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Ask HN: Notion is withholding my company data, what can I do?

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Re: Ask HN: Notion is withholding my company data, what can I do?

#141

Post by tux3 »

gostsamo wrote: post #131
ivanzhao wrote: post #125

Hi, Ivan here. I am the CEO of Notion. I'm really, really sorry about this experience! Our in-product export feature exports to a single file, and for very large workspaces this doesn't scale very well. (I know this is not an excuse for this experience. We'll do better and prioritize fixing this!) Could you email me at ivan at makenotion.com? We'll work to fix this for you immediately. Apologies, and really appreciat…

Can we have a "Report HN" feature which allows people to open tickets to popular services which don't have proper support or are unwilling to solve the most pressing issues of their clients?

HN is already the friendly status page of the Internet, I thought Twitter was the support channel!

Companies should clarify which social media they are being kept honest by, as a customer being locked in I wouldn't like being ignored for three months due to using the wrong official support channel :)

Re: Ask HN: Notion is withholding my company data, what can I do?

#142

Post by josephg »

pmontra wrote: post #135
josephg wrote: post #23

This is truly awful, and honestly shouldn't surprise anyone given the modern cloud approach to software. I've been thinking a lot lately about ownership. If I have a book, I can interact with it the way the publisher expects (I can read it). But being a physical object, I can also do lots of other things with my book. I can burn it. I can give it to a friend. I can sell it. I can draw in it. I can rip it up and use i…

In the case of GitHub and any other similar service the lockin is the number of services they added to the plain repository. Pull requests, issues, wiki, API for third party services, etc. You get back some of them if you self host with GitLab but every service supports GitHub, maybe not GitLab. In this case, I don't even know what they get when they export from Notion but how are they going to collaborate on those d…

Yeah, I wish PRs, issues, wiki and all that was also stored in the git repository. I understand there's no incentive for github to do so, but it would make interoperability so much easier.

> how are they going to collaborate on those data?

CRDTs make collaboration possible and work well, without needing a central source of truth. For example, Yjs.

Re: Ask HN: Notion is withholding my company data, what can I do?

#143

Post by tux3 »

bostonsre wrote: post #138
tw04 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you have a personal relationship with the person on the other end (like a customer you have been helping for years and are on a first name basis with), the best way to handle support is to be overly professional. Casual is almost always a recipe for disaster if the person on the other end doesn't know you. It makes it sound like you aren't taking their issue seriously.

How does a support rep being friendly and casual lead to a disaster? Or are the disasters you are referring to purely caused by the customer acting entitled and screaming because they got offended that someone was trying to be nice to them? It's more than likely some dude that is just starting their career that has almost no training that is trying to the best of their ability to express empathy, provide a workaround…

Right. There's definitely a time and place to be casual. As a support person, you're your customer's 911 dispatcher.

Please don't make light of their issues. People want to be treated seriously when they're having a problem.

You can't tell people they're entitled for disliking how you're treating them in a serious situation, and call it empathy in the next breath.

Re: Ask HN: Notion is withholding my company data, what can I do?

#144

Post by ArchOversight »

sebmellen wrote: post #59
boplicity wrote: post #40

Here's what Notion.so says about this on their website. https://www.notion.so/Back-up-your-data-1a8eb5bdfce34d19a636... - *I tried clicking the `Export all workspace content` button but received an error message.* Oof, so sorry about this For particularly large workspaces, the `Export all workspace content` function may have some trouble completing the export. We're investigating this issue and hope to have a resolut…

God, if there’s one thing I hate it’s that condescending millennial speak to cover up a serious issue. > Oof, so sorry about this... What??? If your company is broken don’t make it seem like a funny “aw shucks” blunder.

> condescending millennial speak

Excuse me? "millennial speak?"

Re: Ask HN: Notion is withholding my company data, what can I do?

#145

Post by edgeform »

greenyoda wrote: post #76
ghayes wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently closed a bank account (due to Simple being acquired and the debacle of BBVA and now PNC) and it was quite difficult. I just wanted a "you send me a check with my remaining balance and we're done," and instead they told me I needed to withdraw my cash to zero (with limits that would have taken months), and only then could I close my account. Eventually, I was told a workaround where I could "Bill Pay" my ow…

> they told me I needed to withdraw my cash to zero (with limits that would have taken months)... I think that some state or federal banking regulators might have expressed displeasure if you had informed them of that policy.

Something doesn't add up in the story here. It seems like they suggested every other way in the book to withdraw funds other than a regular ACH transfer.

Re: Ask HN: Notion is withholding my company data, what can I do?

#146

Post by realitysballs »

freedomben wrote: post #70
sebmellen wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God, if there’s one thing I hate it’s that condescending millennial speak to cover up a serious issue. > Oof, so sorry about this... What??? If your company is broken don’t make it seem like a funny “aw shucks” blunder.

Interesting, I've written stuff very much like that before for customers that were hitting bugs. I wasn't trying to be "aw shucks" funny. I legitimately feel sorry that my shitty software was breaking on them. That they provided a workaround seemed like a nice thing to me. In fact that whole message seemed pretty good to me. It's probably not entirely that employee's fault but they're still trying to empathize and he…

As a millennial myself I appreciate this type of lingo. I think it’s a generational or cultural shift if some sort

Re: Ask HN: Notion is withholding my company data, what can I do?

#147

Post by bostonsre »

tux3 wrote: post #143
bostonsre wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does a support rep being friendly and casual lead to a disaster? Or are the disasters you are referring to purely caused by the customer acting entitled and screaming because they got offended that someone was trying to be nice to them? It's more than likely some dude that is just starting their career that has almost no training that is trying to the best of their ability to express empathy, provide a workaround…

Right. There's definitely a time and place to be casual. As a support person, you're your customer's 911 dispatcher. Please don't make light of their issues. People want to be treated seriously when they're having a problem. You can't tell people they're entitled for disliking how you're treating them in a serious situation, and call it empathy in the next breath.

Right, but again, it's not 911, it's a software company. The user's company is not gonna go bankrupt, they can still use the application.

It is a front line support rep, it is the same as some guy at McDonald's. Yes, I think people are entitled when they feel they have a right to be mean or difficult to some person who is just trying to do their job and is making a plausible attempt to be nice to you. You can't read that workers mind, they said one word that can be plausibly used in either circumstance. That word expresses anguish that their customer is having trouble. That is empathy if it was used sincerely. It is not the south park episode with the cable company workers.

Re: Ask HN: Notion is withholding my company data, what can I do?

#148

Post by whitesilhouette »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #86
naikrovek wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's disrespectful to respond like that, to me. infantilizing; like I'm incapable of processing a response that is genuine. "uwu we'we sowwy dis isn't wewking anymowe.. pwease don't be angwy wiff us"

How the hell is "Oof, we're so sorry about this." remotely similar to "uwu we'we sowwy dis isn't wewking anymowe.. pwease don't be angwy wiff us" I get it, some forms of communication aren't your bag. But I think it's at least reasonable to focus on a company's intent even if the verbiage isn't what you'd prefer. FWIW I'm quite older than a millennial, but I didn't find anything infantilizing about Notion's response…

In my experience, it's mostly the Millienial developer who writes error messages like these and the Gen X that takes offence (probably because this reminds them of their condescending Boomer parents ;))

Re: Ask HN: Notion is withholding my company data, what can I do?

#149

Post by suvo »

throwawayboise wrote: post #98
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How the hell is "Oof, we're so sorry about this." remotely similar to "uwu we'we sowwy dis isn't wewking anymowe.. pwease don't be angwy wiff us" I get it, some forms of communication aren't your bag. But I think it's at least reasonable to focus on a company's intent even if the verbiage isn't what you'd prefer. FWIW I'm quite older than a millennial, but I didn't find anything infantilizing about Notion's response…

The word "oof" affects a casual, breezy tone that is inappropriate in a professional response to a customer concern.

Yes that's casual. But how it that inappropriate? It's not a legal document.

Re: Ask HN: Notion is withholding my company data, what can I do?

#150

Post by tw04 »

bostonsre wrote: post #138
tw04 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you have a personal relationship with the person on the other end (like a customer you have been helping for years and are on a first name basis with), the best way to handle support is to be overly professional. Casual is almost always a recipe for disaster if the person on the other end doesn't know you. It makes it sound like you aren't taking their issue seriously.

How does a support rep being friendly and casual lead to a disaster? Or are the disasters you are referring to purely caused by the customer acting entitled and screaming because they got offended that someone was trying to be nice to them? It's more than likely some dude that is just starting their career that has almost no training that is trying to the best of their ability to express empathy, provide a workaround…

I guess I completely disagree with your sentiment that somehow being casual means you're being friendly. Those are two completely unrelated actions.

You can be casual and a jerk. You can be friendly and professional. Someone telling me "oof" when my business is offline and losing money (or insert major issue you've caused me) isn't a social nicety, it's something I would expect a buddy to say if I told him I lost money playing poker.

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