

Screw Up, Say You're Sorry, Be Funny, Win Over Your Customers [YC08] - bradgessler
http://www.thinkjose.com/screw-up-say-your-sorry-be-funny-win-over-your-customers/

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Oompa
That human touch is always really nice for any customer service. It sucks when
it feels like you're talking to a robot.

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potatolicious
It sucks even more if you _are_ talking to a robot... I've been trying to
contact Xbox Live support lately and I cannot seem to get any "person" to
respond to me that isn't clearly a classifier.

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rantfoil
I have to say Jeff and the polleverywhere guys are some of the funniest guys
I've ever met.

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mrshoe
After observing a similar pattern at my last startup, I thought it might be a
good idea to _intentionally_ screw up something minor. Then we could apologize
for it like this and maybe offer some small reward to make up for it.

My theory was that it would endear our customers to us that much more.

I still haven't tested that theory, but I'd really like to some day.

~~~
sofal
Customers are endeared by this sort of thing because it's genuine. Simulating
this effect with a fake trick may work, but it is not cool.

And don't excuse it with "companies everywhere do this all the time" either.
Everywhere and every time that kind of stunt is pulled, it is not cool.

~~~
mrshoe
And that's why I've never done it! I've never heard of anyone actually trying
this, but I bet you're right that it's been done.

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thomasswift
My question is this: If you run a company and you caused this (I am in no way
calling them out or anything). If you realized you just did this, how do you
react? 1) Email the entire list again saying you apologize for that or 2)
handle the email on a one-to-one?

EDITED: tsondermann points out they used option 1. I am not a member, so I did
not know. I edited this to be more general.

~~~
there
3) wait until the next mass mail and intentionally poke fun at your previous
mistake. address mails to "Dear [FNAME] -- Err, Jose,"

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edw519
"This email TOTALLY makes up for any _|ERROR_SYNONYM|_ and I must say that you
guys are the # _|NUMBER|_ online voting tool in all of _|LOCATION|_!"

I think OP has stumbled onto a great start-up idea: "recipient modifiable
email" Just mail merge parameter data from your own client to get the message
you want. Never get bad news again.

Use the API to extend to forum comments:

One of the best _|NOUN|_ I've read in # _|NUMBER|_ days. Jose is a
_|ADJECTIVE|_ guy!

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thinkjose
Thanks all, _|LINK_SITE|_ is my favorite place to get my _|CONTENT_NICHE|_
news.

I'm with edw519, I think email MadLibs would be a blast.

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mgenzel
Must say that many companies outsource email campaigns and it may not be the
company's fault (directly). Just sayin' :)

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bradgessler
Nope, we screwed it up. We renamed the FNAME field in our mail app to
FIRST_NAME and forgot to change that field when we sent out that email to all
of our customers. Oops!

BTW, we use Mailchimp for our emailings. Too bad they don't have an idiot
checker before a message is sent out :)

~~~
10ren
That kind of integration error is very easy to make, and the attention spent
on it by in taking the extra care to avoid it probably really adds up, when
aggregated over everyone who uses this kind of tool. e.g. I noticed today that
ant does the same thing: it will output a literal "${filename}" if filename
isn't defined.

In this specific case, Mailchimp could check for non-existent fields.

It would be even better to have a way for the fieldname to be automatically
modified when you changed its name elsewhere... but because the naming is
itself used to define the binding, there's no way to do this automatically
(unless all the components were in a giant all-seeing IDE that automatically
refactored all related components, wherever they be).

BTW: What I got from this story was that it's OK to screw up - I think
productivity can soar if we don't spend endless attention checking things
because we live in terror of making a mistake.

~~~
bradgessler
I don't think its OK to screw up, but in the event that you do screw up, step
up and take accountability for it. This all boils down to being honest with
your customers.

~~~
10ren
Of course, to screw up is to err (by definition), but I meant it's OK in the
sense of it not being the end of the world. Your humour is an illustration of
this. It's possible to get hung up on avoiding mistakes at all costs - indeed,
at greater expense than the mistakes themselves.

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sdpurtill
* you're

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sound2man
I love companies that actually send a thought out response! +1 for their great
sense of _[emotion]_

