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Tell HN: Stripe brought my business to a dead stop

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Re: Tell HN: Stripe brought my business to a dead stop

#31

Post by vinceguidry »

andrewstuart wrote: post #11
edwinwee wrote: post #2

I work at Stripe. Could you forward that email to me at edwin@stripe.com and I can investigate what happened? I'm really sorry for the trouble.

This should not be the outcome. It should not be necessary for someone to come to an online forum and complain to get the customer support issue resolved. Stripe customer support organisation should actually resolve customer issues. Tech companies go on and on and on and ON about "culture", but one thing I can tell you truly needs to be built into culture is customer support. For example, everyone knows Google's cult…

It shouldn't be, but effective customer service is extremely hard. Escalation to social media is a process we should all be grateful exists now. It didn't always.

Re: Tell HN: Stripe brought my business to a dead stop

#32

Post by Ididntdothis »

edwinwee wrote: post #2

I work at Stripe. Could you forward that email to me at edwin@stripe.com and I can investigate what happened? I'm really sorry for the trouble.

Why do companies only read social media and not their E-mails? It seems often the only way to get things resolved is by going public. Otherwise you are shown the finger.

Re: Tell HN: Stripe brought my business to a dead stop

#33

Post by joemi »

the_watcher wrote: post #18
vira28 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talk this with a grain of salt: (not just for this case or company) Employees offering help after a case reached the first page of HN is worth nothing.

From what I can tell, it was the first response . Stripe employees also actively chime in on HN threads both positive and negative.

But HN isn't (nor should it be) Stripe support. If support doesn't get answered via official channels and the user has to turn to arbitrary places to try to get the attention of someone at support, that's a serious minus, not a plus.

Re: Tell HN: Stripe brought my business to a dead stop

#34

Post by Ididntdothis »

tempsy wrote: post #19

Hasn't a common criticism of Stripe always been lack of good customer support? IIRC there are dozens of threads similar to this one on here. This seems to be another example of that, not necessarily a new revelation.

This is how a lot of new companies can "disrupt". They don't do anything magical but save money on customer service, ignore rules or save employee benefits.

Re: Tell HN: Stripe brought my business to a dead stop

#35

Post by SiVal »

edwinwee wrote: post #2

I work at Stripe. Could you forward that email to me at edwin@stripe.com and I can investigate what happened? I'm really sorry for the trouble.

Stripe is vulnerable, because there are always scammers working every angle they can. But a legitimate Stripe customer is even more vulnerable, because Stripe has many customers, but each customer probably has one payment processor. Stripe can err on the side of caution and put a customer out of business with little risk to itself.

So, I'd like to see Stripe feel enough heat that they decide that any time they suspend service for a customer, that customer is (1) immediately entitled to talk to a live person at Stripe with the authority to undo the suspension (probably probationary and with limits while being appealed and investigated) and (2) guaranteed a quick resolution process that involves access to real people with authority.

If Stripe's policies are that going with them means living with a Sword of Damocles forever hanging over your head, that should be well-advertised whenever they are discussed.

Re: Tell HN: Stripe brought my business to a dead stop

#36

Post by joemi »

edwinwee wrote: post #2

I work at Stripe. Could you forward that email to me at edwin@stripe.com and I can investigate what happened? I'm really sorry for the trouble.

How does this happen? How is Stripe apparently on top of responding to HN posts, but not to actual support inquiries? Could this be by design?

Re: Tell HN: Stripe brought my business to a dead stop

#37

Post by bprater »

Folks have been complaining about Paypal in the same way. You buy yourself some safety as a company if you separate your payment gateway from your merchant accounts.

For instance, Authorize.net allows you to bolt on a merchant account, but retains the tokenization of the customers digits. So if one merchant account was restricted, a quick phone call to Authorize.net would allow you to switch over to another ready-to-use merchant account. And you could continue billing via existing subscriptions.

This is similar to the conversation about domain name hosting. Do you allow your name host to also be your web host? Or do you diversify to hedge against getting locked out?

Re: Tell HN: Stripe brought my business to a dead stop

#39

Post by DoreenMichele »

andrewstuart wrote: post #11
edwinwee wrote: post #2

I work at Stripe. Could you forward that email to me at edwin@stripe.com and I can investigate what happened? I'm really sorry for the trouble.

This should not be the outcome. It should not be necessary for someone to come to an online forum and complain to get the customer support issue resolved. Stripe customer support organisation should actually resolve customer issues. Tech companies go on and on and on and ON about "culture", but one thing I can tell you truly needs to be built into culture is customer support. For example, everyone knows Google's cult…

This should not be the outcome.

Let's hope it gets the OPs problem resolved and Stripe uses this case as a learning experience so this doesn't happen again.

Bill Gates has said something like "Your most unhappy customers are your biggest learning opportunity."

Re: Tell HN: Stripe brought my business to a dead stop

#40

Post by sandstrom »

tempsy wrote: post #19

Hasn't a common criticism of Stripe always been lack of good customer support? IIRC there are dozens of threads similar to this one on here. This seems to be another example of that, not necessarily a new revelation.

We’re using stripe and are overall happy. But their customer support is pretty bad. Lots of canned replies and ping-pong back and forth until you get someone to actually read your question.
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