The recent customer service debacle of N-Control and Ocean Marketing has led us to urge business owners to have internet marketing firms thoroughly vetted prior to marketing their products, services, and brands. For those unfamiliar with the situation, let me break it down.
In mid December a concerned customer, referred to as “Dave,” that had pre-ordered one of N-Control’s products was dissatisfied that the release date for the device he had ordered had been missed and the company’s website had done nothing to show that it was aware that customers were without their products. In a cryptic and unhelpful manner, the one-man marketing machine that had been hired by N-Control, Paul Christoforo of Ocean Marketing, responded in increasingly unprofessional taunts. He eventually pressed so far as to badger the customer, call him names, and attempt at “name-dropping” to bully the customer into getting over it.
Dave, being the web-wise individual he is, decided to pass the email thread along to certain members of the internet blogging elite: Kotaku, IGN, and Penny Arcade. It was here that Penny Arcade’s founder Mike Krahulik joined into the fray, remarking that it was highly unprofessional to deal with customers in this manner, and that Paul Christoforo’s booth would be canceled from any future PAX event (a large gamer convention that Krahulik runs). To this, Christoforo began to verbally assault Krahulik as well.
Enter the internet. Mike Krahulik decided that this behavior was rash enough that it needed to be seen by the masses. In a stroke of opportunity journalism, Mike Krahulik posted the exchange between Dave and Chris, and the later Mike and Chris emails. From there the online gamer elite took over; a relentless assault of negative postings and tweets tore down the Ocean Marketing company, and Paul Christoforo himself.
The barrage of negative media attention that ensued led to Christoforo to change Twitter accounts, to no success, receive thousands of emails out of hatred and disgust, have his personal legal history dug up, and the loss of the N-Control account.
While the obvious conclusion is that this entire scenario is the result of unprofessional action by one man, the blowback resulted in N-Control’s product, The Avenger, to drop its Amazon rating from a 4.5 to a 1. This will result in thousands of dollars in lost revenue, not to mention the thousands of hours of PR that will be required to clean up this mess.
N-Control made the decision to go with Christoforo and his Ocean Marketing due to a personal connection with the head of the company. While this is admirable, there were warning flags that this was not a good idea. The PR firm in place prior to Christoforo coming on board fired N-Control as a client due to increased unprofessional engagements. N-Control stuck with Christoforo, and these are the consequences.
While Christoforo continued to cause problems for N-Control, including holding various account information hostage, it is believed that the situation is now resolved.
Avoid your company from taking a hypothetical public relations hit like this. Find the right marketing agency that will represent your brand in the right light, with transparency, and with the distinguished character that best represents you.
About Robert Sloan
