Let me shed some light on this because I was one of the people who came with vsmavs23 to the expo and was with hom in the booth. I witnessed the ENTIRE interaction. I remember everything because I was going to buy a JB case that day. But that was before. Here's what I posted on his "Answering a bad review" video.
I was with that customer at the Super Billiards Expo in 2018. I remember our experience vividly. I was unimpressed.
John stuck a bunch of cues in the case and started pulling them out, saying "I don't see any problem with it." Which is when we explained that the liner of the case was loose. It would not seat fully into the shell of the case. If it was seated properly, it probably would have been fine. We couldn't remove the liner from the case either, for an unknown reason the liner wouldnt come out of the case more than halfway. He never offered to repair or replace it when we told him our complaints. He just passive aggresively kept pulling cues out of the case and saying "I don't see a problem with it" instead of addressing our concerns. We know that the case holds cues. And that the liners are removable. That wasn't our complaint. Not to mention, the joint collar on a $2900 Cognoscenti got chipped because the case liner wasnt properly seated in the case.
You have an upset customer because you didn't address his concern. That's why he went elsewhere. You didn't offer to replace the liner, the case, or spend enough time to address or fix our concern. Why? Is it because pushing sales is more important than dealing with your customers? That's why you're starring in this video.
You missed a golden opportunity to show the hundreds of people in your booth that you truly stand behind your product. I'm not trying to be rude. But you would have impressed a lot more people by taking five minutes at the Expo in 2018 resolving a real customer problem in front of your potential buyers.
This video shows me that you took a customer complaint about your product and an instance of poor customer service personally. Not professionally. I understand the need to defend your brand and your reputation. But the precedent you are setting for yourself is a bad one. I don't expect you to bend over backwards and go outside the realm of reasonable discourse to make everyone happy. We are hardworking people just like you. We want our nice things to last. We spend hard earned money on your case for a lifetime warranty and a reliable product. All you had to do was find common ground with the owner of the case. But you failed to do that. When it became evident that you were uninvested in us as cutomers, we left your booth dissatisfied and took our business elsewhere. I almost bought one of your cases with $300 cash in hand until I saw the way you interacted with the person who posted that review (both at the expo and online). I read the forums, nobody was in the right. You lost my sale because you didn't listen to the customer. And because you acted unprofessionally. If I decided to share a negative review, I certainly don't want to end up dealing with the backlash months later.
Why didn't you just replace the liner or have one of your staff figure something out to address our concerns? You never even pulled the liner out. You just shuffled cues in and out of it and treated us dismissively. You did zero investigation. You basically told us nothing was wrong when we told you we had a problem. You invalidated our concerns by doing that.
I worked customer service for 6 years. Here's the takeaway. Your potential buyers will become your existing buyers. Your existing buyers will become return buyers if they liked their experience. If they don't like their experience, they will become former buyers and caution potential buyers against becoming existing buyers because of their negative experience. It's also 10 times more expensive to gain a new customer than it is to keep an existing one.
That experience with your brand begins the first time you hear about a product. Not after the product has a problem. Not after the customer reaches out to you, not after you respond to a negative review.
I was your potential buyer, I really wanted a JB case and my first experience was a negative one. Nothing personal. I didn't like how you handled the situation.
Now I'm looking for other brands. The industry is competitive, and that's all it takes. I'm sure Gil was happy to sell him a case. That's how advertising works. Your existing customers will push more sales for you than any advertising campaign. They'll also cost you a lot of sales if you continue to treat them poorly.
I will just post the response I gave you on YouTube
The guy who posted the review NEVER said any of this and NEVER said a word about a Cog getting damaged. You guys are truly getting crazy here. I have EXACTLY ZERO REASON to treat you badly or let your leave with a case that does not work.
But let's dissect what you said: You said I did put cues in it and inspect it and try it out - even though your buddy claimed I didn't.
Your buddy claimed he didn't ASK FOR or WANT ANYTHING. He left the booth without making it clear that he didn't want that case or he would have gotten a new one.
HE ABSOLUTELY DID NOT SAY THAT A CUE HAD BEEN DAMAGED BECAUSE OF IT.
Yes I ABSOLUTELY took it personally when a person flat out lies about me and my brand. Your friend made another video that he posted on a facebook forum pretending to jerk off with the case.
So yeah, it's PERSONAL FOR SURE.
And spare the tripe about cost to acquire a customer. Every single day when I wake up there are new orders. Every day. I don't care if you wanted to buy a case because here is the bottom line. You could go any forum ANYWHERE and ask how we handle issues and the overwhelming response will be AWESOMELY.
But did you or your buddy ever stop to think that maybe your "experience" wasn't the norm? Maybe there was some other issue happening that made it seem like you were not getting the attention you think you should have? No, you didn't. You just left and your buddy went and CRIED to Gil and Gil was happy to sell him a case. Well over the years I have sold cases to people who cried to me about Gil and other makers. Shit happens sometimes but the bottom line is that your buddy could have turned around and said he wasn't happy with my answer and gotten a different outcome. Why? Because that is what I do since it doesn't matter to me if he owns the case he brought in or gets a new one. There is literally no reason for me not to make him happy other than he gives me ZERO indication that he isn't happy.
So tell you buddy to take some damn responsibility. According to you I tested the case WITH CUES - which sounds like what I would do - and found it to be no problem and working as it should work - so at that moment it's on him and ACCORDING TO HIM he didn't ask for or want anything.
And he only complains a YEAR LATER right before SBE - how convenient.......
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I have been in customer service for 40 years and have learned that the customer is not always right and built my business so that I don't have to take this nonsense from a customer. You asked why I didn't have anyone else take care of your friend? Because there wasn't any indication that I needed to. Your buddy could have spoken up, you could have spoken up, the third guy trying to "get me" now could have spoken up - three adults and not one of you could find the voice to say this isn't acceptable to us.
Maybe you left unhappy but that was not communicated to me. For me the deal was done - but for the guy who has the case he STILL had a lifetime warranty - so he could have simply contacted us after the show and said he wasn't happy. But he didn't. No, instead he waits a year and then posts an INACCURATE hit piece on AZB and expects no pushback.
Well that is not going to happen. Now your friend made a veiled threat and I expect him to follow through and show up at the booth. Because I will have the camera filming and we will then see what happens as I again prove that he is not correct.
Thanks for the marketing lesson....why do you think our booths are packed at every show?
AND - our booth at SBE is PACKED - we impress buyers for four days with the quality we provide AND the customer service we give - there are dozens of stories of people who came to the booth with an issue and got taken care of. So you can ATTEMPT to assign motivation to me but so far you are completely wrong.
And the nonsense about a Cog getting chipped is utterly ridiculous. There is literally no chance that it happened because of that case. And there is ZERO CHANCE that your buddy would not have mentioned it in his "review" on AZB if it truly had happened.
And I am 1000000% positive none of you mentioned it last year because I ABSOLUTELY would have remembered that.