4 ms·

The apology wasn't good just because it accepted responsibility, it was good because they acted responsibly. The incident lasted two days, and it was quickly co

The apology wasn't good just because it accepted responsibility, it was good because they acted responsibly. The incident lasted two days, and it was quickly corrected. Many other companies would ignore it for months, and a similar apology in that case would be feel far less sincere. It's okay to mess up if you quickly correct the issue or at least quickly recognize it and try to correct it. The problems arise when incidents are buried or ignored. Late apologies are not apologies at all.

throw-far-away 8y ago
Apologies mean nothing without a believable promise to not behave similarly in the future. Furthermore, "sorry" doesn't excuse all behaviors. Doing something shitty like closing someone's account without warning and without an appeal process is inexcusable.
- SpikeDad 8y ago
  I think also apologies require explaining what changes they made and why they decided to do it that way. A look behind the curtain on why they chose way A when they could have chosen way B is illustrative to users.
bad_user 8y ago
2 days for people being locked out of their account, through no fault of their own, is a long time. Slack is only apologizing due to the public uproar, as apparently many people were affected. Our cofounder was also locked of his account. He's Irish and living in Romania, with nothing to do with the embargoed countries. To make matters worse, he tried contacting support to prove his nationality and country of residence and 2 days later he's still locked out of Slack.
- n_e 8y ago
  > 2 days for people being locked out of their account, through no fault of their own, is a long time. In absolute terms yes. Compared to how for example google handles this it’s outstanding.
  - pygy_ 8y ago
    That's true, but you set the bar very low. Regarding user support, Google ranks on par with an anvil.
    - justtopost 8y ago
      My anvil has 100% uptime since 1912. Just sayin.
      - pygy_ 8y ago
        The metaphor stays apt if you take uptime into account :-) Anvils do break, sometimes, and the failure mode is catastrophic: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=broken+anvil&t=h_&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=broken+anvil&t=h_&iax=images&ia=im...
  - lazerwalker 8y ago
    Most times Google has issues like that, it's for a free service, rather than something affecting paid customers, yeah?
    - sam_goody 8y ago
      No. We had someone locked out of their email while using Google's paid company mail service (App engine, I think it was called). Several days with no mail and no useful support taught me that relying on Google can leave you with no recourse.
    - tedivm 8y ago
      When I was consulting I had a client whose google ads stopped working for six weeks. She was spending $500 a week in ads, but Google wouldn't do anything to fix or even acknowledge the issue. I also had Google accuse me of "click fraud" on a website I ran in college- they stole about $300 from me, with no ability to appeal. Google's support- even for paying customers- is abysmal.

throw-far-away 8y ago

Apologies mean nothing without a believable promise to not behave similarly in the future. Furthermore, "sorry" doesn't excuse all behaviors. Doing something shitty like closing someone's account without warning and without an appeal process is inexcusable.

SpikeDad 8y ago
I think also apologies require explaining what changes they made and why they decided to do it that way. A look behind the curtain on why they chose way A when they could have chosen way B is illustrative to users.

bad_user 8y ago

2 days for people being locked out of their account, through no fault of their own, is a long time. Slack is only apologizing due to the public uproar, as apparently many people were affected. Our cofounder was also locked of his account. He's Irish and living in Romania, with nothing to do with the embargoed countries. To make matters worse, he tried contacting support to prove his nationality and country of residence and 2 days later he's still locked out of Slack.

n_e 8y ago
> 2 days for people being locked out of their account, through no fault of their own, is a long time. In absolute terms yes. Compared to how for example google handles this it’s outstanding.
- pygy_ 8y ago
  That's true, but you set the bar very low. Regarding user support, Google ranks on par with an anvil.
  - justtopost 8y ago
    My anvil has 100% uptime since 1912. Just sayin.
    - pygy_ 8y ago
      The metaphor stays apt if you take uptime into account :-) Anvils do break, sometimes, and the failure mode is catastrophic: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=broken+anvil&t=h_&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=broken+anvil&t=h_&iax=images&ia=im...
- lazerwalker 8y ago
  Most times Google has issues like that, it's for a free service, rather than something affecting paid customers, yeah?
  - sam_goody 8y ago
    No. We had someone locked out of their email while using Google's paid company mail service (App engine, I think it was called). Several days with no mail and no useful support taught me that relying on Google can leave you with no recourse.
  - tedivm 8y ago
    When I was consulting I had a client whose google ads stopped working for six weeks. She was spending $500 a week in ads, but Google wouldn't do anything to fix or even acknowledge the issue. I also had Google accuse me of "click fraud" on a website I ran in college- they stole about $300 from me, with no ability to appeal. Google's support- even for paying customers- is abysmal.