Start-up apologises after blocking customer who criticised their smart garage door
Garadget’s founder Denis Grisak blocked a customer’s access to its server after they wrote a negative review of the product.
The start-up behind an internet-enabled garage door that can be remote controlled from a smartphone has apologised for blocking a customer who had complained about the product.
Garadget founder Denis Grisak wrote a message on the company’s official message board apologising for the company’s conduct after a customer who’d left a negative Amazon review and complaint on the company’s website over the tech not working was cut off from the device’s servers.
In comments no longer visible on either Amazon or the Garadget forum but reported by Ars Technica, customer Robert Martin left a one-star review of the device on Amazon, calling it “junk” as well as an angry message on the company’s forum about issues he was having with the app.
Grisak then responded via the forum, allegedly criticising Martin for his “abusive language” and revealing his product would be “denied server connection” following the outburst.
His actions quickly drew fierce criticism from other forum users and were also picked up in the media before Grisak again took to the forum to issue an apology.
“We would like to apologise to both the individual user and our broad user base for the manner in which this incident was handled,” he wrote.
“Even though we are a start-up company, we take great pride in our strong customer technical support and our ongoing commitment to customer satisfaction. This incident is not indicative of our support and we will continue to work on improving our customer interactions.
“We are reviewing our internal policy and procedures around server access so that we may maintain our high customer satisfaction rate and customer security. We will continue to work with all our users to assist with product setup and usage, so they can control and monitor their garage doors from anywhere and anytime.”
Garadget was created following a hugely successful crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, where the device achieved more than double its funding target during its campaign.
