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You sure are pushing your product hard. Drama attracts attention, which you then direct towards your sign-up page. Kind of sleazy.
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I'm sure it will. It doesn't change my perception of them. In my opinion, anyone who thinks taking the time to create a web page for an argument or who thinks a product in the same field with a similar name is a copycat doesn't care about me, the customer. They should be spending their time improving the product, coming up with new ideas, or responding to legitimate support inquiries. Neither of these companies showe…
> They should be spending their time improving the product, coming up with new ideas, or responding to legitimate support inquiries. Oh, that's silly. Writing up and posting a small 1-page website did not take any time at all away from "coming up with new ideas, or responding to legitimate support inquiries". It's fine if you don't like it, but don't act like they were somehow derelict in their normal duties by makin…
This kind of response is a double-edged sword. The majority of comments in this thread seem to support the idea as a marketing ploy and that is fine. However, the other side of damaging the company's reputation & culture needs to be considered.
I do not want to deal with companies who make it a common practice to respond to slight arguments with long posts and websites instead of dealing with more important support issues, features, and bug fixes.
Time is a tradeoff. It's a finite resource that needs to be used wisely. It reflects poorly on your company (especially an early stage startup) when you publicly spend it doing things like this.
If either of these companies are serious about their products they would not be spending time responding to trivialities like this and would let the customers and product speak for themselves.
This is some sort of PR stunt marketing ploy? Either way I'm not really impressed (I'd guess most consumers aren't impressed) by pointless personal bickering. Marketing based on negative sentiment is not effective.
However, it alienates the undecided. Mudslinging works best when targeted to base voter blocs. We rarely see it in product advertising, though, because of this fear of alienation. It takes a very well-put-together campaign to attack your competition without giving them too much exposure. The last effective one in recent memory is probably Mac vs. PC, and that focused on targeting the frustrations of current PC users. Often you see it set up in that David vs. Goliath light, which is what I think Freshdesk is trying to do here.
This however, isn't marketing. Or, at least, didn't start that way. It started with what you said: pointless personal bickering. There's no reason for it and Zendesk should probably have never have brought up Freshdesk in the first place, negative comments or not. Freshdesk took it as an opportunity to do a compare/contrast while people were paying attention. I'm guessing it has zero effect on sales in the long run, though.
(Personally, I'm now even more glad with our choice of using Assistly.)
Disclaimer: I'm the founder of Helpjuice.com. We compete with Zendesk's knowledge base. This is so rude from Zendesk. In case you think someone has ripped of your product, in any way, you (as the CEO of a 30+ company with 10,000 customers) SHOULD NEVER, EVER write something like that. I'm 100% with Freshdesk on this one specifically because of the tone of Zendesk and Freshdesk. The way Mikkel responded to Freshdesk i…
I agree with what you said except for the last part. I think it was a great call NOT to include screenshots of their product, otherwise it would totally come across like they are trying to (directly) use the controversy to sell their product. Including a side by side comparison of features almost gets them there but not quite since its still relevant to the article itself. Kudos to freshdesk for a tactful reply to wh…
I'm sure Zendesk does something better than Freshdesk.
I like how MRGirish admits that FreshDesk wouldn't exist if it wasn't for ZenDesk. Doesn't that prove the point? So my question for FreshDesk is this ... How is your service more innovative than ZenDesk?
They are a business, they want to make money. Consumers will choose whichever product they prefer. Everybody wins. End of story.
As much as I'd like to side with the guy getting picked on (Freshdesk), Zendesk is completely right. Ignoring the interface and naming similarities, you can't complain about ZenDesk on Twitter without multiple Freshdesk spammers bombarding you. Sure there's nothing illegal about it, but they're obnoxious with the "a customer of a rival is complaining, I MUST CONVERT THEM!" concept. (I called them a rip-off of Zendesk…
A couple people complained about their product on twitter and they built a whole page responding to it? In it, they respond to the criticism by making personal attacks against those who complained about them? Really weird.
Stop starting flame wars, start making a decent product.
As much as I'd like to side with the guy getting picked on (Freshdesk), Zendesk is completely right. Ignoring the interface and naming similarities, you can't complain about ZenDesk on Twitter without multiple Freshdesk spammers bombarding you. Sure there's nothing illegal about it, but they're obnoxious with the "a customer of a rival is complaining, I MUST CONVERT THEM!" concept. (I called them a rip-off of Zendesk…
As much as I'd like to side with the guy getting picked on (Freshdesk), Zendesk is completely right. Ignoring the interface and naming similarities, you can't complain about ZenDesk on Twitter without multiple Freshdesk spammers bombarding you. Sure there's nothing illegal about it, but they're obnoxious with the "a customer of a rival is complaining, I MUST CONVERT THEM!" concept. (I called them a rip-off of Zendesk…
Something about the whole freshdesk attitude really rubs me the wrong way. Not saying zendesk is in the right either. I just feel like I read the whole ripoffornot page and cringe. Definitely doesn't seem like the type of company I would want to give my time or money. A couple people complained about their product on twitter and they built a whole page responding to it? In it, they respond to the criticism by making…
a) an entrepreneur; and
b) think that "rip-offs" like this one are in some way unethical...
... you need to get your head out of your ass, ASAP!
Taking other peoples' great ideas and applying them to make your own product even better is not called "ripping somebody off". That process is called "business".