What happened to "asking for help"?

I think HN is mostly familiar (and admiring of) Zappos and their awesome customer service. Twitter is bar none the easiest, cheapest way to get positive public customer support stories.

Most twitter users have a handful (less than a 100) people they regularly interact with and are kind of amazed that a company would take the time to message them directly about an issue they were having.

From there it is usually easy to get a dialog going and when their issue is fixed they aren't just satisfied but ecstatic about your company and product (typically they go back on Twitter and talk you up to their friends).

But I still feel like the first response, if it's possible, should be an email. We're just a couple of guys, and both our website and our game's credits make it clear that we're not a major faceless company.

I suppose people are conditioned by large companies ignoring them, so I hope that the proliferation of indie developers in the App Store can recondition people to actually send emails.

We love getting direct email from people, and we respond to every single one. I think people are sometimes surprised to get a personal reply; hopefully that won't be such a surprise if enough developers do it.

All they know is that 90% of the time, their time and money is wasted if they go that route. So they take the shortcut. Once you have a good rep with a customer, you can bet they'll do it your way, because that then becomes the best way for them. The problem is that you have to get a rep with that customer first. That usually happens by having a problem, which is the problem in the first place.

Why did this guy think that this was the best communication medium? Do you have forums where you regularly engage your users and answer their questions? Do they know they exist? He sounds like a creative user, and most creative users visit the forums to share and learn tips and tricks.

You know the drill. My obligatory anecdote: bought a popular notebook from a big name computer company. Called tech support for the same problem six times. Five times was connected to someone who ran me through a pointless drill and refused to vary from the script, culminating in sending the machine in for replacement of random parts, which each time worked briefly then the device died again. The sixth time someone more conversant was willing to LISTEN to me, understood my job is designing such things, went off script, and informed me he was not allowed to tell me that complete exploded mechanical drawings were available online at http://www.bigcompco.com/foobar/product_X_disassembly.pdf ... I expressed my happy dismay that he couldn't tell me what he told me, hung up, took the machine apart (now knowing the secret sequencing), and proceeded to vacuum out the clogged heat sink which somehow nobody in the repair department managed to notice FIVE TIMES. Worked fine ever since.

Anecdote 2, short version: called MegaSoftware Corp about a non-booting OS. Was told to delete all 2GB of somebody else's data (a huge amount at the time) and reinstall everything - and was told this for $29. Unwilling to, 20 minutes later figured out copying one file solved the problem. Credit charges were soon reversed.

Upshot: we're now conditioned to assume there's nobody (or nobody competent) to talk to. The only hope to get attention is to leave scathing feedback and assume nobody will notice anyway. Quite a surprise when competent willing support appears.