YOUR boss? I wonder if his linked in profile has been updated to indicate he is the biggest DB on the web?
Re:I commend Mike at PA for doing this. (Score:4, Informative)
Mike posted it to his blog, as a professional with a large following. From previous experience (cf. Dickwolves), he knew what the reaction would be. Hell, he even ended his initial post with the guy's full contact details.
So he basically told the internet: "Here's this asshole, have at him," knowing full well that people would engage in illegal harassment of Mr. Christoforo. And those are details you could probably convince a jury in a tort trial of.
If Mr. Christoforo weren't such an idiot, he'd have lawyers in contact with PA, working out a settlement. The Avenger folks should be working something out too, preferably (for both parties) on friendly terms.
Yes, big douchebag Mr. Christoforo, but what Mike did doesn't strike me as blameless, ethical, or even legal.
Concise apology for easy PR recovery (Score:3)
He still comes across as a jerk, contrite only to try to get people to stop harassing him. Seems like he can't shut up because his ego just won't let go.
This concise explanation / apology (and say nothing else) would have gone a long way, and it might even be somewhat true:
Add another line or two about how he hopes his behavior won't kill such a great gamer product, and done.
Very sad indeed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Very sad indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure the world has bigger idiots that are dumb enough to actually send him death threats but I'm not inclined to believe anything this guy says without good evidence to back it up.
LinkedIn? (Score:3)
Is this his LinkedIn [linkedin.com] presence? I wonder if people will rush to disassociate from him now...
"They've pretty much ruined me. . ." (Score:5, Insightful)
"They've pretty much ruined me in the past 24 hours," Christoforo said.
No, he did it all by himself. All they did was give him the publicity he so badly wanted. . .
Make sure you stir up a lot of controversy about us the more the better we needed some drama gets good blood flow going about the new product launch.
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.
That's a Shitty Way to Run a Business (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to make one fail, do what this guy did. I don't know how you make it to your late 30s without learning that lesson. It actually doesn't seem to me like he's learned it now. He seems like the kind of person who will blame anyone else for his failure when his last customer deserts him and his business lies in ruins.
The best move, from his company's perspective, would be to fire him and go "under new management." I don't know if anyone's ever been fired from running the company they own, but that might just do the trick. They could get an Australian guy in, since "Yeah, we got rid of that last guy, he was a cunt," sounds so much better with that accent. I think they'd be back on top in no time!
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.
Gotta love the power of the internet (Score:5, Insightful)
This power is only going to grow.
The internet stopped the AT&T buyout of T-Mobile. Nearly every other public presentation of the story was favorable to AT&T and their empty promises. The internet and its users were unrelenting and got the information out there. It took a LOT of work by people with a sense of urgency.
The internet *IS* the 99%. The 1% still thinks the internet is a digital sales leaflet.
Efforts out there are working. They will only get stronger and more effective as more and more people of the 99% and the 1% are taking more notice. The 1% is actively trying to limit and control the internet at every turn. While the 99% still have control over the internet and while they are not yet listed as "terrorists" action and enthusiasm need to increase. Don't let them take our internet. Don't even let them try.
I know I have been vocal in sending out contacts to various politicians letting them know "we are watching" and that even though the establishment has the old media locked down and in their pockets, the "new media" is still a wild west which no one controls 100% and the information can, will and does get out there. We are watching. And we are TRACKING. The internet's memory is a LOT longer than that of the average individual consumer. They can't lie and get away with it any longer.
I thank all of those who have made similar efforts out there. THEY WORKED. And to those who have been sitting on the side lines to see what would happen or who would win? You have your answer. It's time for you to join in and solidify your support for your own interests. I'm not saying you should stand up for what you believe in. I'm saying SIT DOWN and DON'T BE MOVED. This is your life. Your internet. Your ability to exist in the world. KEEP IT.
Okay, I don't play X-Box games but (Score:5, Funny)
I'm REALLY liking the mindset of the new PR guy for N-Control.
I'm just glad I didn't have a soda to my mouth.
Nice, blunt honesty in the situation with a schadenfreude-funny quote goes a long way. Kudos Moisés!
Insane (Score:4, Insightful)
The guy's clearly got some real psychological problems. He's plagiarizing and using stolen identities. Notice in the MSNBC interview he's still constantly using obscenities, "f***" and "s***" all over the place. And this theme:
"He has a lot of connections, ones I want too.... I know a lot of people who own clubs. I know some influential people, like the guy who runs the door at the convention center... When is it big enough that it hits the news? When it hits Penny Arcade, when it hits a guy who has the biggest affiliations in the industry."
I've never heard of such an uncontrollable obsession with "connections" (whether real or fake; and this runs through all the original emails, too). As a total amateur, I'd guess something like borderline personality or sociopathy or whatever.
Steroids (Score:4, Informative)
Re:No thanks (Score:5, Funny)
Please tell us of all the articles you don't want to read anymore by telling us about them on every article you didn't read to comment on their /. stubs. Do you have a website where like-minded people can find out about all the stories you don't care about so we can not care about them either?
Re: (Score:3)
Please tell us of all the articles you don't want to read anymore by telling us about them on every article you didn't read to comment on their /. stubs. Do you have a website where like-minded people can find out about all the stories you don't care about so we can not care about them either?
Maybe a newsletter?
Re:I never got why this became so big (Score:5, Insightful)
. Conversely, the guy on the other end was WAY overboard on wanting that controller by Christmas (must be a helluva controller).
Yeah. How dare he want his controller by X-mas when it was advertised to him that it would arrive in early December!? How dare he ask for an update on the ETA. How dare he get upset when the HEAD OF PUBLIC RELATIONS calls him a bitch!?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How dare he want his controller by X-mas when it was advertised to him that it would arrive in early December!? How dare he ask for an update on the ETA.
I agree with you on these points, however:
How dare he get upset when the HEAD OF PUBLIC RELATIONS calls him a bitch!?
Well, the customer started the name-calling when he signed off his long e-mail with:
p.p.s. Welcome to the internet, bitch. That’s how I roll.
Re:I never got why this became so big (Score:5, Insightful)
If you knew how to spell brusque, maybe you'd also know why this became so big. It's about class.
Re:I never got why this became so big (Score:5, Informative)
The whole thing looked way blown out of proportion to me. [...] Conversely, the guy on the other end was WAY overboard on wanting that controller by Christmas (must be a helluva controller). [...] Very unprofessional on Christoforo's part, for sure. But hardly worthy of the massive scorn he's gotten.
The customer hardly went overboard, the company processing the order was in violation of federal regulations (when you place an order online that cannot be fulfilled within 30 days there are regulations that state you must contact the customer notifying them of the issue and providing the option to cancel or alter the order) as well as merchant agreements (both VISA and MasterCard prohibit charging the customer's account prior to shipping merchandise).
As the customer service representative handling the order, not only was Christoforo "unprofessional" in lacking the ability to communicate in English (or, most likely, any other language), he was openly degrading toward the customer when it was pointed out the company he was representing was operating outside of the rules and regulations that governed their operation. This is an offense worthy of immediate termination at EVERY company I've worked for or had a contract with.
I've certainly experienced bad customer service, but this goes so far beyond anything I've ever encountered that it is practically unbelievable ... if it weren't a story sourced from multiple reliable individuals and news services, I wouldn't take it at face value ... as it is, yes, this ought to be taught to every jerk trying to party through school toward their MBA.
Re:I never got why this became so big (Score:5, Insightful)
I worked customer service/tech support for seven years. We dealt with good customers, we dealt with bad customers, and we dealt with baaaad customers. Death threats were a weekly occurrence (we worked with people's money). At no point in my career did I ever see or hear anything that even came close to the magnitude of where this guy went with a simple request of 'wheres my stuff?'. This guy took abusing the customer to a new extreme, and he got caught and publicly shamed for it. This case in itself isn't one of those world-changing events, but it's more of a warning to other business people to treat everyone decently and with respect. You never know if the customer you just told to piss up a rope will quietly slink away, or wipe their ass with your reputation for the whole internet to see.
And for those who say the customer is at all in the wrong here, how so? The guy had been very patient up to this point, and now he's fed up, so he spoke his mind. If the business wants his money, then they do what they need to make him happy. If they decide the benefit of this particular sale has become overshadowed by what ever burden he's placed upon them, then they advise him of such, immediately refund his money, and part ways. There's no need for all this drama. It's not as if the company has been trapped in an abusive relationship that only the customer has the power to end...
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: (Score:3)
In the end, they did the right thing by losing Ocean Marketing, I'd imagine if they (very publicly) gave away a number of units to their indented customers (disabled gamers), they could walk away from this fiasco being THE brand in their field. Now I know there is a company called N-Control when I think about what controller adapter to get for someone with a disability. If they can keep the goodwill they have a market cornered. I'd call that a net positive.
Re:A lot of people aren't any better than this guy (Score:4, Insightful)
Everyone started to flame him, spam his email accounts, call him and threaten him and his wife? I mean they even brought his two year old son into this.
I would agree with you, if not for the fact that there is zero evidence that anyone, let alone "everyone" (here come the Hyperbole Police, coming to take to to Exaggerationtraz) has made any threats to him or his family, outside Christoforo claiming that they have.
Considering this guy is a class-A lying, egomaniacal asshole, I would suggest taking any claims he makes with a very large amount of NaCl.