27/2/2008 - Ebay Customer Service Solutions by Jason

eBay Customer Service Solutions

by Jason Houston, eBay abuse victim since 1999

How to make a system work that was designed not to work!

eBay Customer Service Solutions

Tired of wasting time sending emails to eBay, trying to get help? Tired of being ignored when you need a credit because their forms don’t work, or a listing showed up cobbled? Frustrated talking to eBay’s ‘live chat’ and being told it’s your own fault? Or your browser/computer/settings/software’s fault? Tired of spending hours ‘drilling down’ looking for a promised answer, only to end up being baited and switched into an unrelated subject? Irritated by getting empty replies from email addresses identified as ‘support’ that eBay admits aren’t ever seen by anyone who can read? Tired of getting the same canned answer to questions you never asked? Tired of having time-critical concerns ignored? Tired of wondering when eBay will start assuming some responsibility when things go wrong? Many users rightly believe the most over-used button on eBay’s computers is the one marked ‘delete’.

And with good reason.

With 193 million users, there’s a reason eBay has no customer support. With some 13,000 employees between San Jose, California and Salt lake City, Utah, eBay has no room – and stubbornly refuses to provide budget – for training of any serious customer support staff. Even at these figures (May, 2006), that translates out to something like 14,850 customers per employee at any given time of any given day. And that figure includes employees who don’t ever interact with customers. Even eBay admits they get “thousand of angry emails every day” which they callously ignore.

My research using eBay’s phony support since 1999 shows that on average one complaint out of every 135 sent ever gets read. And the ratio of those that get a resolving answer averages out to one in 300.  How they decide what and whom to respond to depends on the whims of the hourly wage-earners sitting at their computers when the endless waterfall of questions comes cascading across their screens.  A few new-hires will regard a serious complaint professionally – until their supervisor tells them they’re spending too much time on each question, ignore it, and go on to the next.

Here are some tips:

First, don’t bother using offensive language. Vulgar words are screened by eBay’s software to spit out form replies that say they don’t respond to emails containing vulgar words. It’s not a personal values criteria among employees who might get their tender feelings offended. It’s just another excuse to dispose of more inquiries without having to read them. The software does it for them automatically. If it is necessary to use vulgar words in a constructive way, find creative ways to disguise them. (‘son of a bitch’ would become ‘sun of a bytch’, etc.)

Next, know that the second most common reason for hitting ‘delete’ to a question is the implied excuse that the answer can be found by drilling down through eBay pages. The problem is, the users already know what is contained there and what isn’t, but eBay support staff (sic) haven’t a clue. They are assured by their bosses that “all questions are answered” in the drill-down pages, therefore there is no need to take time generating a reply.

If by now you are still determined to get an answer, try to be explicitly brief with your complaint. Put as few words in the subject line as you can, yet still leave the meaning clear and easy for simple high schoolers to understand.  The correct use of English grammar and punctuation helps, despite the fact most of the replies will clearly demonstrate a lack of such literacy basics. Remember, too, that many of these complaints are read by twenty-somethings living in foreign countries and their use of English is worse than limited. And if it doesn’t make sense to them at a quick read, it goes ‘delete’.

Follow these criteria and you might increase your batting average to one in fifty.

But the all-time method that works with nearly 100% efficiency is repetition. If a complaint is received 50 to 75 times within a few minutes, they must stop and sift through them slowly to make sure they don’t delete something that might be important. This takes time they don’t like to spend. And if they get such a barrage every hour or two over a single day, someone above minimum wage will decide to read it and give a cognizant response to the writer. That’s the only way for them to “turn off the nuisance”.

This formula has been shown to be most effective until such time as eBay decides to invest in customer support – one that goes beyond hollow, rude responses, arrogant form replies and incoherent levels of literacy. eBay has both the capital and technology to incorporate an efficient, workable customer complaint department. They just don’t want to spend the money. People like Meg Whitman and Bill Cobb have been publicly saying for years, “Yes, we have a lot of work to do in that area. Thanks for the suggestion!” Yet they prefer, instead, to play the coward and hide behind the anonymity of email that goes unanswered. 

Some eBay email addresses that have not been disabled yet due to overuse by complainants: rswebhelp@ebay.com; fraudrpt@ebay.com; billcobb@ebay.com; ended@ebay.com; suspension@ebay.com. Look for these to disappear once they get too much traffic; remember, eBay doesn’t want to deal with problems.

c. 2007 BNP Media.