I also posted this in /trueoffmychest knowing I'd have a mixed take but I thought I would post here too.
I got a bad review at work and it really got to me.
I work for a gaming company in Customer Support (I am not going to list the company haha). A couple months ago they laid off half of our team. We already only had about 10 people, so now we have around 5. Due to this we have had longer response times to customers. While I understand it is insane that it takes almost a month to answer, we are human beings and are burning ourselves out trying to get to everyone as fast as possible. Our queue hasn't broken over 3k to 5k tickets at a time.
Today really got me. I've been so tired because we are constantly doing the job of 3 people. I come in and see I got a bad review (yes those matter and they do impact our work). The situation was they wrote in confused about why they had to pay since they thought they already purchased this item. This truly is something they wouldn't need support for if they just checked Google about release dates or just looked on their account page. They did not provide any information to verify account ownership so I had to start there when answering the ticket. When I got to the ticket 11 days had passed and I already had about 30/40 people being completely nasty to me about the wait time in other emails so I was starting to feel worn down (which is why I'm typing this rant because I do know things can be worse but everything feels so piled on.)
They responded to my email asking for verification that it has been 11 days, they just canceled, and said they were tired of waiting. I responded, explained, and apologized about the delay and said to let me know if they had any further questions to let me know as they told me to close out the email/ticket. This clearly struck a chord with them because they said that it took too long so they would no longer be a customer. I closed the ticket and moved on to the mass amount of other users who also need help.
I come in today and see a very long review. Now, these do not usually hurt my feelings but I feel so beat down at this point. I won't type the literal review but the review basically went like this:
“It took too long. I canceled. They responded to my ticket but I told them they took too long. They apologized about the delay but I'm over it. Your customer service is truly horrible and I don't know if I will ever purchase from (company) again. And it's unacceptable the service received”
Now I know that it's just a passing moment but people are so entitled and cruel. It's not like we are just farting around. We are understaffed, overworked, undervalued, and now scared for our jobs. Every review you leave in the heat of the moment we have to address with management.
So if this has ever been you, please stop and think other things might be going on. Please don't attack someone who did try and help you and did explain the delay. Please understand that the people you are talking to are humans and that, while it's okay to be mad you don't have to try and hurt.
Sorry to ramble, it's honestly not the worst review I've ever gotten. It's just hard when I see my team breaking their backs to get to everyone and people just think we don't give a shit. It's draining. I feel so let down by my company and so disrespected by customers.