PR rep's abusive emails to a customer go viral and sink his agency

Ocean Marketing

What happened

Ocean Marketing's Paul Christoforo responded to a customer's shipping question about the Avenger controller adapter with an escalating series of rude, threatening emails, which the customer posted to Penny Arcade and Reddit. The thread went viral, Christoforo was mocked site-wide, and the manufacturer he represented publicly cut ties with his agency within days.

The lesson

Train every customer-facing rep on tone; one unhinged email exchange with a single customer can become the internet's top story and destroy a brand relationship overnight.