
What happened to "asking for help"? - reinier
http://www.alwinhoogerdijk.com/2011/11/09/what-happened-to-asking-for-help/
======
wccrawford
The problem is the normal response to their questions. Most companies, or even
just people, will respond negatively to bug reports, especially if they aren't
good reports. This has trained the users that they shouldn't bother asking.

Instead, they do what gets them results: They complain publicly. See, you
can't ignore them if they're speaking publicly. Everyone else gets to see the
problem and response, or lack thereof. In this situation, they either get a
fix for the problem, or the developer loses future sales.

Here's an example from my life: I bought a mousepad on eBay for like $10.
Ridiculously cheap, compared to what others were asking. When it arrived, it
wasn't the right one. Now, I had 2 choices. I could contact the seller, and
they'd probably tell me to ship it back at my expense, which would cost me
more than the product was worth and waste my time, which was even more
valuable.

Or I could just give them a low-star rating and explanation, and be done with
it. I wasn't about to waste my valuable time, so I chose the bad rating.

The seller contacted me, upset. "Why didn't you contact us?" And I explained
the above, and said that there was nothing they could do because I wasn't
willing to spend the time and money to send the item back.

They ended up refunding my money and letting me keep the product. (Which
probably sits in my closet somewhere, unused and unwanted.) I allowed them to
nullify the rating.

tl;dr - So why do users take that route? It's quicker, easier, and works
better.

~~~
gaustin
It's also quicker, easier and more effective than navigating most companies'
support tools. I don't want to spend half an hour or more registering,
confirming and entering a bug report that will most likely be ignored.*

* A company taking reports seriously in a visible way is a rare occurrence in my experience.

~~~
dcminter
It's the ignoring not the complexity that's frustrating. I'm suffering from an
annoying bug in Google Groups. I've raised it a few times and it disappears
into the void. Next time there's a bug, even if it's serious, will I bother?
Probably not - my expectations are set.

\-- (Edit)

Incidentally, for software issues this makes a public bug tracker something of
a marketing tool. Even knowing my bug rather than lost without trace would be
an improvement.

~~~
hesselink
Google is especially bad in this regard. I'm a software developer, and I can
probably write a pretty decent bug report. I'm also available to further look
into the issue, and can use development tools. I help fix bugs if I find them
in many products we use. But with Google, I just don't bother. There's often
no way to even file a proper bug report, just some Google Group, and never any
feedback.

------
jellicle
I think the average customer service response from a company nowadays goes
something like this:

Me: "I'm having a problem with the fribbulator. It appears to be broken - the
metal is snapped cleanly in two."

Them: {no response}

Me: "I sent you this last week but didn't receive a reply. I'm having a
problem with the fribbulator. It appears to be broken - the metal is snapped
cleanly in two."

Them: "Here are instructions on how to reinstall Windows. Please see our FAQ
as well. Did this response answer your question [Y/N]?"

That sort of response might as well include a .gif of a raised middle finger.
Companies that intend to provide better-than-this customer service should
factor in customer conditioning into their plans. The customer has been
conditioned to complain publicly first. You'll have to fix that explicitly if
you don't want it to happen to you.

~~~
shaggyfrog
This kind of conversation happens all the time with "support" accounts on
Twitter. I tweeted the @ParallelsCares account for help and ended up in or
around the third circle of hell [1] trying to get a simple answer to a simple
question [2].

I think customer conditioning, as you suggest, is part of the solution.
Training also needs to include learning how to _thoughtfully_ write a
response, which would then show empathy. Instead what we have are a lot of
Twitter support accounts whose names end with "Cares" run by a lot of people
who don't.

[1] <https://twitter.com/#!/shaggyfrog/status/100974626112421888> [2]
<https://twitter.com/#!/shaggyfrog/status/100727705112285184>

------
beder
We _just_ had this problem. Someone posted a 1-star review on the App Store
saying:

> I create puzzles under the username: [---]. The editor is designed to allow
> you to upload an increasing number of puzzles as a reward for earning high
> ratings on those puzzles you've created so far. However, if the rating
> drops, the puzzles you can upload may actually drop. This is lame and
> unfair. Numerous times I've trashed a puzzle with the intention of replacing
> it with a new one, only to find that I am now not allowed to upload a new
> one because my max number of uploads has dropped. Fix this and I will give
> you 5 stars. Otherwise I will stop uploading puzzles altogether.

The annoying thing is, he's absolutely right. We didn't think of this use
case, and we're fixing it right now (it should be rolled out within a few
days). But it's so frustrating that he felt like he had to threaten us
("otherwise I will stop uploading puzzles altogether") and didn't even think
to contact us first.

And what's more, he decided that our game deserves 1 star, even though he's
clearly played it for many, many hours, and presumably has really enjoyed it.

~~~
TheAmazingIdiot
I, on a few occasions, have went the nice route by firing off an email (or
phone call) about problem and have it deleted or a form letter sent back. In
essence, my problem was ignored.

In that case, I went on Google and linked my name to a nasty complaint. Lo and
behold, they called or emailed back and solved it if I removed the negative
feedback.

Time and time again, if I complain publicly and become a cost sinkhole I get
results. If I am a sheep, I get nothing.

~~~
beder
I understand that, and it's happened to me a few times also.

But I still feel like the first response, if it's possible, should be an
email. We're just a couple of guys, and both our website and our game's
credits make it clear that we're not a major faceless company.

I suppose people are conditioned by large companies ignoring them, so I hope
that the proliferation of indie developers in the App Store can recondition
people to actually send emails.

We love getting direct email from people, and we respond to every single one.
I think people are sometimes surprised to get a personal reply; hopefully that
won't be such a surprise if enough developers do it.

~~~
wccrawford
For your company, that may be the right way to go. But people don't know that.

All they know is that 90% of the time, their time and money is wasted if they
go that route. So they take the shortcut. Once you have a good rep with a
customer, you can bet they'll do it your way, because that then becomes the
best way for them. The problem is that you have to get a rep with that
customer first. That usually happens by having a problem, which is the problem
in the first place.

Why did this guy think that this was the best communication medium? Do you
have forums where you regularly engage your users and answer their questions?
Do they know they exist? He sounds like a creative user, and most creative
users visit the forums to share and learn tips and tricks.

~~~
beder
There is a touch arcade thread that people occasionally visit, but most of our
contact with our users is through email. We're planning to add a direct email
link in our "about" page in the game (we already have a link to our website),
so hopefully that will make it easier for people to contact us.

(We readily admit that we're pretty bad at forming a community. This is a
spare-time thing for both of us, and neither of us uses twitter, facebook, or
really any social service, much personally, so we feel a little like fish out
of water when it comes to the social aspect of the game. We have a level
editor, but no way for people to share levels outside of the game itself, and
no way for people to talk about levels they make. We're getting there...)

------
michaelbuckbee
There is a big gap between a two way medium like Twitter and something like
the frustratingly one way App Store reviews.

I think HN is mostly familiar (and admiring of) Zappos and their awesome
customer service. Twitter is bar none the easiest, cheapest way to get
positive public customer support stories.

Most twitter users have a handful (less than a 100) people they regularly
interact with and are kind of amazed that a company would take the time to
message them directly about an issue they were having.

From there it is usually easy to get a dialog going and when their issue is
fixed they aren't just satisfied but ecstatic about your company and product
(typically they go back on Twitter and talk you up to their friends).

------
ctdonath
Funny the article never addresses "they don't ask for help because either
there's nobody to talk to or nobody who isn't reading from an inapplicable
script." After that becomes the dominant customer support experience, seems
the only solution is fling bad vibes into the ether[net] and buy a different
product.

You know the drill. My obligatory anecdote: bought a popular notebook from a
big name computer company. Called tech support for the same problem six times.
Five times was connected to someone who ran me through a pointless drill and
refused to vary from the script, culminating in sending the machine in for
replacement of random parts, which each time worked briefly then the device
died again. The sixth time someone more conversant was willing to LISTEN to
me, understood my job is designing such things, went off script, and informed
me he was not allowed to tell me that complete exploded mechanical drawings
were available online at
<http://www.bigcompco.com/foobar/product_X_disassembly.pdf> ... I expressed my
happy dismay that he couldn't tell me what he told me, hung up, took the
machine apart (now knowing the secret sequencing), and proceeded to vacuum out
the clogged heat sink which somehow nobody in the repair department managed to
notice FIVE TIMES. Worked fine ever since.

Anecdote 2, short version: called MegaSoftware Corp about a non-booting OS.
Was told to delete all 2GB of somebody else's data (a huge amount at the time)
and reinstall everything - and was told this for $29. Unwilling to, 20 minutes
later figured out copying one file solved the problem. Credit charges were
soon reversed.

Upshot: we're now conditioned to assume there's nobody (or nobody competent)
to talk to. The only hope to get attention is to leave scathing feedback and
assume nobody will notice anyway. Quite a surprise when competent willing
support appears.

~~~
dman
Sometimes doing things right means bumping the price up which for some reason
companies are unwilling to do. Apple gets this very right in my opinion. Here
is an anecdote about HP. If you buy HP elitebooks which cost > $1000 you get 3
years of warranty with shipping paid both ways for free. On top of that you
get 24/7 access to enterprise level support. On a few occasions HP has
overnighted me parts when I have needed them. On the other hand I have bought
HP consumer line laptops which dont come with support or 3 year warranty by
default and my experience has been horrible. In other words consumers need to
stop buying the cheapest provider.

------
jroseattle
Google -- that's what happened. They enabled crowd-sourced customer service.

The chances someone else has already encountered a similar problem? Good or
better.

The chances someone else already commented online about the problem? Good or
better.

The chances somebody else posted about how to address the problem? Good or
better.

The chances of a Google query's response time being better than direct
customer service? Whatever the maximum of "good" is.

Combined with most companies lack of decent customer service, it's obvious it
has come to this.

------
LogicX
Here's a fun anecdote which I think summarizes why people don't ask for help:

Two days ago I read an article about a local company; deciding my wife may
find enjoyable work with them, I decided to visit their website and careers
page. The careers page presented an SSL cert error. I decided to write an
email to the DNS administrator explaining that their intermediary signing cert
was expired, and why this is a problem, and even provided a helpful link.

Amazingly, I got a reply - within hours, but unfortunately it went like this:

Them 2) You're going to the wrong site, its here:

Me 3) The URL you've provided me 302 redirects to the URL I said is the issue.
Here's a paste from wget of this action happening:

Them 4) What browser are you using? Works fine here.

Me 5) I've tested this on 3 machines in 3 different browsers, here's output
from browsershots.org showing it doesn't work on 78 other browsers.

Them 6) I'm forwarding this to someone else.

... silence...

Now one must question -- would have I gotten a better response by publicly
@mentioning this multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical company that can't get
SSL working on their careers site? (Just confirmed its still broken)

(edited for formatting readability)

------
jvandenbroeck
It should be a rule in every company "don't blame the user"; if they don't
contact you with their problems, it's _your_ task to let them contact you. Put
a big "contact" button in your app, make it easier to give them direct
feedback to you instead of in the app store.

And, obviously, don't release software that's not ready for production. The
mindset "we'll just release without proper testing, the users will point out
the bugs" - is so 1995

------
hammock
Instead of blaming your users (terrible idea), improve your app so that it is
clear to the user what they should/can do if they experience problems, e.g. a
Help function, link to an online forum or your email, etc. Ideally this would
pop up whenever they get an error.

------
qjz
_They’re addressing other users, asking “Is anyone else having this problem?”
What’s that about? How is finding other with the same problem going to help
you?_

Sounds like the user hasn't ruled out a configuration error or buggy device
and is simply looking for a solution. This is due diligence before reporting a
bug (along with reading the documentation, of course).

------
scott_s
Remember: you're more invested in your application than your users. Even if
it's possible for them to have a dialog with you to fix their problem, they
may not care to.

Posting a negative review is not part of that investment - it's just a
cathartic release, and after that, they move on. If you're selling a
relatively cheap application that your users don't need (such as a comic-
viewing app), you may only have one chance with your users.

------
stewartbutler
The cynic in me wonders how many of these warnings and one-star reviews are
from authors/supporters of competing apps.

Down-vote bots are becoming quite common in other forms of media (Reddit,
etc). I wish there were some way of computing the number of players 'gaming'
the system.

~~~
alex_c
Given the sheer number of inane "reviews" with bizarre complaints, I think the
sad truth is that most of them do come from real users.

~~~
ericdykstra
I saw an absolutely excellent Japanese app that was at 3.5 stars because a
bunch of people 1-starred it for not being in English.

~~~
TylerE
Is that really unfair though? Was it made clear on the product page that it
was not i18n?

------
droithomme
I have to use that sort of feedback sometimes myself.

Here's an example. Recently I tried a demo version of an upgrade to a program
I already own. Certain things were broken that used to work fine. The only
support allowed is to sign into my account on their website and use a feedback
form. Email support is not allowed, nor is there a product forum. When I
filled in the form it told me that I was not a registered user of version 2,
therefore support was not available. So then I went and wrote a scathing
public review advising people to avoid the product for specific reasons.

Compare that to another product I have and seldom use which I also wanted to
check the upgrade out. I tried the demo, and there were essential features
missing. I emailed the developer using the link in the program and explained
myself. He wrote back saying that feature would be added in version 3 and I
could upgrade 1 to 3 when it comes and skip 2, no problem. And so that was the
end of it for now.

------
o1iver
I think one of the problems may be that people dealing with AppStore or
Android Market customers are not realizing that they are dealing with a
different kind of user group. One cannot compare the feedback that HN users
(developers/advanced-users/early-adopters) give, with the responses from your
average iPhone user. He doesn't understand how complex a piece of software may
be. There is probably an expectation that even a free app should work
perfectly well.

Additionally the abundance of similar apps means that there is no real
interest in "asking for help"; the user can just try the next app. Still,
before doing that he will post his comment for the benefit of future users
(this app is (terrible|bad|doesnt-work|...).

Finally the feedback channels may not be as easy to find as for traditional
software. I am not sure where I would send feedback about some indie-app that
doesn't even have a homepage (or that may be ranked on page 20 on Google).

~~~
DanBC
> _There is probably an expectation that even a free app should work perfectly
> well._

I'm disappointed that this appears to be an unreasonable expectation.

------
ja2ke
It's often easier to find the review form on the App Store than it is to find
a human-answered "contact us" form or address for the developer.

When a user writes a shitty review, they know for a fact the developer will
read it, whereas many app store developers may not even have a web presence,
let alone a reliable looking way to contact them.

I'm not saying that's good by any means -- dialog with your customers gets to
the bottom of things and usually leaves them happier -- but right now if it's
easier for your customer to find and leave a public vent session on your app
store page than it is to find out how to contact you, they are going to take
the path of least resistance.

If user to developer dialog is important to you, enable your users to do it,
don't expect them to jump through hoops to seek you out when there's an easier
alternative.

------
alexchamberlain
_There is no way to fix actual bugs in your software, because you can’t learn
what the problem is exactly, what might be causing it, how to reproduce it,
etc… Making it next to impossible to fix the bug, let alone help the user (and
possible other users running into the same bug!)._

You can fix bugs without having a conversation with a user. It involves a two
prong approach: 1\. Proper testing \- Most people are probably doing more
testing than they can possibly bear, but we all know we should do more. 2\.
Proper tracing \- If an app crashes, the logs can be studied to work out what
went wrong. \- I accept this might not work on a phone as well as with
web/desktop apps.

------
kyebosh
Being a "customer review" log, I think the sentiment of the comments posted
are valid. If the App crashes, you assign a star rating accordingly. Sounds
exactly like what one should expect.

It's unforgiving out in the wild. It might not be ideal, but that's the system
we have (until support systems are integrated into the store). Even if there
was a brilliant direct feedback/support portal & the customer used it to your
satisfaction, I believe it's still appropriate to rate a product based on your
experience with it. If it crashes, it's going to get a lower rating,
regardless of how many reps apologised & promised to fix it.

------
puranjay
I'll tell you what happened: trolls who instead of helping out, will post a
smug "let me google that for you" reply and assume everyone else is as big a
know-it-all as them.

Trolls, reinier, trolls killed 'asking' on the internet.

------
chops
The general principle at work here is the "early-adopter" vs "mainstream".
Your early users probably recognized that it was a new product and were
willing to take a risk with it, recognizing that it's a small organization in
charge and that their answers are likely to be answered in a timely manner.
Once you've got 10,000+ users and hundreds or thousands of reviews, then
you're "established" and people will be much harsher in their reviews, and
less likely to contact support expecting some kind of auto-responder and days
response time.

------
eCa
This is in no way a software issue, this is a social issue. Everywhere people
are complaining about everything that doesn't work exactly according to their
wishes. Not seldom in order to gain something themselves, such as threating
hotels with bad reviews if they don't get a discount..

Then again, when a customer complaints about a bug, this
(<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3208990>) is probably not a good way to
keep them from going public.

------
marquis
We provide immediately an invitation for our users to interact with us, such
as having a 'click to call' button on our login site at all times and having
start page that asks them to contact us. Before we made it obvious that we
actually have a great support team, there was certainly less interaction and
our users have responded well to these changes. Can you put a splash screen on
your app that makes it clear that you're available to help?

------
wisty
People optimize like crazy to get users to convert. I'm pretty sure that if it
were as easy to get help as it was to download the app, more would do so.

You used to only get users who were smart enough to find the download link,
which might have even been on a subpage. Now, you get the people who can only
be bothered if they need only press the great big button in the center of
their field of view.

------
mcculley
There is no mailto: link anywhere on that page. If you don't reduce friction
for people to contact you, they might not bother.

------
ap22213
We just naturally assume that any reported issues that we receive are vastly
under represented. I assume that only 10% of users actually report things.

------
georgieporgie
I say it's partly due to Google's record of pushing customer service to the
bottom of the priority list, but it's also because we're getting the "unwashed
masses" online now. Everyday people are now online, have smart phones, and are
purchasing apps. They don't know what a bug report is. They may not even know
what good customer service is. They don't want to spend their time and mobile
minutes/data on helping you fix your product. They just want things to work.

~~~
agscala
These new users probably carry their expectations from the real world to the
internet as well. If some merchandise from a store isn't good, you don't
appeal to the company who produces it, you simply tell other people your
negative experience with the product and encourage everyone to avoid it, just
like what's happening on these app stores.

------
CPlatypus
I see the same thing even from my close colleagues. With one in particular,
the first I'll even know he's using my code is when he bitches about it on
Twitter. Forget about usable information in a bug report about what he did to
trigger it (usually turns out to be utterly insane hacked configs), sometimes
_we've been talking on IRC_ and then I switch windows to find he's slagging
the code on Twitter.

I think it's a cultural thing. Righteous anger is addictive. In this case it's
anger at bad code, and the craving for another hit precedes any attempt to
find out if the anger is even justified - let alone to work constructively
toward a resolution. Some people (lots here BTW) are just rage junkies, and
should simply be ignored.

------
rkon
Does your app have a "report a bug" option? I sure hope so, otherwise this
complaining blog post would look awfully hypocritical.

