101–110 of 165 posts
Terrifying to rely on another team's support staff for your business to exist.
In this time and age I think it's inevitable. Think AWS instead of Twilio for example.
Port your phone numbers out ASAP, you can jump to Teli or BulkVS and pay quite a bit less with much broader numbering inventory available.
I have the same on Sendgrid, owned by Twilo. One day they just cut us off with no explanation, kneecapping our product. I raised two tickets, neither of which were answered. The next day, it all started working again. I’ve always been a big advocate for using 3rd party SaaS, but with the level of customer service I’m seeing lately, I’m starting to recommend avoiding it where possible.
As far as telephony is concerned (things like SMS are a different story), a phone provider cannot legally do this, even if you signed some ToS agreement. According to the FCC, phone providers, including voip providers, have legal requirements around when they are allowed to terminate service: https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/when-your-telephone-com...
Maybe time for a new HN headline convention, like: Tell FAANG: You blocked me, again FAANG Support: Important please call back ASAP
Could this be productised somehow? Would an investor be willing to invest in my startup which effectively un-blocks small companies from larger ones? It would do the leg work to compile the necessary information before contacting a real human. I'll call it Support As A Service.
IMHO, most emphatically *yes* - this is a completely unserved/unserviced area of the B2B and B2C markets.
I noted in the linked thread that such a service would likely start by leveraging individual contacts, and building a reputation for unwaveringly high signal.
It definitely does seem to me that the vacuum between corporate and customers represents a giant sleeper industry that fundamentally won't shift very quickly.
Which means you're unlikely to reach the usual core-problem-is-solved entrenchment/stagnation point that tends to happen when you ramp up on a complex-but-solve-once problem, then find yourself stuck with a bunch of intricate sausage machine bits that aren't doing anything...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure if large car companies or clothes manufacturers (just two examples of large companies) were ever able to ignore legal rights of their customers. This has only become possible with digital services where companies refuse to acknowledge local laws and regulation.
Car companies selling cars exceeding allowed emission levels and clothes manufacturers exploiting child labour in third world countries? Sure there were "fines" but as usual that was pocket change them..
I have the same on Sendgrid, owned by Twilo. One day they just cut us off with no explanation, kneecapping our product. I raised two tickets, neither of which were answered. The next day, it all started working again. I’ve always been a big advocate for using 3rd party SaaS, but with the level of customer service I’m seeing lately, I’m starting to recommend avoiding it where possible.
Maybe time for a new HN headline convention, like: Tell FAANG: You blocked me, again FAANG Support: Important please call back ASAP
Could this be productised somehow? Would an investor be willing to invest in my startup which effectively un-blocks small companies from larger ones? It would do the leg work to compile the necessary information before contacting a real human. I'll call it Support As A Service.
They’ve turned spamming into a positive ROI business.