Marketing Meltdown

The following story has been all over the airwaves in December. Customer named Dave orders the Avenger game controller. The manufacturer is N-Control. They seemed to have contracted out customer service to Paul Christoforo of Ocean Marketing. Paul goes back and forth in email with Dave explaining the delay. Things get a bit ugly in the correspondance.

Dave forwards the emails to game sites. This includes Mike Krahulik of Penny Arcade. Initially Mike was emailing under the name Gabe. Later he states his real name, that he runs Penny Arcade, and hosts the PAX conference. Christoforo gets into it with Krahulik. After Krauhulik posts the email history to the Penny Arcade web site, the mobs come out to roast crucify Christoforo.

Personally I found Christoforo's put downs very funny. This guy obviously has no place doing customer support. I think one moral from the story is that you should be humble and admit your mistake when you get busted by a superpower like the founder of Penny Arcade. Otherwise you will be dealing with damage control for months on end. I got a lot more to say about this. I will try to blog about this in the upcoming days.