> There is a subset of customers that will give you a bad review at the drop of a hat because they know it hurts you.
I think you give some people too much credit. They just expect things to work and get upset when it doesn't. They're powerless to change or fix anything besides coming to you, the developer. Yes, cursing isn't a good means of communication. Yes, having empathy for the other side is a good thing when trying to get something. It's still probably not _that_ personal.
> Finally one of these people got some tiny payback.
At the expense of a lot of bad PR and a general loss of professionalism displayed by the company. I've never heard of this company, but I will never do business with them now.
Maybe in the case of a home automation product, "just expecting things to work" is a credible position; when it comes to other product categories, though (e.g. indie video games on Steam), there certainly are a ton of negative reviews that are seemingly done purely out of spite, or "for the lols", that can have an outsized impact on the product's visibility.
Acting out in retributive ways when your customers (justifiably or not) have issues and leave negative reviews is a pretty terrible way to build and run a business.
Is the spite towards that one person really worth it?
This was an Amazon purchase. The developer mentions Saturday, and how the Amazon review was left around the same time as the forum post, so presumably the the item was delivered on that same day. That's gonna be a bad experience for both sides: The purchaser has to wait until Monday to return, and the developer has to deal with (what I expect is) a drive-by flame. It's a Saturday night, and each side reacted poorly.
Honestly, I doubt the guy was going to continue attempting to use his device after leaving such a review, so the developer bricking it doesn't have any effect. In addition, the customer will get his money back via the Amazon return, so the developer was losing there anyway.
We don't know anything else, so I don't know what the actual problem would be. It could've been build quality, or shipping, or software, or the purchasers mobile device, or who knows what.
To be honest, based on what I see here, and speaking as someone who is just a customer, I believe the customer started the boulder running with his negative review and drive-by flame, and I feel lenient towards the developer.
I bet the guy would be happy to continue using the product, they just want it to work.
You work out what their problem was and fix it, if they explain the issue. Regardless the attitude should be "how do we make sure the next buyer doesn't have an issue".
You are going to get bad reviews no matter what, some entirely unfair. All you can do it focus on making the product as good as it can be.
Apart from the effect of being unable to trust a security-critical product?
As mentioned in other comments, Garadget is able to open the garage doors of its customers remotely; this incident implies that they could actually do it, should their decide that a customer deserves an even worse punishment than denied service.
I honestly sympathize with Garadget a bit more in this case. Some people are just "assholes" that are all too quick to give a one-star review over the slightest thing, and it looks like this customer was one of them. The customer is not always right.
This customer may have been an asshole in this situation but that isn't really a good reason to state he's an asshole. For all we know he might spend the rest for his time reading bedtime stories to sick kittens. Judging someone's character based on a single incident isn't a great thing to do.
> Judging someone's character based on a single incident isn't a great thing to do.
By the same token, publicly castigating someone because you couldn't get their software to work on your device isn't a great thing to do either. Perhaps the developer sells his gadgets so he can house sick kittens, and he was up all night trying to nurse a particularly sick kitten when the angry email came through??
"The customer is always right" never meant that customer service should be a door mat, but rather comes from advertising and the idea that consumers will spend their money on products that best fit their needs at the best value. If you sell something noone wants, or at too high a price, you'll gain little to no market share.
There is a small subset of customers that will give you a bad review at the drop of a hat because they know it hurts you. They're poison.
Finally one of these people got some tiny payback.