Neutral feedback for shipping within posted timeframes...

ScootersBricks

Howdy folks. My wife and I just got back from my stepmother's funeral, so understandably things have been a bit slower than usual with the store. However, we have still miraculously been able to get our orders out within the posted timeframe on our store (2-5 days). However, a brand new user with an account that is only 3 days old has taken it upon himself to leave us a neutral for "not shipping after 4 days."

This particular user's order is packed and going out today (about to walk out the door right now actually). However, given the fact that his feedback is obviously false (he states we did not ship within 4 days, yet his account is less than 4 days old), and punitive (our store terms state that orders ship within 2-5 days, and the customer specifically would see that when placing an order, yet has decided to punish us for said terms, is there any way to have this feedback removed? Brickowl users do not leave feedback nearly as often as users on many other marketplaces, so every feedback is crucial--so it would be excellent if there was some way to have this taken care of in light of the given situation.

Lawrence

When stores receive a negative feedback, there is an e-mail sent explaining what to do, but this e-mail is not sent for neutral feedbacks, so I will explain here. Customers can remove any feedback they have placed, so the best thing to do is to try to resolve the situation with the customer, and they can then choose to remove the feedback if they wish.

ScootersBricks

I have reached out to the customer asking for them to open a dialog with us. Unfortunately it appears that the customer is underage so I'm not sure if the customer will even choose to respond. Will cross my fingers.

Hoddie

Ideally minors should be prevented from registering though I'm not sure how this could be enforced. In the UK it's a legal minefield dealing with under-age customers - 18 except in Scotland where it is 16, or 21 in some circumstances - because usual contract law doesn't apply. I'm assuming it's similar in other places.

ScootersBricks

The buyer is in the US; the kid is actually in middle school apparently--although he seems to have used his mom's credit card for the payment.

Markyd7

Is it only negative feedback that needs contact first?

Ems Bricks

It is unfair to receive neutral feedback when you have shipped within the store terms. We have had previous forum discussion on making the shipping times more obvious at checkout. Perhaps the buyer did not see your shipping terms. I think a more visible shipping/estimated received date would help in such cases.

OvertheBrick

I don't think neutral feedback affect the rating of the store so probably not a huge deal.
I got one once completely undeserved (customer didn't realize you could check the order status on the site) and didn't even realized it for a while so I didn't bother complaining

brickstackers

Can Lawrence not remove the neutral feedback if you can prove you shipped in the time stated in your terms? That seems to be fair and Lawrence that shows that you and Brick Owl run a fair system here. Other sites (even non-Lego) do this and it believe it will help improve confidence in your stores here.

ScootersBricks

At this point the user sent me an email after we reached out, saying that we were "unprofessional" for contacting him at all after the transaction was completed, much less asking if he would reconsider his feedback. However, he did remove it. At this point I'm assuming he is unable to leave feedback for the transaction again?

Stragus

@ScootersBricks He's now unable to leave feedback.

This particular situation might be resolved, but I think it would be good to define clearly if there are BrickOwl rules for removing feedback.

The terms state "Any item of feedback may be removed for any reason if it is deemed to be have been given in bad faith.". But "bad faith" doesn't quite include scenarios such as:
- A customer not noticing the posted shipping time frame
- A customer not realizing international shipping doesn't arrive in 3 days
- A customer not realizing the store is in another country at all (happened twice to me)
- A customer not knowing or understanding what he ordered
and so on...

Thoughts?

pmitch

Good points, Stragus.

"Bad faith" is hard to assess without knowing all of the facts.

But, if the customer made one of the mistakes that you mention, even though "bad faith" may not be involved, should the seller be the one who suffers (neutral or even negative feedback) because the buyer did not read or understand the stated terms?

If the benefit of the doubt is *always* in the buyer's favor, why have stated terms?

robernat

@ScootersBricks: obviously comms are the key in such situation, glad to hear it worked out for you
@noteworthys: terms (or the setting of shipping time frames) are not being showed on checkout, the chances of a buyer reading the sellers home page are quite slim. I've recently mentioned this in another thread and it is something admin should work on in the long run IMHO.
@Stragus: I'm sure Admin is going to look at a situation if a sellers asks for it, but, as a seller you need to determine whether it is harming your store or not, and whether there are reasonable grounds to have it removed. I recently got a neutral myself, I can live with it, I doubt there would be serious grounds to have it removed, so I'm not even going to bother Admin over it, and it is not affecting my sellings or my reputation in any way, so no harm done ;-)
Bad faith feedback might be harmfull to a sellers store, so I'm sure Admin will judge it fairly when a request for removal is being made, allthough if I were in the OP's case I probably wouldn't have bothered anyway, neutrals do not affect ones selling (neither %) and another 10 FB's later it's on the next page, so I would just move on...

Stragus

@RobErNat Sure, I'm not terribly worried about it myself...

But I recently placed an order in a store with a 94% positive rating; I'm thinking a random unfair feedback can really harm a new seller. Anything less than 99% doesn't look too good, and it takes a very long time to recover from an early undeserved negative feedback.

ScootersBricks

The user in question sent me a reply a couple days back; as I have spent much of last week resolving issues with the funeral, memorial services, etc. I am just now able to find some time to get back to the forum. A couple things in his email:

"I realize that many of BrickOwl's vendors state that all shipments will ship within 2-5 business days, that's why my feedback was neutral and not negative."

"I would also like to note that I find receiving a message to remove feedback, of any nature, to be unprofessional."

And the most interesting of all, he had the audacity to tell us that if a member of our family dies, we should let us know ahead of time. As divination isn't exactly my forté, I opted to "stoplist" this customer instead. There are many amazing and awesome buyers on BrickOwl. And at least one whose heart is clearly three sizes too small. While LEGO may be very important, family comes first to me.