Don't Forget About Your Quiet Customers

When Matt Dickman first introduced his readers to coComment, I was ecstatic. I comment on a lot of blogs, and it can be difficult to keep up with all the conversations I have going on concurrently. coComment seemed to be a tool tailor-made for me... until they tried to fix it.

Suddenly and without warning, nothing worked for me anymore. coComment launched a new release that froze my computer and made it terribly difficult to track my conversations. Rather than write the company imploring them to fix a product I'm not paying for, I simply stopped using the tool, and I went about my merry way.

Today, though I never wrote to them about the bugs (but had since disabled the Firefox plugin on my computer) I received an email apology from coComment's execs, who assured the recipients of the email that they fixed the bugs and they wouldn't put us through that again. The apology seemed sincere enough, so I enabled the tool again.

So far, so good.

Here's the takeaway: For every complaining customer, you can be sure there are plenty who have quietly decided to ignore you. Don't attempt to make a molehill out of a mountain. If you catch wind of a problem, fix it and make amends as rapidly as possible. - Cam Beck

Comments

[Kris Hoet]

I left the service and went back to co.mments.com so I guess I belong to that other group ;)

[Kristina]

Hi! Thanks for the post and again our apologies! In addition to the e-mail, we also continually post updates on our blog (http://blog.cocomment.com/) and feel free to contact me at kristina@cocomment.com with any questions or feedback. Thanks! Kristina

[Lewis Green]

Cam,

This is an example of a company that sincerely seems to care about every customer, at least based on your sharing and Kristina's comment. Here's a lesson for all of us, small or large, in business and in life. Caring is important.

[Cam Beck]

Kris - Thank you for stopping by and thank you for your input.

Kristina - I sure wasn't expecting you to be monitoring blogs, as well. Your brand equity has just been elevated a few notches with me. Thank you!

Lewis - It seems so simple, doesn't it? But when the rubber hits the road and we have to make a choice between what is good and what is easy, so often we choose the easy route. It's refreshing to see this sort of effort.

[mvellandi]

Ha,
I got that email last night too. After reinstalling the browser plugin and checking the functionality, I still like the old version better with all the conversations and comments on a single page. Usability was better.

I agree though that receiving the courtesy email was nice. It kept me in touch with an online entity I had liked.

[Steve Roesler]

I'm with Mario on this one.

I'll wait a bit to see if I like the new version any better over time.

But I really do appreciate the email and attentiveness. In this day and age, it only takes a little sincere attention to make good customer service look great.

[Lisa Braithwaite]

Thanks for the heads up on this service. I'm going to check it out!

[Matt Dickman]

Cam -- I had the same reaction that you did when they made those changes. I un-installed the plugin. I got the same letter and am happily trying it again.

I do, like Mario, think that they're trying too hard to mess with a good thing. The old model was solid and communal and MUCH easier to use. I hope they take a hard look at this as it's a very, very valuable service.