Harassed BY GW Staff on facebook for leaving hobby

[iamjack42]

Completely agree with the majority of this.

This guys response means he took it too seriously, not that staff in general are brainwashed. Although I think a lot of them would have a similar response, as a large majority of them seem to have this insult vs gw = insult to me. Which brings me onto my second point...

I was going to mention earlier, as I've heard you refer to your store before. If someone said "I dont like the atmosphere in your store", you could be offended, or inquisitive as to why, or ignore it based on one comment from a single gamer vs the community in your store as a large who do enjoy it. All these are pretty normal responses.

However, if someone, one of your regulars maybe, or someone you only see every few weeks, said "God damn it. I hate privateer press with a passion. Their models suck, their rules are pernickity and god damn player community is atrocious." Leaves you with the option of saying something like "Haha... I know what you mean, but a lot of people enjoy it. How about trying Malifaux/flames of war/warhammer?".

Whereas, I dont think "OMG. Get out mah store. How dare you!! 4 of my customers like privateer press and I earn £300 a month off their custom! OUT OUT!!!" would qualify as a normal response. Indies are better suited to this in all fairness, as you can offer a lot of variety in both wargames and other games. A similar comment in a gw store cannot have such an amicable response as I mentionned earlier, as their models are all pretty similar, and similarly priced, the rules are pretty similar, which isnt very deep, and they cant tell you to try XX game, because they dont have the option. Rant over.

Sure. But reading the GW guy's responses he doesn't ever address any complaints with models or price or anything GW-specific. He takes issue with the OP's characterization of how events are run and what the "store atmosphere" is like. Maybe you could help me out here, as I feel quite confused. Which quote from the GW guy is a defensive stance on behalf of GW and not on behalf of his management of the store and its events? Not to defend the GW, guy, I'm honestly confused here.

I'm struggling to see which quote your 1337-speak is parodying?

[Max Jet]

Well, considering the OP said

in his initial response, I think it was far more personal than "I don't like company XY Miniatures." Especially because it appears from the GW employee's response that he handles the events and the "atmosphere" personally. I know if I ran a store's events and somebody said "there was little interest in running cool events" it would sound personal.

O.k I am sorry. Of course this makes much more sense

[Whitwort Stormbringer]

It's really not all that uncommon of a practice to get in touch with customers, especially customers that you haven't seen in a while (I've heard of this in "necessity" type industries like his and "luxury" businesses like retail), but I think it's only really permissable if the business already has the customer's contact info. Since that was not the case here, and the GW guy sought you out through an unusual channel that you had not shared, I think it was a foul on GW guy's part.

Meh, either way I wouldn't read too much into it. I think you probably didn't need to bother bringing up the store atmosphere since that is something that falls on his shoulders directly, and mentioning being disenchanted with GW as a company puts him in an uncomfortable position regardless of whether or not he took it personally. It would have been sufficient to just say you're busier and can't afford to buy as much, but he still overreacted and probably shouldn't have sought you out on facebook in the first place anyways.

[xxRavenxx]

However, if someone, one of your regulars maybe, or someone you only see every few weeks, said "God damn it. I hate privateer press with a passion. Their models suck, their rules are pernickity and god damn player community is atrocious." Leaves you with the option of saying something like "Haha... I know what you mean, but a lot of people enjoy it. How about trying Malifaux/flames of war/warhammer?".

See, this depends as well. If someone politely comments on not liking something, it just slides by. If they stand in the middle of the store loudly berating the products I'm selling, I'd tell them where to shove it. I remember having to chase a guy out a few years back because he was following customers about telling them the products were too expensive.

A person's decorum is very important to how a situation plays out.

[deathspank]

more to this than meets the eye, the GW member of staff clearly knew the OP as his opening greeting was very familiar, the GW member of staff is then greeted with a wall of complaints, followed by a "so how are you", also the the OP says "this isnt directed at you and the rest of the staff"???? how is it not? sounds like the OP has a huge issue with GW and wanted to rant, which was contrary to the GW staff members expectations of the persons opinion, the GW member of staff clearly found out that the OP wasnt the person he thought and blocked him, Clearly the OP has GW issues as he then felt the conversation warranted a thread in a public forum.
Its not harassment (well not for the OP anyway)

[Ghal Maraz]

more to this than meets the eye, the GW member of staff clearly knew the OP as his opening greeting was very familiar, the GW member of staff is then greeted with a wall of complaints, followed by a "so how are you", also the the OP says "this isnt directed at you and the rest of the staff"???? how is it not? sounds like the OP has a huge issue with GW and wanted to rant, which was contrary to the GW staff members expectations of the persons opinion, the GW member of staff clearly found out that the OP wasnt the person he thought and blocked him, Clearly the OP has GW issues as he then felt the conversation warranted a thread in a public forum.
Its not harassment (well not for the OP anyway)

I wouldn't call it harrasment, but the GW guy shouldn't even have contacted him first time. And if he didn't like the answers, he should at least have proved to be mature enough to not block the responses of someone he had sought out himself, outside of every GW policy, every netiquette and every rule of good marketing.

[eron12]

I can count on 0 fingers the number of people in stores that know my full name and would be able to find me on Facebook.

I'm guessing you don't pay with a credit card. Everytime I make a gaming purchase I hand over a plastic card with my full name on it, two slips of paper with my full name on it are printed out, and then to top it off I sign my full name on one of the pieces. I would expect any store with a realtivly small clientel would have easy access to most regulars' full names.

That point aside, I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. Are you implying the OP is lying about not being facebook friends with the staffer in question?

more to this than meets the eye, the GW member of staff clearly knew the OP as his opening greeting was very familiar,

Or the staff member was overly familiar with his greeting. No one ever claimed the two didn't know each other, just that they were store aquaintinces, not friends, and especally not friends outside the store. There are many people who do not recognize the appropriate level of familiarity to use when conversing, and while not to delve too deeply into steriotypes, the type of people who are invovled with miniature wargames often displace a higher percentage of such people than the general population.

[comps]

Are you implying the OP is lying about not being facebook friends with the staffer in question?

credit cards don't generally display your full name in this country, I don't know about the US.
anyway...Kind of, I was implying they knew each other better than the OP suggests in general. but if you want to believe that a GW staff member went out of their way to track someone they don't know down on facebook and ask them why they don't shop there anymore then we can just agree to disagree, It just seems too ridiculous to be the full story to me.

[Mastodon]

To be honest, if someone had called me rubbish at my job I'd get annoyed too.

And are you subscribed to the stores facebook page? Thats probably how he found your facebook details. It certainly does sound like this staff member had some sort of contact with the op, to what extent I dont want to speculate as I cant say for certain, but going off on a rant about how the stores rubbish and the events are poor, which again leads me to believe the op was a regular patron of said stores events to comment on them, would certainly seem to be a fairly targeted attack on said staff member.

But whatever it is, its not harassment. Companies will contact you if you give them your details. GW will regularly phone people who signed up for events months ago if they think the one they're doing that weekend might interest you, facebook is another tool for that use.

Maybe the staffer was just wondering if he could do an event that would get you to want to come back into the store?

[Hellebore]

Whether the OP handled his response 'properly' or not is irrelevant. He had not gone to GW and thus the staff member had not had to receive such negative views - until said staffer went outside his job to contact the OP.

The OP told him why he hadnt been around. That the staffer didn't like it doesn't change his position, or he'd have been at the GW regularly NOT disliking it. I really don't get this vilification of the OP because he told the staffer why HE PERSONALLY wasn't coming to the store. Trying to tell the OP that he's mistaken about it won't change his mind, he wasn't enjoying himself and stopped coming.

How exacfly is that bad? He didn't walk into the store shouting about how bad it was, he simply stopped going because he wasn't enjoying it. The staffer would never have known his position on it had he simply left him alone in his non confrontational lack of interest or enthusiasm for the place. None of this would have happened if he'd been left alone. But the staffer decided to contact him and received the reasons for why the OP hadn't been coming. So what if it's not nice, or whatever? He hadn't been coming. That was why. If he'd been left alone the poor staffer would never have had to feel personally afronted that someone had lost interest enough that they were no longer showing up.

This shift of blame onto the OP is bizarre - HE never contacted GW to rant about how bad it was. He was accosted online by someone unsolicited asking why he wasn't around. That the answer wasn't what they wanted to hear is irrelevant.

If you don't want the truth, don't ask. Whether the OP is right or not, HE still felt that it was no longer enjoyable for a variety of reasons. You can't try and make him enjoy it more simply by telling him his position is wrong.

Hellebore

[Whitwort Stormbringer]

You can't try and make him enjoy it more simply by telling him his position is wrong.

I don't think anyone's telling the OP that he should enjoy GW games more, or even that his reasons for not going anymore are wrong, just that he could have been a wee bit more tactful in his response.

But as you point out, it was the GW guy that initiated the whole thing, and he clearly overreacted.

[Melvaius]

I think this highlights the problem with companies using social media sites like FB to update customers of upcoming events/promotions. In many ways I think the lines between good old fashioned customer service and intrusion have been blurred and I think over familiarity between customers and staff members is a ticking time bomb, as extreme as that may sound. Not that this is a one way street however, I work in a very niche shop and the customers we get, we pretty much see atleast once every week for one reason or the other. Some of them get very over familiar to the point of taking the mick, one incident i'll never forget is I was doing some shopping in town and I saw one of our regulars, I didn't say anything because as far as I was concerned it was my day off and my relationship with the customer was purely professional. In short to me they were just a slightly less unfamiliar face in the crowd, the only thing that linked us was that I was a supplier of a product they enjoyed. So I carried on shopping however the customer had seen me and for the next ten minutes I found myself locked in a conversation about the company I work for, which culminated in the customer asking me if we still had certain items in stock and when I was next in could I put her size aside. Now call me old fashioned but to me my job is just the means by which I am financially able to do things I enjoy, I don't need that kind of grief on my day off while i'm shopping in Morrisons with a cooked chicken in my basket getting colder by the second, I just want to get home, watch Bargain Hunt and eat the chicken. As such I agree with OP imho I think the GW staffer crossed the same line that my customer did. At the end of the day if the staffer was in charge of the events he should only have been contacting the OP to promote upcoming events. Its none of the staffers business if the OP wants to leave the hobby. As far as i'm concerned if you work in the retail industry 'the customer is always right' of course we all know this isn't always true but from a business stand point it is. You have to treat customer gripes as a form of constructive criticism. What the OP said in his reply to the staffer were valid (from the OP's perspective) reasons as to why he no longer wished to frequent the store or hobby. The staffer responded in a completely emotional and reactive way, with seemingly little or no regard for his job or GW's reputation. What the staffer should have done is taken the OP's criticism on board and then he should have gone and asked his line manager how he could improve in store events and the stores atmosphere as whole. That said in reality the staffer should have kept it proffesional, chalked another one off to the economic climate and concentrated on those customers who still spent money in his store after all a bird in the hand is worth two who have left the hobby!!! But hey thats just my opinion.

[xxRavenxx]

Some of them get very over familiar to the point of taking the mick,

Before I took over the store I now run, the previous owner had employed a friend of mine as saturday help, due to the pokemon cardgame craze, and legion of children it brought to the store. One weekday he was in the swimmingpool, and was approached by a 12(ish) year old who produced pokemon cards (yes, in a swimming pool) and started asking him if the store would be interested in buying them, etc.

My friend was obviously terrified that someone would misread the situation, and ended up quitting the part-time work because he felt it was more trouble than it was worth.

[Melvaius]

Before I took over the store I now run, the previous owner had employed a friend of mine as saturday help, due to the pokemon cardgame craze, and legion of children it brought to the store. One weekday he was in the swimmingpool, and was approached by a 12(ish) year old who produced pokemon cards (yes, in a swimming pool) and started asking him if the store would be interested in buying them, etc.

My friend was obviously terrified that someone would misread the situation, and ended up quitting the part-time work because he felt it was more trouble than it was worth.

This is my problem with over familiarity, i'm a great believer in delivering the best customer service possible. But never should an employee feel he needs to quit his job over it. Especially if he is approached by a customer when he is off the clock. With kids I think its a little different though, unfortunately for your friend the twelve year old probably percieved him in a friendly way, after all, most 12 year olds are pretty innocent. In the twelve year olds mind he probably just thought I know that guy, i need some cash, he will buy these pokemon cards off me. All the twelve year old see's is that your friend is approachable and that he works for a store that buys pokeman cards so by extension he buys Pokemon cards. Of course what the twelve year old does not realise is the implications to other adults of how approaching a grown man in a swimming pool and producing pokemon cards looks. I feel sorry for your friend being put in a situation where he had to quit what was probably quite a nice job.

[Moralein]

I'm going to have to agree with the minority view here.

At the end of the day it was an employee of GW who contacted the OP. He's been asked why it is that he hasn't visited the store recently and he's given his answer. What should have happened next is that the staffer thanks him for his feedback and perhaps tells the OP some of the things the store has done to address his concerns. What you don't do is tell a customer that they're wrong in their opinions and dismiss them.

Even if the OP had been the one to start the conversation and had listed some of his issues, the response should have been to thank him for his feedback. What has the store gained from this? It's annoyed a customer, who is now telling people how unhappy they are at being treated this way.

Not great customer service and hopefully the staffer will learn from this.

[Foxtrick]

I read the FB conversation as someone finding it hard to let someone go and even caring to much. However, I don't see much empathy towards your change of priority in life. Whilst the internet isn't a good way to communicate it does allow someone to compose a message purely of their own choosing of words. For that reason I don't think you can let him off too lightly. Either way, perhaps its a trait of the passion GW staff have to carry in their job that isn't always 100% always true.

I would have thought his perspective should have been "Well, I hope you come back to the hobby some day, please drop by now and again and say hello?"

[Spider-pope]

My apologies to the OP, but nothing that the GW employee wrote stuck me as harassment. He asks in a casual, jokey way if you're not coming to his store anymore. You then give a critique of his store and how its being run, and he replies why he doesnt agree. There is nothing harassing about anything he said nor does he make any comment about your leaving the hobby. He obviously just took offence at the way you described the atmosphere of the store.

Now if i were in his position, unless you were a personal friend i wouldn't have messaged you in the first place. Unless we know it each other, it's really none of my business why you haven't come to the store recently. So in that i think he was wrong but i just don't see it what he messaged you with as harassment.

[~Revenant~]

This is all quite humorous but the reality is NO store, or employee is very intelligent to be sending messages to a customer outside of a business unless it's 100% part of a transaction or they are friends outside of said business..

As someone with a spine, who quite frankly could give two about what some random employee anywhere thinks, if that was me I would have a good chuckle and either ignore them or say "because I feel like it" and if they pushed it after that, they would get quite possibly the tongue lashing of the century that would cause most military soldiers to cringe.

Regardless of it being unprofessional or not ( which it is ), it's nobodies damn business what people do with their money, so what if he might be under pressure from some GW higher up to keep sales while he looks after children, don't like it ? get another job or suck it down you chose to work for whoever it is you work for.

It's no more simple than that.

I'm not saying you should be rude to people, but if you act this way it's 100% ok to put said idiot in their place, this kind of stuff never happened in the 80s and 90s, I guess it's all part of the butthurt mania that the internet has brought, it makes for great entertainment at this ****** expense so thanks for the daily dose of comedy OP, kudos to you for trolling him...heh...that cracks me up good

[eron12]

My apologies to the OP, but nothing that the GW employee wrote stuck me as harassment.

I think the harrassment is more in the contact than the specific words. Basically the employee did the facebook equivilent of spam, junkmail, or telemarketing. Harrassment might be too strong a word for it, but it was unsolicided unwelcome contact by an aquantince.

[Killgore]

I can't see what the staffer did wrong. I’ve noticed that many people make acquaintances in a GW store and often there are conversations about, 'where has 'X' gone? I haven’t seen him for a few months, he had a cool army etc' between staffers and customers and often in their own friendship worker/ customer circles. If I knew how to contact some of the regulars I used to game back in the early 00's before Facebook I would have sent them a message, I suppose the Staffer thought the same.

The original message was clearly friendly and light hearted and was treated to the word equivalent of a fist to the balls, which is not nice.