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I hope we can convince you all that that is no longer our attitude, but I know that only time will tell. As I mentioned above, in this case, WE were absolutely

I hope we can convince you all that that is no longer our attitude, but I know that only time will tell. As I mentioned above, in this case, WE were absolutely wrong, and the blog post details all the ways we're fixing it.

mmt 8y ago
I suspect that part of what has people worried and continuing to complain about Google's attitude and "tone-deafness" is that your responses, which are seen as being representative of GCP, based on your revealing your affiliation, suggest you're not quite absorbing the meaning of the actual concern/complaint. You did admit error and apologize in the blog post (perhaps not explicitly or early enough in the text for some people, but that's a separate issue), and you specified how you were going to fix it. It may take time for the reputational effects of those fixes to permeate. That's not the issue. The issue is that, here, you have, effectively, said, "but the customer could have..". Even the implication that the customer might share in the blame, no matter how objectively true it may be, takes credibility away from the sincerity of an apology and can easily be seen as evidence of the persistence of same, old attitude. Given that the statement happened after the apology, further time is unlikely to make a difference.
- TheIronYuppie 8y ago
  Shoot, ok, let me try again. 1) This was, in NO WAY, the customer's fault. At all. Not even a little bit. They did stuff that was totally normal for a customer to do. To remedy us not accidentally flagging totally normal stuff as fraud again, we talked about 7 steps we were taking (that was the first 7 steps in the blog). 2) IF, and only IF, you'd like to take ADDITIONAL steps to avoid us accidentally flagging you, we also offered three steps (at the end of the article). However, these were totally optional. Hope that helps.
  - mmt 8y ago
    > 2) IF, and only IF, you'd like to take ADDITIONAL steps to avoid us accidentally flagging you, we also offered three steps (at the end of the article). However, these were totally optional. Getting warmer.. but: Even here, you're saying that the customer has (or could have) some role in preventing your error (accidental flagging). This is merely an issue with the wording (here, not necessarily in the OP blog). The "protect your account" wording of the blog post itself seems good, as do the specific reasons for each additional step. My only suggestions would be to add the concept of urgency in reachability to the phone number, as time sensitivity seems to be important to many (but not all) customers, and to substitute something for "don't miss important alerts" (which, again, could be read to imply blaming the customer) that has a more positive wording, that expresses that all the relevant parties would then be empowered to have visibility into those alerts (rather than avoiding the transgression of missing them). See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17567900 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17567900 (which I have no idea as to the veracity of but figured I'd call your attention to) > Hope that helps. It does (at least IMO), and I hope you take my feedback in the contstructive spirit in which it is intended. (I don't personally have a strong opinion either way, as I lack enough direct experience).

mmt 8y ago

I suspect that part of what has people worried and continuing to complain about Google's attitude and "tone-deafness" is that your responses, which are seen as being representative of GCP, based on your revealing your affiliation, suggest you're not quite absorbing the meaning of the actual concern/complaint. You did admit error and apologize in the blog post (perhaps not explicitly or early enough in the text for some people, but that's a separate issue), and you specified how you were going to fix it. It may take time for the reputational effects of those fixes to permeate. That's not the issue. The issue is that, here, you have, effectively, said, "but the customer could have..". Even the implication that the customer might share in the blame, no matter how objectively true it may be, takes credibility away from the sincerity of an apology and can easily be seen as evidence of the persistence of same, old attitude. Given that the statement happened after the apology, further time is unlikely to make a difference.

TheIronYuppie 8y ago
Shoot, ok, let me try again. 1) This was, in NO WAY, the customer's fault. At all. Not even a little bit. They did stuff that was totally normal for a customer to do. To remedy us not accidentally flagging totally normal stuff as fraud again, we talked about 7 steps we were taking (that was the first 7 steps in the blog). 2) IF, and only IF, you'd like to take ADDITIONAL steps to avoid us accidentally flagging you, we also offered three steps (at the end of the article). However, these were totally optional. Hope that helps.
- mmt 8y ago
  > 2) IF, and only IF, you'd like to take ADDITIONAL steps to avoid us accidentally flagging you, we also offered three steps (at the end of the article). However, these were totally optional. Getting warmer.. but: Even here, you're saying that the customer has (or could have) some role in preventing your error (accidental flagging). This is merely an issue with the wording (here, not necessarily in the OP blog). The "protect your account" wording of the blog post itself seems good, as do the specific reasons for each additional step. My only suggestions would be to add the concept of urgency in reachability to the phone number, as time sensitivity seems to be important to many (but not all) customers, and to substitute something for "don't miss important alerts" (which, again, could be read to imply blaming the customer) that has a more positive wording, that expresses that all the relevant parties would then be empowered to have visibility into those alerts (rather than avoiding the transgression of missing them). See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17567900 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17567900 (which I have no idea as to the veracity of but figured I'd call your attention to) > Hope that helps. It does (at least IMO), and I hope you take my feedback in the contstructive spirit in which it is intended. (I don't personally have a strong opinion either way, as I lack enough direct experience).