Customer Service

The customer is always right.

That maxim is a stereotypical statement made by some in management at retail places, but it's not entirely correct. As someone who worked in retail for the better part of four years at the end of college and before I got into my career, I've seen customer behavior that was less than optimal. That being said, I was also terrible at that job. I really wasn't suited to help people find every day things like their size pants or style of socks. Granted, maybe if I were in a medium where I actually gave a shit about what I was selling, like, say, wrestling, I'd have been a lot better.

Oh, one can't sell wrestling, right? Nope, wrong. Wrestling, like any other form of entertainment, is customer service. It doesn't exist without the fans, so the fans should be treated with respect. So, when stuff happens like the Lenny Leonard flap from last week, it really just saddens me. While I doubt Leonard speaks for DGUSA/EVOLVE, it's still not good when a voice of the company lashes out at fans like that. It's not even the discourse about what the show was marketed to. I can understand when they have to deal with fans who think they know better than the promoters all the time. Granted, I feel like I had a point, but then again, I've never booked a wrestling show before. It's hard, and it's something I probably won't know. But to call customers a "shit" crowd because they booed the crap out of a match, and that they're always a shit crowd because of a function of where they're at is pretty low.

So maybe I shouldn't be surprised that he got into another tiff with another Tweeter, TJ Hawke of 411 Wrestling, over the release of the Jeff Petersen Cup. I can't really repost it here because Leonard has since protected his tweets, but it got pretty heated, and the DGUSA ring announcer pretty much told Hawke off because he was tired of hearing the complaints about the show being delayed. Hawke wanted to give them his money, and a representative of the company berated him for it.

Maybe it's a good think Leonard turned off his public tweets, because he's not the kind of person who should be representing a company. The thing is that Gabe Sapolsky in the past has been very fan friendly, very customer savvy. There's a way to deal with customers and a way not to. Early in 2011, I ordered DDT4 from PWG. I waited and waited, and a month passed and I didn't get it. So, I e-mailed PWG and asked them if it had shipped yet. They totally forgot, and without any further correspondence, they offered to send me Card Subject to Change III. They didn't have to, but they did, unsolicited. THAT's great customer service. That's being proactive to keep the person who wants to give their hard-earned money over so that they're happy with more than just the thing they're buying.

There's a difference between being a confident, smart business and being a shithead to people who would otherwise hand over their money. Even if those companies generally are run by people who do right by the fans, a few people with their own strong, antisocial opinions can ruin the whole thing.