All PR is good PR?

[Zaroxen]

Checked out an article on Penny Arcade after several of my friends linked it on Facebook. It's a long read, but damn... It's worth it.

Read the full story here: Story

Long story short:
A company who claims to "believe in the power of great relationships, founded on honor, accountability and being responsible – and we value being there for people and their business --- when it matters most" (source: http://oceanmarketinginc.com/Aboutus.php), proves they do the complete opposite.

This just proves that the power sits with the customer. Not the company.

And before anyone complain about link-failure... I haven't posted enough on these forums to be allowed to post links. So you'll have to manually copy-paste the links into the address-bar of your web-browser.

[Zecora]

Checked out an article on Penny Arcade after several of my friends linked it on Facebook. It's a long read, but damn... It's worth it.

Read the full story here: penny-arcade.com/2011/12/26/just-wow1

Long story short:
A company who claims to "believe in the power of great relationships, founded on honor, accountability and being responsible – and we value being there for people and their business --- when it matters most" (source: oceanmarketinginc.com/Aboutus.php), proves they do the complete opposite.

This just proves that the power sits with the customer. Not the company.

And before anyone complain about link-failure... I haven't posted enough on these forums to be allowed to post links. So you'll have to manually copy-paste the links into the address-bar of your web-browser.

Wow...that's one rotten company, even by company standards.

[Maharishi]

I fixed the link for you. The site seems to be down now, but i read it earlier. They need to learn2customer service.

[Zaroxen]

Cheers for fixing the story-link. ^^

And it seems Paul is threatening with legal actions against PA's Gabe.

"expect a letter from our attorney." when this is the last thing I read before bed I know it's been a good day.

Source: http://twitter.com/cwgabriel/status/151583528180658177

[Thorim]

@OceanMarketting Please refrain from referring to me or IGN as support for you, your company or your clients. You do not have it.

LOL thats from Scott Lowe, executive editor of IGNtech.

[Skippy88]

As much as Ocean Marketing 100% totally botched handling the e-mail responses but at the same time I can relate to them as well. We bring goods over from overseas on a somewhat regular basis and it's purely a guess on when the shipment will arrive. We don't know 100% ETA until it basically shows up at our door. I try not to get out specific dates for that very reason and just say 'we will get your order out as soon as possible".

[noteworthynerd]

I find this hilarious, here is Ocean Marketing's homepage, notice the highlighted text:


Here is what you get when you Google "Ocean Marketing":


They absolutely handled this whole situation in the worst way possible... Customer service is one my responsibilities as an IT Coordinator, and no matter how belligerent a customer is, you never resort to the types of things that Ocean Marketing resorted to. The fact that "Dave" was actually pretty cordial in his initial emails (he had a legitimate complaint) makes it 10x worse.

[Gemenon]

Now that was a fun read. I think its safe to say, that in this instance, all PR is NOT good PR.

[Zaroxen]

I'm 28 years old with 8 years of experience from working as customer support. Under NO circumstance can Paul's response be justified.

As Nathan Stansell writes in his correspondence with Paul:

Sir yes sir, im just one of millions.
But remember Paul Christoforo, there are millions of us!

And:

we may be one little person out of a million, but in this age, one person can have a loud voice too!

Source: www.natesnetwork.com/Poor-customer-service

By the power of one mistreated customer, Paul and his Ocean Marketing Inc has been forced to take down their Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Oceans...-Marketing-Inc) and change Twitter account (old: http://twitter.com/OceanMarketting, new: http://twitter.com/OceanStratagy) while the news of this fatal mistake keeps spreading.

Yes, I say by the power of one mistreated customer. If it hadn't been for Dave, the news would not have reached PA. Nate's article would continue gather dust. And we would continue to be happily unaware of the grave that Paul has been digging for himself and his company.

[Deleted]

I found this to be very amusing. "Welcome to the internet" indeed.

[Jackmoves]

That was some funny shit, anyone els shocked over the way he expressed himself to? It was like reading something a raging 15 year old would write.

[Burpie]

By the power of one mistreated customer, Paul and his Ocean Marketing Inc has been forced to take down their Facebook page ( www . facebook.com/pages/Oceanside-CA/Ocean-Marketing-Inc ) and change Twitter account (old: twitter.com/OceanMarketting , new: twitter.com/OceanStratagy ) while the news of this fatal mistake keeps spreading.

Gotta love how they changed their twitter name from one misspelled title to a different one. Stay classy, Paul.

[Miralynn]

No exaggeration here, this is the kind of customer service and PR screwup that can destroy a company.

And seriously, what was with the 'I'm from Boston' crap in his e-mail exchange with the guy from PAX? Was he SERIOUSLY trying to pull off a 'lol mafia connections'... in email... related to a video gaming industry convention? Jeezus. I have to wonder if the guy was drunk or high when he wrote all that.

[Sumatran]

Absolutely not. That may work for a person (Lindsay Lohan, Kim. K, etc) but for a company most def not.

That firm will be out of buisness by the middle of next quarter.

[Jodah]

As much as Ocean Marketing 100% totally botched handling the e-mail responses but at the same time I can relate to them as well. We bring goods over from overseas on a somewhat regular basis and it's purely a guess on when the shipment will arrive. We don't know 100% ETA until it basically shows up at our door. I try not to get out specific dates for that very reason and just say 'we will get your order out as soon as possible".

The thing is it really isn't about the date, that is simply what initiated contact, it's how he handed explaining it. If the Ocean Marketing guy had said something along the lines of: "We are extremely sorry for the delay. The expected date was the 16th but, due to shipping errors that are out of our control it has been delayed. Again we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused for you, especially around this Holiday season. If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to ask" it is doubtful that it would have escalated to the degree it did.

*edit* Keep in mind I'm not a PR guy so I would expect someone who does so professionally would word the response better than I did.

[Confirm Deny]

Thanks for sharing.

Good on Dave. Although he was the first to throw the more aggressive/sarcastic lines, Mr. Ocean ( I know that's not his name ) shouldn'tve been so quick to brush that one off.
(Well, I guess "put your big boy hat on" is the first real sarcastic one. /shrug)

[Keex]

I'm still amazed on how quickly you can unleash such a massive shitstorm nowadays with all this social media stuff. that's one thing that kind of went by me...guess i'm getting old

[logobola]

Funny how their belief of bad PR is good PR. I never really heard of this "controller" addition till that article, looked it up on newegg and seems interesting (though don't believe would ever really need it). Then I think back to the article that bought me there and though I understand the frustrations of doing CS work in the past; their approach to it just steered me away from the product.

[inux94]

Sounds like the average customer service from Komplett.dk & Proshop.dk.

But yes, it is terrible.

[mrwingtipshoes]

Considering that Gabe posted their email maybe its time to put their email into every weird porn site we can find...

---------- Post added 2011-12-27 at 11:58 PM ----------

"Thank you for your email.

Due to the overwhelming customer feedback we're getting from the situation with Ocean Marketing we are asking those with specific product related concerns to send emails to customerservice@avengercontroller.co

Please know that Ocean Marketing is no longer handling any PR or customer service for our company. We apologize to our customers for Ocean Marketing's remark to one of our customers. We at Kotkin Enterprises know that it's our customers are the true arbiters of our products success and we would never intentionally jeopardize what we see as a relationship between us and our customers. We hope that this incident hasn't put you off of purchasing a truly revolutionary controller.

Thank you for expressing your concerns and we hope for your continued support in the future.

Kotkin Enterprises Avenger Controller Customer Service Team"

Lol Ocean marketting got bent over a barrel.