Answering angry customers at 2am
There's a certain type of message that only arrives after midnight. The order is late. The ring is the wrong size. The courier was rude. Where is my package. Why is nobody answering. And then a voice note, which is always worse than text.
I answered all of them. Not because I'm a saint, because I couldn't afford not to. In Egypt word travels through group chats faster than any ad I could run. One bad story in a WhatsApp group of 200 people is 200 people I'll never sell to.
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What I learned the hard way
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Most angry people aren't angry about the thing. They're angry about not being heard. The moment you reply like a human, "you're right, that shouldn't have happened, give me ten minutes," the temperature drops. Nine out of ten times they end the conversation thanking you.
The tenth one you'll never win and you have to let that go. I didn't for a long time. I'd lie awake replaying arguments with people who had already forgotten me.
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Why I'm writing this
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Because when people talk about building a brand they talk about logos and launches. They don't talk about the three years of being the person who picks up. That's where I learned what the brand actually was, which is not the chain. It's whether someone trusts you with their money and their time.
I don't do the 2am messages anymore. But I still read them.