5 ms·

Just posted this on Anthony's blog, but thought I would post it here as well: -- Hi Anthony, I'm sorry that you feel we were't straight forward, although our

by jeffiel 16y ago

Just posted this on Anthony's blog, but thought I would post it here as well: -- Hi Anthony, I'm sorry that you feel we were't straight forward, although our goal was to be completely transparent in our communication with you about the status of this feature. Since the time of launch, we thought we had clearly messaged that international SMS has been an unsupported feature, and that the entire product was in beta status. We had published this fact on our SMS product FAQs, as well as in the public GetSatisfaction forums. Our apologies that we weren't clear enough about that fact, which caused you to roll international SMS features into your app. We do pride ourselves on putting developers and their applications first, and in being open in our communications, product capabilities and limitations. Please feel free to email me at jeff@twilio.com, I'm always open to feedback, questions, comments or concern. Sincerely, Jeff Lawson Co-Founder & CEO Twilio.com

redstripe 16y ago
Is there a page that lists all the beta features that may become unsupported without warning in the future?
- Tws 16y ago
  Probably not. He implies that nearly everything is beta, and thus their incompetent and unprofessional management team feel free to disable functionality with zero notice. Only a moron would trust a company that's run as poorly as twill. Fortunately for twill, there ares a lot of inexperienced devs who see the easy API and are too inexperienced to realiE that only a complete moron would trust a company that thinks zero warning shutoffs are acceptable, even on beta features. This is the predictable result of ycs campaign against business education, and drive to get less and less experience.
mariorz 16y ago
Hi Jeff, I had the same problem. It was not very clear from your pages or FAQs that international SMS was not supported. Now I see it's been made very clear in this page http://www.twilio.com/faq/international http://www.twilio.com/faq/international, that's great, the previous message was confusing to say the least. FWIW I complained about this on the getsatisfaction forums some two weeks ago http://getsatisfaction.com/twilio/topics/international_sms-1591m?utm_content=reply_link&utm_medium=email&utm_source=reply_notification#reply_3550891 http://getsatisfaction.com/twilio/topics/international_sms-1... Fortunately I don't have a live app that depended on your service, so all it cost me was $50 deposited to start playing around.
bradgessler 16y ago
Guys, I need to back Jeff up on this. SMS is just a huge pain in the ass. The carriers have a strangle-hold over this and can cut messages off on a whim. We had an experience once with Verizon where they "accidentally" cut-off our short-code to Poll Everywhere on a Friday evening due to some "clerical errors". 72 hours later they finally had somebody "fix" the situation (support doesn't work on weekends there), and in the meantime we were left in a really bad place trying to explain to our customers how Verizon screwed us over. I've dealt with some total dopes at Celltrust (I need to call these guys out, they're atrociously bad. Please don't do business with them unless you absolutely have to) where our service to Canada was entirely out for a week because they changed how their API worked. They failed to communicate that to us and nobody at their company could tell me how it worked so I had to fire up nc -l, point their gateway at that server, find somebody from Canada who could send a text, and see what came in. After the fact, I told them how horrible the experience was and provided recommendations on how they could improve it. They threatened to cut us off as a client because they felt I was being mean to them instead of acting on the feedback that could have made their service better. Twilio thinks this is assine and are trying to change how this all works. We've shared with them the pains we've experienced with SMS aggregators and they share the same thoughts with us that its a totally unnecessary amount of pain that developers face to build SMS applications. They're really trying to make this easier and lower the bar. Anthony, while your experience wasn't that hot, it was far and above what you'd experience elsewhere. At least Jeff acknowledges that Twilio could do better. That is so far above and beyond anything else in the industry. Throw on top of that an amazingly well executed API and the drive to make a difference in this industry and you're in good hands.
OoTheNigerian 16y ago
Is this an apology? "you feel".... " we thought" You are not really taking responsibility here. You are good guys. Just say "I am sorry" and ask how you can make him feel better. http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1528-the-bullshit-of-outage-language http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1528-the-bullshit-of-outage-l...
- fredoliveira 16y ago
  Isn't "I'm sorry" the very first thing he says after "Hi Anthony"? And as if that wasn't enough, he goes on to say "Our apologies" later in the paragraph.
  - javery 16y ago
    He said he was sorry that you feel we did x. So he is apologizing for for the fact that Anthony feels a certain way, not the same as saying "I am sorry.".
    - sprout 16y ago
      He has nothing to apologize for. You use features clearly marked 'unsupported,' you are going to get burned.
      - gommm 16y ago
        I was also planning on using twilio for a project and when looking at their faq for the initial research, it wasn't very clear that it was something completely unsupported that could be disabled at any moments...
      - javery 16y ago
        This is why programmers make horrible customer support people, it doesn't matter if you have nothing to apologize for. You say your sorry because no matter what the circumstances the person is unhappy with your service and your company - saying your sorry and fixing the problem keeps a customer. Sticking to your guns and saying you have nothing to apologize for just loses you a customer.
rmah 16y ago
A professional organization NEVER turns off features -- final, beta, experimental, it doesn't matter what you call it -- without warning unless external pressures force you to. What you do is determine who is using the feature and send a warning to those customers. Then after waiting a while (a few days to a few months), you can turn it off. Predictability is critical to B2B services. It is more important than price or performance. It allows customers to make an informed decision. It prevents dissatisfaction and PR disasters. I also think this should be a lesson for younger businessmen. Customers will even get angry if you cut undocumented features. Or fix bugs they relied upon. Any change that impacts customers needs to be communicated in advance. IMO, if you truly "put developers and applications first", you would have done this. I humbly suggest some soul searching.

by jeffiel 16y ago

redstripe 16y ago

Is there a page that lists all the beta features that may become unsupported without warning in the future?

Tws 16y ago
Probably not. He implies that nearly everything is beta, and thus their incompetent and unprofessional management team feel free to disable functionality with zero notice. Only a moron would trust a company that's run as poorly as twill. Fortunately for twill, there ares a lot of inexperienced devs who see the easy API and are too inexperienced to realiE that only a complete moron would trust a company that thinks zero warning shutoffs are acceptable, even on beta features. This is the predictable result of ycs campaign against business education, and drive to get less and less experience.

mariorz 16y ago

Hi Jeff, I had the same problem. It was not very clear from your pages or FAQs that international SMS was not supported. Now I see it's been made very clear in this page http://www.twilio.com/faq/international http://www.twilio.com/faq/international, that's great, the previous message was confusing to say the least. FWIW I complained about this on the getsatisfaction forums some two weeks ago http://getsatisfaction.com/twilio/topics/international_sms-1591m?utm_content=reply_link&utm_medium=email&utm_source=reply_notification#reply_3550891 http://getsatisfaction.com/twilio/topics/international_sms-1... Fortunately I don't have a live app that depended on your service, so all it cost me was $50 deposited to start playing around.

bradgessler 16y ago

Guys, I need to back Jeff up on this. SMS is just a huge pain in the ass. The carriers have a strangle-hold over this and can cut messages off on a whim. We had an experience once with Verizon where they "accidentally" cut-off our short-code to Poll Everywhere on a Friday evening due to some "clerical errors". 72 hours later they finally had somebody "fix" the situation (support doesn't work on weekends there), and in the meantime we were left in a really bad place trying to explain to our customers how Verizon screwed us over. I've dealt with some total dopes at Celltrust (I need to call these guys out, they're atrociously bad. Please don't do business with them unless you absolutely have to) where our service to Canada was entirely out for a week because they changed how their API worked. They failed to communicate that to us and nobody at their company could tell me how it worked so I had to fire up nc -l, point their gateway at that server, find somebody from Canada who could send a text, and see what came in. After the fact, I told them how horrible the experience was and provided recommendations on how they could improve it. They threatened to cut us off as a client because they felt I was being mean to them instead of acting on the feedback that could have made their service better. Twilio thinks this is assine and are trying to change how this all works. We've shared with them the pains we've experienced with SMS aggregators and they share the same thoughts with us that its a totally unnecessary amount of pain that developers face to build SMS applications. They're really trying to make this easier and lower the bar. Anthony, while your experience wasn't that hot, it was far and above what you'd experience elsewhere. At least Jeff acknowledges that Twilio could do better. That is so far above and beyond anything else in the industry. Throw on top of that an amazingly well executed API and the drive to make a difference in this industry and you're in good hands.

OoTheNigerian 16y ago

Is this an apology? "you feel".... " we thought" You are not really taking responsibility here. You are good guys. Just say "I am sorry" and ask how you can make him feel better. http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1528-the-bullshit-of-outage-language http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1528-the-bullshit-of-outage-l...

fredoliveira 16y ago
Isn't "I'm sorry" the very first thing he says after "Hi Anthony"? And as if that wasn't enough, he goes on to say "Our apologies" later in the paragraph.
- javery 16y ago
  He said he was sorry that you feel we did x. So he is apologizing for for the fact that Anthony feels a certain way, not the same as saying "I am sorry.".
  - sprout 16y ago
    He has nothing to apologize for. You use features clearly marked 'unsupported,' you are going to get burned.
    - gommm 16y ago
      I was also planning on using twilio for a project and when looking at their faq for the initial research, it wasn't very clear that it was something completely unsupported that could be disabled at any moments...
    - javery 16y ago
      This is why programmers make horrible customer support people, it doesn't matter if you have nothing to apologize for. You say your sorry because no matter what the circumstances the person is unhappy with your service and your company - saying your sorry and fixing the problem keeps a customer. Sticking to your guns and saying you have nothing to apologize for just loses you a customer.

rmah 16y ago

A professional organization NEVER turns off features -- final, beta, experimental, it doesn't matter what you call it -- without warning unless external pressures force you to. What you do is determine who is using the feature and send a warning to those customers. Then after waiting a while (a few days to a few months), you can turn it off. Predictability is critical to B2B services. It is more important than price or performance. It allows customers to make an informed decision. It prevents dissatisfaction and PR disasters. I also think this should be a lesson for younger businessmen. Customers will even get angry if you cut undocumented features. Or fix bugs they relied upon. Any change that impacts customers needs to be communicated in advance. IMO, if you truly "put developers and applications first", you would have done this. I humbly suggest some soul searching.