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iPhone App will not stay open - just flashes when trying to launch

community.garadget.com

211–220 of 453 posts

Re: iPhone App will not stay open - just flashes when trying to launch

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely agree. From an outsider, the reaction from Garadget will stay in my mind far longer than the initial review. Imagine this in a bricks and mortar high-street shop? 'The customer is always right' is a difficult but noble stance - if a customer is being difficult, suck it up, be sickly nice then go out the back and scream when they've left.

That's only because the reaction was so unusual. I'd react the way you suggest but I admire people who react the way he did. And, every now and then you hear of a business with a fuck you attitude that succeeds, e.g. Ryanair

> e.g. Ryanair

Well, actually:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/sep/03/ryanair-cus...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06zv3xf

Re: iPhone App will not stay open - just flashes when trying to launch

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ryanair only succeeds because my tolerance for "fuck you" is more than my tolerance for expensive flights. The moment I have a cheap alternative, I'm never touching Ryanair again, and sometimes not even then.

In my experience there are a small percentage of customers, bullies basically, who are toxic and have the ability to ruin the experience for your good customers by taking up an inordinate amount of resources in money, time and employee mental state. Maybe part of the reason they are cheap is because they don't pander to this type?

Dunno. I once tried to check in online, but the service was just giving me errors. Tried for half an hour.

When the service was back up, it wouldn't let me check in because that closes two hours before the flight. There were around 20 people at the check-in, all of which had had the same problem.

They made every single one pay 45 Euro per boarding pass, telling us to file a complaint later.

Filed a complaint, got a canned response "sorry, those are the rules". Didn't feel like suing them.

So, let me say this to Ryanair: "I'm very sorry for being toxic, and ruining the experience. Also: eat me!"

Re: iPhone App will not stay open - just flashes when trying to launch

#213

When I had a streaming website, featuring only embedded videos, we decided to put a form so that people could tell us if something was wrong. 90% of it was garbage: - gibberish - insults - useless comment either empty of content or context - people asking us to fix things that weren't broken, or weren't broken on our site We didn't ban them. Instead, we extracted each useful information out of it: - adding missing in…

> clearly, if you can't stomach the stupidity and nastiness of humanity, don't sell to the average human. It's like getting angry at mosquitoes because they bite you, it's the most useless reaction ever. Worst, those particular mosquitoes give you money and you are not allowed to kill them.

This is gold! ;-)

I sell a little object on Amazon; a person returned it with an angry message (non public) that explained that it didn't work, and while explaining it, clearly demonstrated that she didn't understand how to use it.

I wrote her back to say I was sorry of what had happened and that we would try to do a better job of showing how to use the object (which we did).

She didn't reply -- but bought 2 the week after...

Re: iPhone App will not stay open - just flashes when trying to launch

#214
post #41

I don't know why many comments about "the customer is clearly an asshole, therefore he deserves the lock not working/the company has the legal rights to do so blah blah" are modded so high right now. Even when the customer is an asshole, that has absolutely nothing to do with a security device betraying him or not. I'm very glad that the customer is now only denied access to the app. I can see one day a company that…

Tactical note: Drop the last paragraph. It adds nothing, and takes away from the point you very effectively made prior.

People will most strongly remember the first and especially the last words you say to them. Make sure those words are the ones you want remembered.

Re: iPhone App will not stay open - just flashes when trying to launch

#216
post #84

"Throwing a tantrum"? The review in question is something along the lines of "the control app is flashing and doesn't work at all. This is junk, don't waste your money on it. 1/5 stars." If you make any public facing products, you will occasionally get such (and worse) reviews even if your product is a shiny perfection forged in heaven by angels themselves and wrapped in magic. Fact of life. On the other hand, the su…

>I am also quite surprised by the number of comments here at HN siding with Garadget. I don't agree with disabling the customer's device, but I also don't agree with customers somehow being absolved of having a minimum level of decorum.

The problem with this, is that now I don't expect to be able to believe any of the reviews of this product, because their behaviour will make any of their customers who are aware of this event more timid.

To me, this is the seller trying to manipulate public perception by silencing reviews from those with a bad experience. I'll put up with a lot of problems if the seller is responsive and handle issues well, but if I risk having them stop me from using the product?

This seller has demonstrated I can't trust them not to turn off my access to their servers without warning. To me, that is an absolute deal-breaker that would stop me from ever considering their product.

I can understand anger over a customer that rushes to give a bad review without waiting for a support response first, but their response in my eyes made things ten times as bad.

Re: iPhone App will not stay open - just flashes when trying to launch

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's only because the reaction was so unusual. I'd react the way you suggest but I admire people who react the way he did. And, every now and then you hear of a business with a fuck you attitude that succeeds, e.g. Ryanair

> e.g. Ryanair Well, actually: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/sep/03/ryanair-cus... http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06zv3xf

True but it doesn't negate the fact that they became Europe's biggest airline before that.

Re: iPhone App will not stay open - just flashes when trying to launch

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The product is basically a cloud-enabled garage door remote . It doesn't replace the buttons on the wall in the garage, nor does it replace the garage door opener you use in your car, or however it is you work your door. It supplements them, like buying a spare remote, except this one is app-enabled and can be used without line-of-sight to the door. I have a smart garage door opener, smart deadbolt, smart car (remote…

It is not that simple. Do you remember one of those bear toys that were sending the recordings of their conversations with children to an exposed MongoDB instance? I bought one of them for my daughter a few months before. And I am a software engineer who knows what an exposed MongoDB instance is. My voice and my daughter's voice are now in the leak. Thankfully, the toy was only used with my supervision, so I know wha…

There's a really easy solution to this. Don't buy junk you don't need sold by people who don't care. Who convinced you you needed it in the first place? That's probably a bigger source of noise pollution...

Re: iPhone App will not stay open - just flashes when trying to launch

#220
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I am also quite surprised by the number of comments here at HN siding with Garadget. I don't agree with disabling the customer's device, but I also don't agree with customers somehow being absolved of having a minimum level of decorum.

Calling a product a piece of shit is perfectly acceptable behavior, it often is a reasonable and accurate opinion about a product and definitely meets the standards of the "level of decorum" expected for customer product reviews. Customers shouldn't be absolved of having a minimum level of decorum, but that minimum is at the level of (a) personal insults at specific people ("Bob in customer support is a piece of shit…

No, I'm sorry, that is not perfectly acceptable behaviour.

It's not illegal - but it's also not helpful, or constructive, and nor is it desirable if you're trying to build a helpful community.

There are other ways of getting your point across, without resorting to insults such as "piece of s*it".

In Chinese, we might call this 家教 - or "upbringing". If you have no decorum, or class - it suggests that your upbringing was poor, or that your parents failed to raise you well.

We often forget that there's another person at the other end of the phone, or at the other end of our comment. In this case, a real-life person who put a lot of work into a product. You don't have to love it - but if you are going to criticise it, at least don't be a jerk, and make some good-faith efforts to work with them through the issue.

It's not exactly like the developer didn't try to help.

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