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Both parties handled it with emotion and childishness. The CEO should not have acted the way he did. No excuses for what he did. I wanted to be careful before

Both parties handled it with emotion and childishness. The CEO should not have acted the way he did. No excuses for what he did. I wanted to be careful before blaming OP but after reading his blog post, he did not send a polite email to begin with and then on top of that, he immediately complained on Twitter and even accused them of shady practice. He went too far. Sorry OP, an email that starts with "This is an extremely shady business practice and makes me question my commitment to moving to Ghost" is NOT a polite email, whether you are right or wrong. A Polite email would have been "I am a little surprised receiving this email from you guys and wasn't aware of this rule you guys have. Can I get more time to think about this since I am not sure I want to pay that kind of money" etc etc. On top of that, OP says "I also decided to tweet about it - because that’s what people do, right?". No OP. People don't do that by default. Good customers try to work it out with the business first. They wait for a first response. They give them a little benefit of doubt before making judgements. If you cannot resolve it together in a friendly way and you feel you have been wronged, go ahead and rant on Twitter by all means. But it was a knee jerk reaction on OP's part to post on twitter which accused Ghost. No business likes these types of customers. Of course, the CEO had an equally if not worse response and now Ghost deserves all the negative press. This doesn't absolve OP's immature reaction. I cannot agree with their tactic.

lovehashbrowns 6y ago
Why is a company entitled to having customers that give the benefit of the doubt, try to work out something, and act in private before making public statements? The owner of the blog felt like the billing update was shady, sent an email, and complained harshly on Twitter. Regardless of the harshness of the tweet, that is literally a customer wanting to work something out and providing feedback. It's what every company should want. It's even better than working it out privately because Twitter is a public platform that ghost can utilize to make their customer service look better. "We have given you a free 30-day upgrade so you have more time to think about this. In the meantime, we will take your feedback into consideration and discuss this internally. Thank you for being a loyal customer" or whatever corporate-speak ghost wants to partake in. Cutting the customer off completely, knowing full well that they will then talk about this publicly, is not only the complete opposite of working things out professionally, but works against ghost's public image. This is the exact kind of customer a company wants. They go public with complaints that can be easily fixed and remedied. It's the easiest form of free goodwill.

lovehashbrowns 6y ago

Why is a company entitled to having customers that give the benefit of the doubt, try to work out something, and act in private before making public statements? The owner of the blog felt like the billing update was shady, sent an email, and complained harshly on Twitter. Regardless of the harshness of the tweet, that is literally a customer wanting to work something out and providing feedback. It's what every company should want. It's even better than working it out privately because Twitter is a public platform that ghost can utilize to make their customer service look better. "We have given you a free 30-day upgrade so you have more time to think about this. In the meantime, we will take your feedback into consideration and discuss this internally. Thank you for being a loyal customer" or whatever corporate-speak ghost wants to partake in. Cutting the customer off completely, knowing full well that they will then talk about this publicly, is not only the complete opposite of working things out professionally, but works against ghost's public image. This is the exact kind of customer a company wants. They go public with complaints that can be easily fixed and remedied. It's the easiest form of free goodwill.