Rob & Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper talk about how to handle an angry eBay customer and the steps you should take.
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Reseller Hangout Podcast – How To Handle An Angry eBay Customer
Rob: What's up, pro flippers? On today's episode, we are talking about how to handle angry customers on eBay.
Rob: All right, guys, today we are covering something very important, angry customers. What do you do when you get somebody who bought something from you and reaches out and is already just livid, already very, very upset with the whole process. What do you do?
Melissa: So the first thing you don't do is go with your gut reaction or of the things that you wanna say when some, you get that message and they're just angry and you wanna retaliate, if you think it has, like, what are, what are they even coming from? Like, what are they even talking about?
And you, you don't wanna go with your gut reaction of what you wanna say right away.
Rob: That's because our first feeling is, okay, something happened in this transaction.
Melissa: They're attacking me.
Rob: I'm gonna have to give them a refund. I didn't do anything wrong. I know that I sold them this item, and there is nothing wrong with it or whatever it is.
So that is your first instance. Well shoot, something's going on. What did you do to screw this item up? That's your first reaction to actually do, at least my first reaction is to be like, okay, what did you do? I didn't do anything. I did exactly what I promised. So what did you do to screw this up? But that is, don't say that.
Not what you wanna do. You definitely, and we've talked about this in the past, but I had a different take on it this morning with one of the podcasts that we listened to. You definitely wanna be a detective and you wanna figure out what is going on in this situation.
Melissa: Yeah. You wanna sympathize with them.
You wanna be on their side, at least until you can figure out what's going on. And then if you have to later on, you know, come and have a discussion, like, no, this isn't what happened. But in the beginning it definitely sympathize with what's going on, and we heard an interesting take on it, like you said this morning on a podcast, Hormozi was talking about the angry boat and we thought it was a great analogy.
And it pertains to this too, so
Rob: Yeah. And the angry boat. I've never heard this analogy before, but it makes so much sense and it's kind of how I handle stuff when I do get somebody that reaches out and has an issue with an item that we sold them, but the way that Alex Hormozi explains it is only one person can be, and he learned this when he was 18 at his first sales jobs.
I, I, I think he said, and it's only one person can be in the angry boat at a time. And it makes so much sense. So if you have somebody reach out, they're in the angry boat. When they're reaching out, they're the only one allowed in that angry boat at a time. That's where you have to jump in the angry boat.
Kick them out of the angry boat. And you have to be angry yourself.
Melissa: For them.
Rob: Exactly. Not angry at them, angry for them of what happened. How did this happen? I am so sorry for this, that you're going through this situation. This is how you have to respond back to them. And my first response when I handle it the right way is, oh my goodness, what happened?
What is going on? Please tell me a little bit more about what happened Was the box damaged, did the shipping company break this? I need to know a little bit more. Please explain, you know, your situation. Because a lot of times it's a first lash out. This is broken, I wanna refund. That's what they say immediately and they don't tell you anything else.
So, when you come back and you advocate for them, okay, let's figure out, let's get to the root of this problem. I wanna help you. I wanna fix this problem for you. When you do that, you jump into the angry boat and they gotta jump out and be like, okay, well this guy's here, he's here to help me. He's not going against me.
He's trying to help me. And that's what you really have to take as your first action that you have to, you have to do.
Melissa: His story was an in-person sales and I was curious if it would come off the same way in messaging, but that's what you do in messages. You'll reply back and and it does come off well.
Cuz then they're more responsive.
Rob: Absolutely.
Melissa: And they're, they're easier to work with, for the most part, like typically they want, they want their issues solved. Like they are not trying to lash out at you necessarily. They're mad that the item they got is most likely broken or something happened and, or maybe you accidentally sent the wrong item.
You know, that happens every once in a while, and so they're, you just have to see why they're upset and that you might wanna be upset at first at them. You won't get far if you do that. No. That's how you react. Then you won't get very far. So.
Rob: And the first thing that I do is collect all that information.
You're trying to get a, a good idea of what exactly happened because if you're listing and you're selling items properly, then you are properly describing the item. You're properly putting pictures, you're setting the proper expectation for the sale, for the buyer to have those expectations on the item when they receive it.
All that's done before the sale, and if it's done the right way, when they get the item, you didn't do anything wrong other than the variable that you have no control over, which is shipping, if something happened in shipping. So what you're trying to do at first is reach out and figure out everything that you can to assess the problem and see where it went wrong.
You know, on your end you didn't do anything wrong. So it has to either be shipping or it has to be something that they did. And that's where you don't wanna say that at first. You just want to bring in all the information, assess the problem, and then you can respond back.
Melissa: Yeah.
Rob: And I think about one of our returns that happened, to. A guy got something and it was damaged in shipping. The only problem was as I'm feeding in and I'm on his side, I'm telling him, oh no, this is not good. What's going on? He's telling me, hey, I got this. This wasn't working. So I started taking the item apart and he starts sending me pictures of the item apart of the item totally ripped apart, and this electronic item, he's got all, everything taken apart.
He's sending me pictures of it. And at that point I'm like, okay, this is awesome. I know I got this in the bag. You can't take items apart, if you want a refund for the item. So right away, once he told me that, he starts sending me pictures, I'm like, listen, I could have given you a refund if it was damaged in shipping.
I could have went after the shipping carrier. But since you're sending me pictures showing me that you totally ripped the item apart, I can't do anything now. You've taken matters into your own hand. You've done this. And I'm still perfectly polite. I'm not, I'm not jabbing him. But I say eBay's policy is once you have an item, if you don't like it and you return it, it's gotta be in the exact condition that it was received in, and that is their policy. But even on that, we don't accept returns. But on shipping damages, we do. We have the carrier, we pick it up. Yeah, we pick it up, we have them take over and do all the inspections and we file the claims and go through that. So the buyer doesn't lose their money, we don't lose our money.
And that's just kind of how it works. But, all that being said is, you have to collect all that information to figure out exactly what is going on with the item.
Melissa: And one thing you don't wanna do is get too emotional about the whole back and forth with the buyer, so be on their side and it be okay with it taking some time too to go back and forth.
Rob: That's a great point.
Melissa: That's another thing is you don't want to jump in and like they're angry and then you jump in like right away.
You have time to sit, reflect, and then respond to them, sympathize. Be angry for them and then get all the information. You don't wanna just jump in and say, okay, lemme get you that return right away. Yeah. You know, figure out the problem because that you might be a completely different problem than what they are saying.
Rob: So yeah, catch your composure. Yes. eBay gives you, I don't know exactly what it is, 48 hours, 72 hours to respond back to something like that. You don't necessarily, you take all that time, but you can catch your composure because most people, when they get an email like that or a message like that, two seconds later. Exactly, they're like, okay, I gotta do this.
I gotta handle this right now. Don't do that. Take your thoughts, figure out your best approach, approach of action that you're gonna do and then do that. And I mean, it doesn't have to be that second. Wait, you know, four hours, six hours, whatever it is, wait until, and a lot of people, they're busy. People are working, they're doing different things, so they don't expect an immediate response right away.
And eBay won't fault you for that either. But, you know, by the end of business day or, you know, halfway through the next day, if it's late at night when you're getting a response, you, you have time to think out your course of action and then you actually can execute on it. But, don't get emotional.
Don't lash out quick and don't just, you know, give them a refund right away and just get upset about it. You really need to, like I said, I love Alex Hormozi's analogy of one person in the angry boat at a time. If they're in the angry boat, kick them out, be on their side, figure out what's going on.
Melissa: Be angry for them.
Rob: Exactly. Be angry for them. Kick them out of the angry boat and to the point of they're like, okay, this person's on my side. Okay. I don't have to lash out at them anymore. They're gonna try to help me fix this and figure out what's going on. That's the best thing that you can possibly do.
Melissa: Yeah. And one thing I wanted to add too is once it gets, like if your conversation does go back and forth and they're still angry and there's no, like appealing, you can only do so much like the, you get to a point where you can only do so much to make them happy.
And if they get to a point where they're trying to do extortion and like gonna, like, I'm gonna give you negative feedback if you don't give me a partial refund for this thing, like, eBay will take care of that for you. Yep. If they do leave you negative feedback, you just give a call to eBay, message them on their thing and say, look, they're trying to a, they're threatening, they're threatening me with negative feedback or whatever it is.
Or they sent, they gave me negative feedback and eBay will take care of it. They've done that in the past. A person's not allowed to attack your character. They're not allowed to say like, all these things about you. Yep. So you are covered and you're taken care of by eBay.
Rob: Such a great point and you can just call eBay up and talk to them.
Even if you just get an email back or a message back stating, Hey, we are going to leave you negative feedback. If you don't do this, that is it's extortion. eBay will immediately, they'll step in, and take care of that situation to where, you don't have to worry about it. They'll either tell you, hey, if they do leave, negative feedback, calls us back and we'll get it taken off.
That kind of stuff. So you definitely want to keep that in mind as well.
Melissa: Yeah, so ultimately keep good customer service, good communication with the buyer. Customer service is key to running a good and successful eBay business. Be on their side. And then know when it gets to a point that eBay does have your back for the, you know, for the most part.
Rob: Absolutely.
Melissa: On those situations.
Rob: So, absolutely.
Melissa: Yep. You guys are awesome. So we do have a, if you're wanna dive in more, we have a free intro course. Five Mistakes Resellers Make That Can Cost Them Money. If you wanna check out FreeFlippingCourse.com. Right there. And we'll put it in the show notes.
Rob: FreeFlippingCourse.com. Check it out guys. It will help you in your flipping journey. So awesome. You guys rock. We'll see ya on the next episode.