On Friday I sent the following reply to the Revdex.com website, attached to the initial “review” from the complainant—Rick P[redacted] An important part of our business is our Personal Property Liquidation Service. We conduct online "estate sales" via online auctions. Our Client's hire us...
because they need an empty house in order to sell the house. They can't sell it if it is not empty. It is important to obtain fair prices for the personal property we sell, but producing an empty house is priority #1. One of the most obvious ways a business can prove it sincerely wishes to serve its customers is to be accessible and available; to be flexible. I believe our customers would cite accessibility as one of our chief characteristics. This attribute is doubly appreciated (I believe) by customers who live far from us. When our buyers travel to our post-sale pick up locations they often arrive late in the evening. Recently I met one of our buyers at 11:00 PM. This customer got off work later than expected, and he had to travel from [redacted] City, Alabama to Greenville, SC after getting off work at 6:45 PM. We do this on a regular basis. We ALWAYS wait for customers to arrive no matter the time. If my customer is going to be that committed to me, to travel all that distance after getting off work, that relationship is the kind in which I want to invest time. Doing this is not only good service, but also good business. Routinely, we extend ourselves in this way because we value our customers. The single most asked question buyers have when scheduling an appointment to pick up their purchase is "how late are you going to be there?" Our reply is, "We will be there until you arrive. When do you anticipate arriving?" I believe we are showing our buyers/customers that we are serious about serving their needs, and accommodating their hectic schedules. We do it because we want them to continue buying from us, and, we are earning their loyalty. This doesn't mean we expect to have a friendly relationship with every customer. We do not. Not everyone is wired to exude warmth and friendliness, and fatigue certainly makes being friendly more of an effort. But, they should expect to be treated with courtesy and respect, which we expect to be reciprocated. On 3/22/17, the complainant had tried calling me six times, unsuccessfully due to a problem with his phone. His seventh call arrived 11 minutes after the first. He left a voice message for me at 10:11 AM, approximately 10 hours before the online auction ended. He asked to preview the items in the sale ending "tonight", and said if he won an auction he'd be driving from Virginia to pick up the items Friday, before or after stopping at another auction pick up, depending upon the time of our "load-out. Because of the phone problem, I text messaged a reply: "[redacted], you left a voice message asking to see items in our online auction which ends tonight. We will not return to that location until Friday, the day of pick-up. Sorry. Thanks for your interest. Rick P[redacted] with Caring Transitions."20 minutes later I received a phone call from the him. I answered the call and addressed the questions he had posed in his voice message: our pick up on Friday began at 9 AM. I told him he need not worry about arriving late because since he was coming from so far a distance we would work with him to allow him to get his things, should he win. He thanked me for being flexible. He then began to tell me he had 1 or 2 other probable stops he intended to make before coming to our pick-up location. He said something like this, "to be honest with you I am coming to you last because the other things I have to pick up are much better than yours". He then asked several critically worded questions regarding a group of electronic devices we had in our sale. He said it made no sense to have put the electric device he was interested in with the other electric device it was grouped with. He said "it was dumb" of us to have done so. I tried to explain that the owner of this property, our Client, is in a serious “time crunch”, with the closing date on the sale of her house looming. I said something to the effect that we had not had as much time as we would have liked to research these devices and that our staff, though experts in somethings, are not experts in evaluating old electronic devices. He quickly retorted, “I’ll tell you something else they are not experts in, and that's photography." I explained, perhaps defensively, that the photos were taken in a cramped, small space in a basement. I said that I thought they were good considering this. He said "Well, they are terrible. You should spend more time training them". I was caught off-guard, and disappointed. Probably angrily, I said, "Do not bid with us. I don’t want your business. If you have already bid, stop bidding." I ended the phone call. The next day I was surprised to learn that the customer had won two auctions, especially after I had explicitly told him not to bid; not to buy from us. The following day was pick up day. We quickly sold the items the customer had won to the second highest bidders. The complainant’s comments concerning the “savings” (on the items he won) which “would allow me to maximize my profit”, I believe, possibly display an excessive fixation on profit over good behavior and common courtesy. I told the customer I didn’t want to do business with him well before the end of the auction. As a business owner we reserve the right to decline to do business with rude people. Thank you. Rick P[redacted], Caring Transitions of Upstate SC Rick P[redacted]CARING TRANSITIONS of UPSTATE SCGuided By The Golden Rule(864) [redacted] office(864) [redacted] mobile[redacted].net
On Friday I sent the following reply to the Revdex.com website, attached to the initial “review” from the complainant—Rick P[redacted] An important part of our business is our Personal Property Liquidation Service. We conduct online "estate sales" via online auctions. Our Client's hire us...
because they need an empty house in order to sell the house. They can't sell it if it is not empty. It is important to obtain fair prices for the personal property we sell, but producing an empty house is priority #1. One of the most obvious ways a business can prove it sincerely wishes to serve its customers is to be accessible and available; to be flexible. I believe our customers would cite accessibility as one of our chief characteristics. This attribute is doubly appreciated (I believe) by customers who live far from us. When our buyers travel to our post-sale pick up locations they often arrive late in the evening. Recently I met one of our buyers at 11:00 PM. This customer got off work later than expected, and he had to travel from [redacted] City, Alabama to Greenville, SC after getting off work at 6:45 PM. We do this on a regular basis. We ALWAYS wait for customers to arrive no matter the time. If my customer is going to be that committed to me, to travel all that distance after getting off work, that relationship is the kind in which I want to invest time. Doing this is not only good service, but also good business. Routinely, we extend ourselves in this way because we value our customers. The single most asked question buyers have when scheduling an appointment to pick up their purchase is "how late are you going to be there?" Our reply is, "We will be there until you arrive. When do you anticipate arriving?" I believe we are showing our buyers/customers that we are serious about serving their needs, and accommodating their hectic schedules. We do it because we want them to continue buying from us, and, we are earning their loyalty. This doesn't mean we expect to have a friendly relationship with every customer. We do not. Not everyone is wired to exude warmth and friendliness, and fatigue certainly makes being friendly more of an effort. But, they should expect to be treated with courtesy and respect, which we expect to be reciprocated. On 3/22/17, the complainant had tried calling me six times, unsuccessfully due to a problem with his phone. His seventh call arrived 11 minutes after the first. He left a voice message for me at 10:11 AM, approximately 10 hours before the online auction ended. He asked to preview the items in the sale ending "tonight", and said if he won an auction he'd be driving from Virginia to pick up the items Friday, before or after stopping at another auction pick up, depending upon the time of our "load-out. Because of the phone problem, I text messaged a reply: "[redacted], you left a voice message asking to see items in our online auction which ends tonight. We will not return to that location until Friday, the day of pick-up. Sorry. Thanks for your interest. Rick P[redacted] with Caring Transitions."20 minutes later I received a phone call from the him. I answered the call and addressed the questions he had posed in his voice message: our pick up on Friday began at 9 AM. I told him he need not worry about arriving late because since he was coming from so far a distance we would work with him to allow him to get his things, should he win. He thanked me for being flexible. He then began to tell me he had 1 or 2 other probable stops he intended to make before coming to our pick-up location. He said something like this, "to be honest with you I am coming to you last because the other things I have to pick up are much better than yours". He then asked several critically worded questions regarding a group of electronic devices we had in our sale. He said it made no sense to have put the electric device he was interested in with the other electric device it was grouped with. He said "it was dumb" of us to have done so. I tried to explain that the owner of this property, our Client, is in a serious “time crunch”, with the closing date on the sale of her house looming. I said something to the effect that we had not had as much time as we would have liked to research these devices and that our staff, though experts in somethings, are not experts in evaluating old electronic devices. He quickly retorted, “I’ll tell you something else they are not experts in, and that's photography." I explained, perhaps defensively, that the photos were taken in a cramped, small space in a basement. I said that I thought they were good considering this. He said "Well, they are terrible. You should spend more time training them". I was caught off-guard, and disappointed. Probably angrily, I said, "Do not bid with us. I don’t want your business. If you have already bid, stop bidding." I ended the phone call. The next day I was surprised to learn that the customer had won two auctions, especially after I had explicitly told him not to bid; not to buy from us. The following day was pick up day. We quickly sold the items the customer had won to the second highest bidders. The complainant’s comments concerning the “savings” (on the items he won) which “would allow me to maximize my profit”, I believe, possibly display an excessive fixation on profit over good behavior and common courtesy. I told the customer I didn’t want to do business with him well before the end of the auction. As a business owner we reserve the right to decline to do business with rude people. Thank you. Rick P[redacted], Caring Transitions of Upstate SC Rick P[redacted]CARING TRANSITIONS of UPSTATE SCGuided By The Golden Rule(864) [redacted] office(864) [redacted] mobile[redacted].net