u/AskHefty4907

Just listened to the WSJ daily podcast about stubhub, and how they cut investment in operations/customer support WHILE increasing spending in marketing/sales.

Now, putting aside how fucked up this is morally/ethically this is (leaving customer support reps who have no resources available to them to deal with angry customers who are rightfully pissed off and have no one else to direct their anger towards), it doesn’t make sense at all to me from a business perspective.

Stubhub has competitors - vividseats, ticpick, seatgeek. What good is investing in marketing and sales if you’re infuriating your customers who won’t potentially use your service again? The risk of reputational damage seems so high.

Obviously other companies have terrible support (I.e. Airbnb, any phone carrier, airlines, etc.), but some of those companies have near monopolies (it seems some routes only have 1 or 2 airlines that operate between those two, and there are what, only two major phone carriers left??!).

If the government isn’t going to stop corporate consolidation (which would greatly reduce any companies incentive to invest in customer support), can they at least force companies to invest a baseline amount of capital in customer support, or is that an absurd idea?

ALSO, it seems to me that the investment required for decent support is lower than what is required for sales/marketing. Don’t companies just offshore support to India and Pakistan anyway? Wouldn’t hiring additional support staff pale in comparison to what TV time slots cost? (And the return there also seems like it’s lower when everyone already knows who you are). I guess the issue is providing those support staff with resources (I.e salesforce or other crm’s), and maybe that’s the hangup?

I am very interested in getting the thoughts of someone who has any idea in how these decisions are made.

I thought the character was stupid and sucked, and didn’t really fit or make sense, but after having had a manager who kind of came across as likable and a bit of a goofball initially, but was actually an absolute fucking scum bag, Jack barker makes a little more sense to me now.

I think maybe there are people who, maybe consciously, come across as dumb or goofy in order to lower people’s guards or expectations, so they could either 1) more easily backstab people, since they won’t be suspected, 2) more easily extract information, or 3) set the bar lower so that they can only go up from there.

Jack does this with erlich and with Richard.

Does anyone have thoughts or insights? Is he based on anyone specific?

Oh and famines

I am staying in Antibes, in extreme heat, the AC in the Airbnb I was staying in was not working.

Additionally, the place smelt awful, and was an absolute shoebox. I paid $175ish per night, not a lot, but not nothing either.

I reported it to their support in the morning after my first night (I was staying for two nights), and they said that I needed to provide documentation to prove it was not working, and didn’t tell me how to do that. As if I’m supposed to carry a thermometer on me as I travel in case of this kind of event?? Not sure what else I could do.

Anyways, they said that because the host said the AC was working, then it must be working. I had to sleep in this smelly hot box again. Over two nights, I’m not sure, I might’ve slept like 4 hours?

Does anyone know if I can get an actual refund for this shitshow? If so, how would I go about getting that? How else can I complain and get visibility? Would complaining on the better business bureau, or on Trustpilot or anywhere else actually do anything?

Their support seems super incompetent and dumb (shocking, I know) and doesn’t reply.

I have good reviews on Airbnb, and have never complained about a stay, after I think 20+ stays. Unsure if that capital will get me far with them, but hopefully shows that im not a Karen who asks to speak to the manager where ever I go.

Anyways, would love some CONSTRUCTIVE feedback and guidance, if anyone has any to share.

It’s pretty stale, he had to explain it to their guest on Friday seconds after he made the joke, and it’s kinda not that funny to begin with in my opinion.

This is something I thought was the case when I was a kid. It actually seems kind of logical, no?