Paytm had come across a problem that’s familiar to all e-commerce companies in India – customers being rude and abusive towards their support staff. But unlike other companies that believe in the customer always being right, Paytm decided to take a stand. The company has decided to block customers from their platform who are unreasonably belligerent.
In a post on their customer service blog, Paytm describes a customer who repeatedly tweeted to the Paytm twitter handle from multiple accounts with a complaint. Paytm claims that their customer service team swung into action, but realized that the customer didn’t want to cooperate and threatened to tarnish their image. Once the refund for the customer had been processed, Paytm decided to block this customer from using Paytm services forever.
Paytm also published a conversation that their customer service representative had with an irate customer.
Agent: Hello Sir! How can I assist you today?
Sir: I want my refund.
Agent: Sure sir. I would be happy to process that for you. Could you share the details?
Sir: What details you fool?! You sent me the defected product. Now, I want the refund.
Agent: Could you please share the Order ID, sir?
Sir: To hell with the order id! I want my refund.
Agent: Could you please share the product invoice?
Sir: Are you a donkey? Don’t you understand anything? Why do you need the invoice? I don’t have it. You get my refund done now.
Agent: Could you share the images of the product, then?
Sir: I will share them later. You do my refund right now else I am escalating.
Agent: You have to help me with something sir. I need some reference to track the order and related details.
Sir: That’s it. You guys are so uneducated. I am taking this to social media. I will see how you don’t refund me then.
“We welcome you but we don’t welcome such conversations. And we certainly don’t welcome this unreasonable behavior with our teams. We love you but within reason, logic and limits.”, said Paytm in the post.
With increased competition and a rush to acquire new customers at all costs, e-commerce companies in India have been struggling to deal difficult and finicky buyers. There have been reports of customers falsely claiming refunds and returning used goods. Delivery boys had even been attacked in certain parts of UP, leading several companies to stop service in those areas.
While customer service is paramount and an important differentiator in the cluttered e-commerce space, companies need to walk the thin line between between being overly accommodating and weeding away customers who are out to fleece them. Companies that can maintain this delicate balance shall emerge as the winners in this sector.