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July 13th, 2010
10:44 am
I hate having to send pissed off emails to vendor/partners at work. Always makes me feel like a jerk even though it has to be RICHLY deserved for me to take that step.
Anyone have a good way of coping with the communication necessary when passive-aggressive notes have failed to have any impact?
EDIT: to be fair/clear, this is a pretty obvious failure on their part that I now have to call them out on. I just found out it hasn't been dealt with despite my constantly asking about it for... oh... two months now. It's at the point of having to say "you fucked this up, why?" while CCing the head of their company. Yeah, fun.
Current Location: work
mood:  pissed off
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First step, forward last communication to vendor/partner to superior to let them know what is going on. Next step, STOP EMAILING. Call them, directly. Ask directly for answers. People can avoid emails, or use them as weapons, they rarely do so on the phone.
Good luck! I keep a paper/email trail if I can, and then reference previous attempts to resolve a situation in the pissed-off email. To me, this seems both clearly pissed-off and also clearly fairly impersonal -- it's not "you're a bad person," it's "solve my problem." The first thing is to avoid passive-aggressive notes from the start. If you're not getting the support you need from your POC with a vendor, than contact the vendor and request a new POC. If the lack of support is endemic to that company, than let them know that if the issues are not resolved you'll be looking for a new vendor. If they're not providing the support you're paying for, then the cost to move to a different vendor is completely justified. ![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/48080630/1344165) | | From: |  muffyjo |
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| Date: | July 13th, 2010 03:48 pm (UTC) |
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Avoid passive aggressive altogether if you can. It's manipulative and no one likes to be manipulated. You have a right to ask for what you need and to have your expectations set. Establishing that up front is part of what makes a good customer experience. And yeah, I agree with geekpixie to pick up the phone. While email is nice and traceable, phone calls are all about people and you can hear a voice and get a good vibe thing going which will make the tone of all your emails sound nicer. And if it's inter-departmental...take a walk and talk to the person in person. :) You get more bang for the buck that way. Recently a friend was describing someone, and I found this quote to be applicable to life in general:
"As a quality, "nice" is overrated. I'd much rather someone be direct than be nice."
I'm not saying you have to be a douchehole, but there's nothing wrong with being upfront, clear and concise about your dissatisfaction. Had much the same conversation with Ben & Nick today. Eh. |
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