Last Friday, The New York Times reported on the surreal story of Vitaly Borker, an online merchant who deliberately provokes and threatens his customers to increase sales. If you thought your cable company or telecom provider was treating you badly, read this.
Vitaly Borker is a Brooklyn-based online reseller of (allegedly counterfeit) designer sunglasses who uses fraud, bad customer service, fierce provocations and explicit threats to elicit online complaints. The more complaints, he has figured out, the higher his site ranks in Google search results. The higher his Google rank, the more hits he gets. The more hits he gets, the more business he receives. Google’s main ranking algorithm doesn’t seem to differentiate between positive and negative chatter about brands yet. Borker uses this loophole in Google’s algorithm without remorse.
Borker wasn’t even ashamed to acknowledge, explain and defend his questionable business strategy to a reporter of The New York Times. He even asked the reporter to include some keywords in the story (not his picture), since it would drive more sales in his direction. With the same goal in mind, he wrote the following statement on Get Satisfaction, one of the most popular web sites where victimized consumers vent their frustrations:
“Hello, My name is Stanley (fake name, same guy) with DecorMyEyes.com. I just wanted to let you guys know that the more replies you people post, the more business and the more hits and sales I get. My goal is NEGATIVE advertisement.”
I doubt whether Borker’s business will survive the current media storm. I hope not.
Please go on and read the full jaw-dropping report of Stanley’s questionable sales tactics and the shocking and terrifying customer experiences that have earned him a spot in The New York Times. Read it, share it, but please don’t get inspired.
As always, please feel free to leave your comments.
Source: Article and art work: The New York Times
Major update: Google Changes Its Rank Algorithm In Response To DecorMyEyes Story
Today, just 6 days after the release of the NYT article, we learned that Google has changed its rank algorithm in response to the DecorMyYes story. In an official blog post entitled “Being bad to your customers is bad for business“, Google writes:
“We were horrified to read about Ms. Rodriguez’s dreadful experience. Even though our initial analysis pointed to this being an edge case and not a widespread problem in our search results, we immediately convened a team that looked carefully at the issue. That team developed an initial algorithmic solution, implemented it, and the solution is already live. I am here to tell you that being bad is, and hopefully will always be, bad for business in Google’s search results.”
“The algorithmic solution detects the merchant from the Times article along with hundreds of other merchants that, in our opinion, provide an extremely poor user experience. The algorithm we incorporated into our search rankings represents an initial solution to this issue, and Google users are now getting a better experience as a result.”
Bravo Google for reacting to this story, and doing it in such a quick and efficient manner!
As always, please feel free to leave your comments below!
Source: TechCrunch and Google.
Latest update: Bully behind bars
It seems that the whole NYT story didn’t have the result Borker had hoped for. Last Monday (6 Dec), Borker was arrested in New York. Borker now faces serious charges: he is accused of
“acting toward customers unlawfully, willfully and knowingly, with the intent to kill, injure, harass and place under surveillance with intent to kill, injure, harass and intimidate, and to cause substantial emotional distress.”
It turns out that being bad for your customers is bad for business after all. And rightly so!
Thanks Brian Jameson for sharing this update.
If the experience that Borker delivers to the market is always negative, then there shouldn’t be any repeat purchase from the same customer. The biz model that Borker is operating is not sustainable. However, if his biz continues to survive, it simply proves that customers are irrational, or customers enjoy being tortured. Pain is pleasure!
On second thought…
The biz is sustainable because the market is huge. Borker doesn’t care about the loss of old customers because there is a never-ending supply of new customers. But why again? Negative ads really work? Word-of-mouth is dead? Where is social media? Or again customers are irrational?
They think others are just unlucky and they are smart enough not to be the next victim…?
It’s tempting… they actually want Borker to be the pleasure killer.
Hi Daryl,
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts with us.
At one point in the interview, the reporter paraphrases Borker with the words: “Selling on the Internet attracts a new horde of potential customers every day. For the most part, they don’t know anything about DecorMyEyes, and the ones who bother to research the company — well, he doesn’t want their money. If you’re the type of person who reads consumer reviews, Mr. Borker would rather you shop elsewhere. “I’m not a salesgirl at Macy’s,” is the way he puts it, “following a customer around the store to make sure you’re happy.”
So indeed, Borker doesn’t want repeat business. And he doesn’t care about bad publicity. He just aims for the people who are not savvy enough (or too lazy) to do a little research on the company they spend their well earned money with. When you google the guy’s name or business, the NYT article pops up, next to many negative mentions on Get Satisfaction and other advocacy websites. The fact that he is still in business illustrates that word-of-mouth through social media only works when people want to listen. Conversation is a two way street…
Thanks again for your comment, Daryl!
I don’t know whether that we should be happy with Google for doing this. Manipulating search results for more or less random reasons is verging on censorship in my opinion. In this case Google is open about it, but will they always be? It is a non-accountable giant that is wielding it power. In this case it may be justified, but they that might not always be the case, and who do you go to when it is not?
Hi Marja,
I share your concern. Google indeed has a lot of power when in comes to helping or preventing organizations to show up in search results. They always have and always will have. If it isn’t Google, it will be Facebook. If it isn’t Facebook, it will be another search giant. In the current information age, and with the current information overload (both in terms of facts and opinions), we will have to find a way to curate information and to filter it on the basis of sources we can trust. Since we move towards a hyperconnected society where online and offline converge and augment each other, these trust agents will be our family, friends and followers. Just like in the pre-internet days, buth with farther reach. Google will not be able to change that. They can only use it to their and their users’ advantage to deliver better search results that will keep us using their service.
But, as you also mention Marja, in this particular case I am pleasantly surprised by the ‘corrective action’ Google has taken. We all benefit from this update, except for the malicious online merchants of course.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Marja. Interesting topic!
It’s all about customer education.
However, if the customer is not willing to learn, it doesn’t really matter what is being done to prevent tradegy from happening.
After all, shit happens all the time, so shift happens.
But…
Think about Microsoft. MSO2007 is seen as one of the worst MS products, so what has Microsoft done to improve customer experience? None.
I’m now Apple fan.
Hi Daryl,
You are right. Information and customer reviews are easily available, but if customers choose to ignore this information…
With regard to your experiences with Microsoft and the consequential shift to Apple: same here. The difference between Microsoft and DecorMyEyes though is that Microsoft aims for repeat business. DecorMyEyes doesn’t. In your (and my) case, it had the same outcome though, without the extra bonus of a higher Google ranking.
Thanks again for sharing, Daryl.
Although bizarre, Borker uses the same philosophy of 90% of celebrities and many PR organizations: Keep people talking at any expense. There is a long list of beneficiaries: Ozzy Osbourne, Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, Paris Hilton, Martha Stewart, Brittany Spears, Whitney Houston, and on an on….
In the world of customer experience we talk alot about making the experience significant, emotional, positive and unexpected. So they guy chucked the ‘positive’ attribute.
Google did a great thing by making something happen so quickly, and businesses with great comments will definitely benefit. Just some thoughts…
Hi Paige,
Thanks for stopping by (and my apologies for my late reply).
I don’t know whether so many celibrities try to keep people talking an any expense. I hope not :) Surely there are examples of celebrities that don’t care about their public image, and other ones that try to build a personal brand by shocking the audience from time to time. However, if the majority of celebrities would act this way, it would become the norm again, and it would loose its power in terms of branding.
I too applaud Google for their apt response. And you are definitely true: businesses with great comments will always benefit. For those of us still in doubt about the sustainability of Borker’s business strategy, please read Brians’ comment below. It turns out out that bad customer service is not sustainable after all. And rightly so!
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts, Paige.
Christophe,
So it looks like his “Bad Customer Service” model is not proving sustainable. It’s been reported that Borker has been arrested for making threats to customers – http://www.cnbc.com/id/40533265. What goes around, comes around.
Brian
Brian,
I am so happy with your update! Borker’s arrest last Monday and the serious charges he faces (“acting toward customers unlawfully, willfully and knowingly, with the intent to kill, injure, harass and place under surveillance with intent to kill, injure, harass and intimidate, and to cause substantial emotional distress”) does not only prove that insulting customers is not a sustainable strategy, it also shows that bragging about it is downright stupid. What a story…
Thanks again for the update, Brian.
Cool blog. I’ll check back here often.