So I had a bit of a run in with Brock Lewin from Badger and Dodo coffee. The guys over at Badger & Dodo roast coffee beans. I’ve been going down to them in the IFSC point market ever since it opened / they appeared. Every time I went for fresh beans they told me about their new website that was launching. So after Christmas, in need of a coffee fix I hit them up online. After a bit of a delay (because they were closed for holidays) I received my order.
When I opened the first bag, it seemed to be really dark roasted. I thought it was a bit strange as one of the ones I ordered was described as medium roast. When I opened the second bag all I could smell was burnt coffee. In my opinion it may have been over roasted.
Last Friday (before 12am), I popped them an email. It was fairly light stuff, I was asking them could there have been an issue with the roast and that it was much darker than I had expected. I heard nothing back from them.
So today I decided to try them both. To be fair, the first one was a bit darker than anything I had tasted in the IFSC. The second one was just discussing. So I decided id tweet about my option. I was still waiting on a reply.
OK, I admit, It was a bit blunt .. but then I get a reply from @BadgerAndDodo on twitter.
I found this really bad form. It seemed like really amazing example of poor customer engagement. They had every opportunity to resolve the issue. After my last experience with poor customer engagement I was cracking up!
I was an advocate of theirs up until 19:04 today. I could forgive them for a bad batch of coffee but I cant forgive them for treating me badly. You can see the here.. You can also read more ..
After a while, they delete the tweet and then I received this:
Hi Jason,
We take complaints very seriously, investigate every case thoroughly and
do not take your comments lightly. However, we will not merely refund or
replace orders until we can ascertain where the problem is and what went
wrong. I received your email on the Friday afternoon, and although we try
to take some time out on weekends, I had already looked into your issue
... that is, before logging online today and reading your tweet about our
coffee now "being overroasted to shit" and "smelt like crap" - forgive me
if I took this personally !
I found this early public conviction on twitter nasty, unfair and uncalled
for. Yes, I got defensive and got my back up as I am passionate about
quality in coffee and goto great lengths to satisfy customers. I felt
hardly done by as I hadn't been given a fair amount of time to reply to
your complaint. My only mistake was that I didn't email you to let you
know I was on the case.
Our assessment of your email complaint is as follows.
- a roasted coffee bean that will crush under pressure of thumb is not an
indication of it being "over roasted to shit";
- The batch records for both Red Rock and Yirgacheffe indicate that
nothing was wrong;
- That same batch of red Rock went out to various cafe customers, who
report nothing out of the ordinary with the quality of coffee;
- There were no complaints from others who were part of that same batch.
Conclusion: I have done all that I can from our end as per our refund and
returns policy, we ask that you return the coffee for further analysis.
Obviously we will reimburse your card for any out of pocket expenses
should the beans be found to be faulty, and replace your order. From our
own quality control perspective, we need to look into this issue as there
may quite well be an issue with say An post, packaging or who know what -
but we need to determine what went wrong and where.
Regards,
Brock
Its this kind of impersonal crap that gets me so worked up. Jesus, talk about making a bad situation worse. I was about to write a reply and then I decided is just write up a blog post. Was I wrong to share my opinion publicly? Should a company talk to its customs online in this way?
Id love to hear your opinion.
—
Updated: 2nd Feb, I’ve had a bit of time to chill out. In reflection, I may have been out order with the public hanging. The guys in Baddger and DoDo were trying their best to respond given the circumstances. I didn’t like that particular blend.. but each to their own! Pop over to their website and and tell me if I was wrong.
I guess the big issue for me here is that their response doesn’t even really tell you anything apart from that, as far as they’re concerned, the only way this can have happened is:
1) Some mess in between you and them damaging stock, or
2) Insinuate that you cannot tell when coffee is good or bad
Call me underhanded, but when I worked in a similar arena, there were cases where, with some customers, it made more sense for us to just go out of our way and try to fix the problem, even if it wasn’t necessarily our fault.
It can be a direct route to happier customers, even if it means taking a bit of a hit.
I don’t know. I know nothing about you or the coffee folks, but it looks to me like you weren’t happy with the speed of a customer support email, and rather than pinging them on Twitter to see if they had figured it out, you jumped straight to baiting them to a public fight.
They failed by acknowledging the bait and responding in a knee-jerk fashion AND by not responding to the service email in a timely manner – might be a workflow issue for them, they might be a small company that was inundated on a Friday – I have no idea. Maybe one guy gets the support emails and he was in Costa Rica buying beans. They are a coffe company, not a tech company.
Now it looks like you are gloating over getting them to respond non-professionally.
Used to be a time when people complained privately and praised publicly. I find that still gets better results than airing dirty laundry in public.
Then again, maybe my American culture doesn’t translate well to your Irish culture and what I see may be, in fact, normal.
In my opinion they should have just simply replaced the beans with an apology, even if the beans were perfectly fine. Your would have been blog post stating their customer service was excellent would have increased their sales and everyone would have been happy.
It’s a business, they shouldn’t be “getting their backs up” nor “taking it to heart”.
“a time when people complained privately and praised publicly” says it all.
Times have changed and service providers need to change with them. Consumers have public channels now and we will use them as we see fit. Private channels have long kept the provider in charge.
As a consumer, one bad experience or one negative review is not the end of a relationship. Jason is a reasonable man and I’d bet a dollar he would have continued to order from Badger and Dodo if their customer service had been better. What killed that relationship wasn’t the poor coffee, it was the poor response.
If anything this was a chance for Badger and Dodo to have blown Jason away with great customer service and made him into a stronger advocate for their product.
If providers want to continue to do business the old way then they need to stay off social media channels completely, not attempt to have the best of both worlds.
Jason I know you enough to know you’re not unreasonable, so I assume if a timely & reasonable response had of arrived you would have reneged on the stance and thanked them for their timely turn-around.
Your original tweet complaining about it might have been knee-jerk and, perhaps a bit of an emotional response to the product you bought rather then a thought-out process of complaint… hence the point of twitter, really… but for a company to call you vindictive publicly is a bit of a step outside of the realm of customer service.
The best way for them to sort this out would be to respond with an apologetic tweet with an email address & name so you can direct a complaint with a human who’s name you have.
I will say, judging by the amount of followers they have & their website they’re not exactly a tech-orientated company. They’ll, ideally, learn from this
Regardless of the outcome, it made for a great blogpost and and interesting case in terms of customer engagement. I wonder if Brock will get wind of this blogpost and throw in his tuppence worth. Poor form all round though. You wouldn’t expect someone face to face to deal with a customer that way and similarly you should expect the same online. You are the consumer and have a world of alternatives, its you who they should be trying to please.
They really didn’t react professionally in that tweet, hence why it seems to have turned into nothing but mudslinging between you and them. But it is a great example of a company trying to reach out to the online market and utilising social media – but it really doesn’t have a clue on how to use it effectively.
The last time I tweeted something like that – think it was regards to Irish Rail and the Dunboyne rail line going to Docklands – at least they knew to respond professionally, to the point, and to not attempt to give their customers a bollocking or try and be “big men” by arguing back.
Well then, I guess you’re wrong Jason!
Brock needs to hand support over to someone else.
I bought a perfect flat white coffee (perfect espresso and milk) from Badger and Dodo today at the Douglas Farmer’s Market, Cork City. I appreciated the man’s expertise (Brock) and obvious passion for his craft. On arriving home I decided to go online to buy some coffee and came across this page. I felt compelled to write – and admit that this is the first tweet (if this is in fact a tweet) that I have ever written and don’t intend to make a habit of it. What inspired me to write was what I perceive to be the unfairness in Jason’s approach to what is, after all, this man’s (Brock’s) livelihood. Some of you comment on Brock’s sensitivity to people attempting to undermine the ‘goodwill’ (in accountancy terms) of his business. Some of you speak of the need for ‘professionalism’ on Brock’s part and suggest that he should subscribe to the theory that the customer is always right – even if the customer is highly narcissistic and attempts to undermine his business. It seems to me that you have an unusually thin skin and a ridiculous intolerance to waiting a reasonable period of time. It seems to me that you have incorrectly perceived Brock’s understandable delay in returning your email as some sort of narcissistic injury. I believe it is you and your merry band of bloggers – who owe Brock an apology. Lines such as ‘Jason I know you enough to know you’re not unreasonable’ – suggests to me a ganging up on Brock and a nasty scapegoating exercise. By the way, how well do you know Jason? Have you ever met him in person? If you are indeed a friend of his – surely you must admit that you are hardly an impartial judge of Jason. People, the economic landscape is bleak enough – I would strongly advise you all to take careful consideration before attempting to undermine a person’s business in the future. However, I expect these words will have a minimal effect on you guys as you seem to have an exaggerated sense of your own importance. Give this courageous entrepreneur the respect he deserves for setting up his business in the teeth of an economic shitstorm. When was the last time any of you really took a risk and put yourself out there – outside of the virtual demimonde you inhabit?
guys- i have just come across this blog looking for coffee. i’m flabbergasted, after reading the blog it doesn’t really matter who is wrong or whether they are social media savvy, posting a blog like this is not a decent thing to do to another person; reading it, i visualize a pack of hunting dogs on the savannah closing in on the prey – unplesant to read.
Interesting story… It reminds me of when I once went to a Michelin Star restaurant and decided to try some chilled oysters for the first time ever. When the plate arrived, I tried one of the oysters and it tasted horrible – like a mouthful of seawater! Needless to say, I didn’t hang about telling the head chef what I thought of his cooking!
Chris, you say it was your first time ever trying chilled oysters – are you sure it wasn’t just that your palette wasn’t sufficiently acculturated to oysters – and that the chef, after all, knew exactly what he was doing. One doesn’t get to acquire a michelin star by bluffing. At least, you, unlike Jason Roe above, have not acted appallingly by publicly identifying the restaurant
To all the people who agree with Jason I can firmly stand up for badger and dodo (Brock) and his efforts, Coffee produce and knowledge he is an experienced roaster and barista and he’s also a judge for the IBC ( Irish barista championship) think the man knows what he’s talking about and that Jason hasn’t a clue !!!!!! And due to the fact that major coffee chains and loyal customers had no complaints really shows that Jason is wrong and doesn’t know awesome coffee when he comes across it !!!!!!
Alex
The ONLY answer to a Tweet like Jasons is : Were sorry you didn’t enjoy the coffee may we replace it.
Arrogance has no place in customer care.
Having been a fan of coffee for many years, with family in Costa Rica and a strong believer in standing up for the small guy, I came across this article when going online to purchase some Badger and Dodo coffee and felt obliged to make a small comment.
I don’t know who this Jason character is, nor do I really care – all I can comment on is the professionalism, deep passion, and quality of product which I have experienced when dealing with Brock and the Badger and dodo crew. I have been more than happy with being a customer of their great coffee range products and will continue to be so. I only hope that the public slagging doesn’t affect the hard work they have put into setting up what I believe is a successful small business in times of economic hardship. Go the badger and Dodo!
To be fair, the first one was a bit darker than anything I had tasted in the IFSC. The second one was just discussing. So I decided id tweet about my option. I was still waiting on a reply.
I’ve been drinking their coffee every morning in Douglas for the past couple of months and its fantastic – the best I’ve had. I also usually have a good chat with Brock and full credit to him for making a nice business.
If I really cared about my product and some guy started slating it out of the blue on twitter I could well react the same way.
Its a pity you havent changed the title Jason – you seem to have acknowledged that this is a bit over the top? You realise that the 5th search result on google for badger and dodo is ‘badger and dodo – nasty/ vindictive’?