That is just an awesome story. Goes to show that one of the most important things a new business should provide is unbelievably good customer service.
The $4 Million Complaint Call
51–60 of 95 posts
Re: The $4 Million Complaint Call
#52Reminds me of a support call with Ruth in Idaho years ago. It didn't result in $4M, but it wasn't small potatoes either.
Like Bob, she was new to computers. I spent 10 hours over 2 days walking her thru the basics of using a computer so she could use our insurance company software. She was very thankful.
So thankful she sent me a box containing ... two giant Idaho potatoes, nearly a foot long each.
I said it wasn't small potatoes.
Re: The $4 Million Complaint Call
#53Re: The $4 Million Complaint Call
#54How many companies, even small ones, have that kind of support?
Not to toot our own horn, but we do (https://circleci.com). We make Continuous Integration for web apps, and occasionally a customer will have a "works on my machine" bug. I've definitely spent a couple of evenings on the phone helping customers out with this, even though it's clearly not our fault.
Every page in our app has a "Help" button, our About page has my phone number on it, our error dialog has a button to contact support. We love when people contact us.
To be honest, as much as I enjoy talking to customers, this is just good business, for tons of reasons:
- people won't pay if it mysteriously doesn't work, no matter whose fault it is
- customer development is essential to a startup, and this creates opportunities to talk to customers (when you're done, have a chat, don't just sign off)
- when something is wrong with your service, you have a personal connection to people who want you to succeed - so they tell you the problem instead of letting you accidentally lose customers.
- customers with whom you have a personal connection become your biggest advocates.
It certainly costs money and time to do this, but I don't think I'm going to regret it.
Re: The $4 Million Complaint Call
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is dead on. It's a mistake to read this and take away some homey homily about how "every customer is a snowflake!" -- the point is that you should correctly value the passionate customer. Your marketing and outreach and customer service departments should understand the relative values of "bought it, loved it!" and "bought it, so?" Those relative values will vary from product to product/industry to industry The…
ya know, I just don't agree with anyone who posts here and uses the word "customer." Yea, Bob was a customer but he is also a human being. Less we forget this and remember we are working with other people then you don't need to worry about "snowflakes" or whether you're customers are happy or not. Just treat everyone you come in contact with with respect & regardless of how you met (business or otherwise) and this wo…
You're completely right. Too funny -- i had written a comment about how there was probably some bullshit MBA phrase for the process of "correctly valuing passionate customers", but deleted it as overly cynical and offensive to the up and coming masters-of-the-universe on HN. Can't win! :)
I think it's still worthwhile to think about systems of people in terms of their aggregate actions as well as in terms of each being an individual.
Re: The $4 Million Complaint Call
#56The only thing worse than a customer that constantly calls and requires attention is one that doesn't call at all and finds your product or service useless. If the customer is bothered enough to spend his/her valuable time on your product, that means you have some value. I would much prefer this over a customer who doesn't trouble themselves to spend any time at all on my product and then mysteriously cancels later.
Yes, customer support has a cost. So does marketing and getting customer feedback as part of an MVP process. While I cringe when customers are demanding, I also realize how valuable it can be. But I make sure they pay their bills as well. And if I have a support contract, I make sure they buy it -- even if they squeeze the value of that to the last drop.
Re: The $4 Million Complaint Call
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Twitter treated me very well with a PEBKAC issue.
Believe it or not, Godaddy has a good customer service as well.
I do not believe it. I could relate dozens (well more than one dozen) instances of absolutely unforgivably bad godaddy customer service.
Their staff are ignorant, their process is incoherent, their documentation is incorrect or misleading, the tools their customer service staff use are broken.
I will shoot myself through the hand before I give GoDaddy a nickel. In fact, I would probably shoot myself through the hand if someone told me I needed to call GoDaddy support.
For my own projects, I will happily pay the extra 30-40% to a company that is not disgustingly incompetent.
Re: The $4 Million Complaint Call
#58For every Bob there is a metric ton of idiots that feel entitled to support and won't give much thought to you answering their calls in 2AM on Sunday morning.
Being extra nice to customers doesn't preclude to using some common sense.
Re: The $4 Million Complaint Call
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is dead on. It's a mistake to read this and take away some homey homily about how "every customer is a snowflake!" -- the point is that you should correctly value the passionate customer. Your marketing and outreach and customer service departments should understand the relative values of "bought it, loved it!" and "bought it, so?" Those relative values will vary from product to product/industry to industry The…
ya know, I just don't agree with anyone who posts here and uses the word "customer." Yea, Bob was a customer but he is also a human being. Less we forget this and remember we are working with other people then you don't need to worry about "snowflakes" or whether you're customers are happy or not. Just treat everyone you come in contact with with respect & regardless of how you met (business or otherwise) and this wo…
Thank you for using the word human.
I'm all about the "Don't kiss others' booties on the off chance that it will come back to you" because if you're doing it for that reason, you're doing it wrong.
Just treat people well, take everything one step at a time, and look at it from their vantage point. These things in mind and everyone will walk away from the table happy the majority of the time.
If your customer service reps are trained, mature and willing then there's no difference between the experience with them and you.
Re: The $4 Million Complaint Call
#60This was a nice story and at the end I couldn't wait to get to the comments to hear that this was wrong and customers are in fact sh!t. I wasn't disappointed. Coming from having some customer issues of my own recently it was nice to read a genuine feel good story. Even if it just a fairy tale.