

Ask HN: customer appreciation in start-ups? - tmyers

Hello, my name is Trista Myers, I am looking for a community management/ customer service internship this summer.  Ideally, I would like to be a part of a small company where I can make a difference. I am looking to help a company develop or build-up their customer service strategies, customer relations, and community engagement.
I am interested in helping companies stand out because of the way they treat their customers, by creating crafts or projects and by adding an element of cuteness and selfless-ness in the form of custom ideas and handmade items. Carsonified (http://carsonified.com/projects/), the company that I interned with last summer does a great job coming up with unique things that stand out and surprise their followers and it’s something I think could be worked into most web start-ups.  But I am looking for some feedback and perhaps a little guidance to see if this is something start-ups think about, if it’s something your start-up would like to do or is already doing?<p>Is “make-customers-happy-by-making-cute-things” a position that you would consider creating within your organization? If not, why don’t you think this could apply?<p>I think it’s also something that can be used to develop or maintain relationships with other start-up founders or people of interest-- sending them some swag or a card when something worthy happens in their life is a nice reminder of your connection.<p>So, let me know what you think:  is this a topic that has been tossed around by your team? Are you already doing some things like this? How do you see this fitting in?
Do you have any examples of other companies who do nice things for their customers that go above and beyond what you’d expect?<p>You can contact me at trmyers[at]clarku[dot]edu or message me on twitter @tristamyers to be in touch.
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Travis
I speak only for my startup, but we are honestly so busy and broke that it
would be difficult for us to allocate resources (even if it's just mind share)
for something like this. We've chosen to focus on the product experience, as
we solve a major pain in the industry, so customers thank us w/o little pins
that cost us money and get thrown away.

Rereading that sounded a little harsh. It's definitely a good idea for some
organizations, just not my startup.

OTOH, when I was at engineering school, Microsoft was very popular on campus
because they gave out a super sized super ball with a light up inside. Gasp!
That made them very popular, even amongst open sourcers.

