I find it fascinating when dealing with unhappy customers. It tells me a lot about how I can improve my business, what we can do better, learning new people skills and an opportunity to build trust with my customers. There have also been many, many great suggestions made by customers that has improved my products and services. Direct communication with me is the best way to find a fix.
In 99.9% of the cases, I’ve found that if I am doing my best, we (the customer and I) can typically resolve the situation.
In my 4.5 years of doing business, I can count on one hand the number of times I have not been able to resolve a customers concern and I had one of these incidences recently. In these cases, I typically give a refund and wish them the best with no hard feelings.
In the case of Apps however, I simply do not have the power to give a refund. This is something that must be applied for through iTunes which I am about to explain. I do not mind at all giving this information out, because if a customer is unhappy, they should be entitled to a refund. I want happy customers that trust me.
As a developer side note, a problem with Apps arises when the operating systems are updated. All of my current iPhone Apps were designed for iOS4, not iOS5, and when an entire OS is updated, we typically find many new bugs. It is something totally out of our control and it takes time to get them all (usually between 3-6 weeks, and then Apple typically waits another 7-10 days before updating.) This is just part of the App development process and all developers go through it. 99.9% of my customers understand this.
Occasionally however, due to the fact that it takes so long to update, some customers feel we are not doing anything, which is not the case. Whenever a bug is reported, we drop everything to try to fix it. This is why you typically see Bug Updates without any new features for our apps.
Another note; If you are unhappy with an App, posting a 1-star rating will not help, because as a developer I have no way of contacting such customers, and therefore cannot troubleshoot their problem with them. Aside from iOS updates, 90% of “bugs” found are operator error, or misunderstanding how it works and such issues can be resolved with a quick email.
In any event, this is how you can apply for a refund for any App or iTunes purchase.
1. Open iTunes, and click on your account name. 2. Scroll down to “Purchase History” and click on “See All”3. Click on the little grey Arrow for any purchase you want a refund for.4. Select “Request a Refund” from the drop down menu. Be polite and explain the problem you are having. Apple will respond typically in 48 hours. To all my other App users, we believe we have found most of the bugs associated with iOS5 in all of our Contract Maker Apps and NEW updates are being submitted today and tomorrow, we should see them in the store sometime next week.
Thank you for your patience!
2 dollars! 2 Dollars! I want my 2 dollars! 🙂
Hey thanks for your time spent to write this very helpful blog, it is refreshing to read, from the point of view of a very new customer, I bought my 1 first app from you early today, I am now looking forward to learning all that it can do. You are obviously very helpful to your clients and I for one am very appreciative.
Cheers, Andy
This is the same I tell my customers, but suddenly they are getting a screen asking them to contact the developers.
Have you had reports like that?