Why South Africans Suck as Clients, Myself Included

[Norri]

I'm so frustrated with this country as a whole. Selling here is so much more difficult than selling them elsewhere. Let me give you an example.

I have a client who hasn't been receiving my email replies. In other words he hasn't heard from me in a while but has just paid for a service. Understandably, he's concerned, but what he does next is ridiculous.

After just one day of not hearing back from me, he emails me swearing and claiming that I'm scamming him and that I'd better reply immediately or he'll do this and that and the next thing. One day!

He may be the exception but his type is NOT rare in this country.

Contrast this with the same thing happening with one of my US/UK/AU clients and you get a completely different response. They don't think I'm scamming them, they understand I may have replied but they didn't get it. They just message me and we organise alternative means of communication. All without resulting to mudslinging.

I have a theory and the theory is that, being South African, we're so used to being scammed, robbed and defrauded that we, as individual
citizens, are just WAITING, nay EXPECTING to be victims. And so we treat every business transaction as a fight. This is how things are done
here but, know this, this is not the norm. It's just OUR norm and it does not serve us. Be vigilant but, for goodness' sake, be civil too. You'll find you'll have more bridges to cross back over when you need them.

(I fire rude clients. Bugger 'em.)

[Blurock]

Is it not just a matter of bad manners?

The lack of etiquette and civil behaviour sometimes make you wonder where some people crawled out from...

[Norri]

Blurock, it seems to me to be bad manners as a result of being in a country where bad service and scams are so rife that you expect it at every turn and so you "protect" yourself by being rude and having your wall up against the back.

I know I've done it and, honestly, I'm ashamed of myself and often find myself learning from my international clients who are far more laid back and accepting of the odd issue - because it's just business as usual.

[Blurock]

Sometimes it helps not to get onto the garbage truck. Let it pass...

[Norri]

*breathing a sigh of relief* Just fired and refunded that client.

Funny thing is, after swearing at me and insulting me left, right and center, he calls me rude for firing him as a client. Ja, no sure.

*letting the garbage truck pass*

[Just Gone]

Norri it is not only our country that scams etc happen - we might be one of the countries that are more aware of the scams and subsequently react that way which is no excuse. I have just come back from Italy and Amsterdam and believe me there is a con artist or scammer on every corner. You have to constantly be aware of them and I am also reverring to the cafes which try to charge to 5 euros for a coffee and when u make them aware of it they will then charge you one euro! ! Big difference. I was also in London a couple of years ago and it is just as rife there. I have done business with them there and from Sa and you have to be very carefull.

But yes I agree fully with you - there is no reason to be obnoxious before you are even scammed!

[Citizen X]

I have a confession, A I hate customers and I hate staff!!! I thank goodness and God that I've left the reatil industry. Customers are not always right. In the retail industry, especially corporate companies, you have to tolerate alot. I took alot of crap for 10 years!!!

[Just Gone]

Vanesh......... Lol I am so with u - but how to make a living without customers is so difficult :-)

[wynn]

Norio I'll bet that the client that says he never recieved your correspondence was an Mweb subscriber and your mail had a trigger word that caused Mweb to dump your mail as spam.

Encourage all your clients to open another email address with another provider (Gmail, Hotmail Etc) so that they can recieve mail and can decide for themselves if your correspondence is spam or not and not have 'Big BrotheMweber' decide for them.

[Norri]

Wynn, Mweb is a nightmare and I've definitely experienced what you're talking about but it wasn't the case with this particular client.

[daveob]

probably went into his spam folder in outlook. But doesn't matter - that would likely be your fault as well.

[SilverNodashi]

I'm so frustrated with this country as a whole. Selling here is so much more difficult than selling them elsewhere. Let me give you an example.

I have a client who hasn't been receiving my email replies. In other words he hasn't heard from me in a while but has just paid for a service. Understandably, he's concerned, but what he does next is ridiculous.

After just one day of not hearing back from me, he emails me swearing and claiming that I'm scamming him and that I'd better reply immediately or he'll do this and that and the next thing. One day!

A client did this, after 3hours of not hearing from me, for software which needed to be encoded & locked to his IP address - even though the "welcome email" clearly stated that it's a manual process and he needs to be patient.

Norio I'll bet that the client that says he never recieved your correspondence was an Mweb subscriber and your mail had a trigger word that caused Mweb to dump your mail as spam.

Datapro / VOX / @lantic is also going this route and provide absolutely no support for hosting companies who's clients gets blocked.

Encourage all your clients to open another email address with another provider (Gmail, Hotmail Etc) so that they can recieve mail and can decide for themselves if your correspondence is spam or not and not have 'Big BrotheMweber' decide for them.

Don't use Yahoo, they'll block your mail for any reason they seem fit. Rather only ever use gmail.com or webmail.co.za

[purpleonlineadmin]

Sadly this is a norm as far as client relations. But again this boils down to the kind of poor service delivery in SA, you will not know how many service providers just don't answer their phones. Still no excuse though