Buying Bullies will make you second guess

(Beware: bad grammar and spelling errors in this email.)

Today, as I write this on March 7, 2023, I received a message on my Etsy app from a buyer. Stacy is here name. I would like to invison her as a mom that love Jesus, faithful to human-kind, and enjoys being apart of the bigger cause of life. Reason why I invision this for her? Well, because I feel all my buyers should be that way. It is nieive to think they are and so the harsh reality is there are some buyers online that just want to make for a bad day.

Here’s a secret, grow think skin and understand these three things I learned early on in my ecommerce business. They are very simple when dealing with a customer dissatisfaction and help in the core focus of the business I built and run.

These are so simple and easy to keep in your memory when deailing with what I call a “Buyer Bully”.

3 Rules on understanding a buyer when they tell you their negative exprience:

They want one of these three things:

• [ ] Refund

• [ ] Replacement

• [ ] Both a refund and replacement

Nothing more! Well…… possibly, but we will settle on those three for now.

I recently came across a podcast episode by Alex Hormozie that talked about customer statisfaction and that episode got me thinking on the points of what I mentioned above. Here is the main take away from that episode that I share with you on the above.

“Only one person can be mad or upset.” - Alex

When I heard him say that, I was like “he’s absolutly right!” In fact, I had to test it with a very close friend of mine by making them upset on purpose to validate this strategy and theory Alex mentioned.

The test subject? Well, it was my wife, Becky. I knew I could be totally safe with her in the test experiment. What did I do? I filled the toliet with Babe Ruth candy bars to simulate floating (and sinking) you know what……. Yes, it was disgusting!! I will spare the pictures and drama of how it looked. The point of it was I know that she finds it absolutly gross and unkind to leave a lug of brown chug in the white porcelan pot. I totally agree. Here is what happened like clock work.

Becky goes to do her business. Lifts the lid and sees a LARGE of dissatisfying sight of what resembled poo. She screams “NICHOLAS!!!!! THIS IS }}”

She does what she needed to and then comes out of the bathroom. I go into practice mode for this test experiment of dissatisfaction like Alex mentioned in his podcast. Remember? “Only one person can be mad or angry.”

“Yes, love!! You never tell me you love me that way in the last 20 years of our marriage. What is wrong?”

She pulled me in the bathroom by the virtual air collar and said, “LOOK AT THIS!!”

I don’t chuckle, I don’t say any thing, and my body language goes into control expression mode.

”OH MY GOSH!!! I can’t believe this! This is ABSOLUTELY uncalled for!! I am so sorry you had to look at such a sight and be witness to such grossness!!”

“I don’t want. you to touch a thing in this bathroom!! You deserve so much more!!”

I even hyped up my emotions to have spitting more fire then her in this case. Displaying more anger and madness then she would but directing it on mysellf.

The out come? She wanted to feel validated that she was heard of her displeasure and that isn’t a place of disrespect she will tolerate to our household or her as a person. Ultimately, she wanted to be heard and responded to in a manner that gave her validation. How did I do it? Taking the angry and mad component away from her and giving her what she wanted. Validation.

So let’s apply this same technique to the three things I mentioned above that a buyer wants when they come to you with an issue or problem. If they get angry and shouting (physical) - find a way to take away that anger from them. Say something along the line, “You deserve more then this and I want to give it to you.” “You spent hard earned money on this item and I can’t believe it falled. If it failed for you then I must of failed for others and I want to make sure I handle this correctly because you are the first person that share the issue with me.” “This business stands behind quality and you did not receive that, not only will I give you a full refund but a FULL replacement as well!!”

You see, it all comes down to how you react to the situation. Allow a Bully Buyer to force your had and and be angry or mad. You will lose. Take that power from them and they will say things like, “It really isn’t that big of a deal but I just wanted you to be aware.”

To recap, the key to selling digital products is to look at the big picture of what the buyer like Stacy has as options. Those three key components to offer. Refund, Replacement, or both.

And……. move on!!

Hope that was helpful and gave you some in sight on these types of buyers.

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Feel free to read the response here:

​https://www.notion.so/Response-to-Stacy-Etsy-Buyer-Bully-c5fa0b9a07d5423f910ff335495c29ee?pvs=4​

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All the Best,

Nicholas @theprintablesguy.com