The $4 Million Complaint Call • Hacker News Board

Re: The $4 Million Complaint Call

#91

Post by cldrope » Sat, Jun 09, 2012, 1:46 AM UTC

cheatercheater wrote: post #76

cldrope wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Just treat people well, take everything one step at a time You can only take so many steps each day. Forfeit too many steps for some guy who won't pay off and you lose out.

Sometimes I wonder what it's like to pretend that you aren't affected by the mannerisms and maturity of all living human beings. To believe that there's a good rationalization to finding a short cutoff of helping people.

This article's true evil is this: He puts helping the guy with a technical problem as a favor, not as a simple kind duty.

We don't want to spend everyday as tech support, that's reasonable. But if people were better educated instead of taken care of, perhaps they wouldn't need as much.

Re: The $4 Million Complaint Call

#92

Post by lifeisstillgood » Sat, Jun 09, 2012, 6:31 AM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #72

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it likely that is the only order that CEO ever made personally? And he happened to catch Cindy on good day? My only takeaway from this is if you want orders to be taken from CEOs by pleasent happy people, hire pleasant, happy people to work for you. Is that what you meant?

Sorry, wasn't clear, let me elaborate: prior to the Director of Purchasing at $CUSTOMER deciding to award $COMPANY a $300,000 a year account, Bob Smith (who happens to be DoP at $CUSTOMER when not doting on his daughter) was in a bind with regards to shipping time frames on birthday balloons, and Cindy (a lovely lady who makes $10.50 an hour and whose good days were best described as "the ones ending in Y") overrode…

Thank you. Now the world would be a fairer place if 10.50 an hour could be supplemented with x% of 300,000

Re: The $4 Million Complaint Call

#93

Post by cheatercheater » Sat, Jun 09, 2012, 8:21 AM UTC

cldrope wrote: post #91

cheatercheater wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just treat people well, take everything one step at a time You can only take so many steps each day. Forfeit too many steps for some guy who won't pay off and you lose out.

Sometimes I wonder what it's like to pretend that you aren't affected by the mannerisms and maturity of all living human beings. To believe that there's a good rationalization to finding a short cutoff of helping people. This article's true evil is this: He puts helping the guy with a technical problem as a favor, not as a simple kind duty. We don't want to spend everyday as tech support, that's reasonable. But if pe…

The "duty as favor" part of your comment was very insightful. This is a recurring theme in all actions that ultimately cost the person performing them without foreseeable payback. This is, in my experience, displayed by people with shaky moral fundament and questionable values. There's always speak of how e.g. "white lists", the inclusion in which is awarded to persons or companies that act correctly, is detrimental - because they should not be handling incorrectly in the first place, and being normal should not be incentivized.

However, when you're running a business, especially during its infancy, your values need to be questionable and questioned in order for your approach to adapt to the environment. Following questionable values in this case is not only admissible but even required, and you'll need to reinvent yourself quite often. There is no "normal" when you're trying to break the mould.

Definite upvote from me for bringing this up.

Re: The $4 Million Complaint Call

#94

Post by dalke » Sat, Jun 09, 2012, 1:32 PM UTC

Mz wrote: post #89

dalke wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rock star one doesn't make sense. Why didn't the bank look at the account to see that he was rich? My bank, for example, once gave me different treatment when they realized I also had a business account with them. There's also the story I heard attributed to Bob Miner of Oracle (see http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/09/oracle.html ). In the version I heard, once the bank learned he was now very wealthy, they le…

My recollection is that he was trying to open an account, so they didn't know how much he had. If he was already famous, it may not have occurred to him that some middle aged manager would not know who he was, so he may not have felt any need to say upfront "I'm a wealthy rock star." I am assuming this was pre-internet. These days, anyone can check their bank statement online from practically anywhere. I turned 47 ye…

Happy Birthday, and thank you for the clarification.

Re: The $4 Million Complaint Call

#95

Post by drewcrawford » Sun, Jun 10, 2012, 5:40 AM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #85

drewcrawford wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you're committed to your company and your company's success, then you decide to do what ever it takes to solve your customer's problems. > Anytime you spend extra time with your customer you win. I don't think that anyone actually adopts this position. You would probably not become a kidney donor for your customer, or pay them $10,000 because they confess to you in a support call that they recently became unempl…

Ok, lets look at that for a moment. This comment: "I don't think that anyone actually adopts this position. You would probably not become a kidney donor for your customer, or pay them $10,000 because they confess to you in a support call that they recently became unemployed. You would not build a new software application just for them. You would not even add a feature to the product just for one customer! (At least a…

> seems a bit like reductio ad asurdum right?

That's because the grandparent's claim is absurd. Grandparent was actually claiming that you should do anything for a customer. I'm not exaggerating its position at all; that's actually what grandparent said. Absurd position yields absurd counterargument.

With AirBnB, you have an example of one small company that needed to hear the customer service message. But one example is not much of an argument when somebody posits a general trend.

I can defend the trend easily: a small company depends much more on customer service than a large one does. The first group of customers is make-or-break; once you reach a certain funding level, pleasing every single customer is less of an issue.