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Reminds me of what Paul Graham once said: Offer surprisingly good customer service. Customers are used to being maltreated. Most of the companies they deal wi

by kloncks 15y ago

Reminds me of what Paul Graham once said: Offer surprisingly good customer service. Customers are used to being maltreated. Most of the companies they deal with are quasi-monopolies that get away with atrocious customer service. Your own ideas about what's possible have been unconsciously lowered by such experiences. Try making your customer service not merely good, but surprisingly good. Go out of your way to make people happy. They'll be overwhelmed; you'll see. http://www.paulgraham.com/13sentences.html http://www.paulgraham.com/13sentences.html

georgemcbay 15y ago
The great thing about delivering surprisingly good service these days is the bar is so low. Treat your customer like a human being and they'll be very surprised.
- skrebbel 15y ago
  Remarkably true. Anecdote: first real customer (a reseller) of a consumer product that involved cell phone apps, web services and custom hardware. He had to drive by his customer 3 times because our product failed 3 times (hardware failure, configuration mistake, error in the manual). Each time the phone rang at our office we were slightly afraid it was him again. Most of the times, it was. After it was all over and the product flew and the consumer was happy, the reseller sent us a mail about how much he enjoyed working with us and how we really cared about him and his customer. We had given him cause to drive to his customer, 100km away, 3 times too often. We expected an angry resignation, not compliments! The bar really is ridiculously low.
  - moe 15y ago
    With large companies the bar is often as low as being able to reach a human at all. Anyone ever try to report a bug to Apple? It's a black hole.
- glimcat 15y ago
  Also, it's by far the easiest way to generate brand evangelists.
andrewljohnson 15y ago
The better your customer service, the less good your product needs to be. Especially when you get started, you want people to be forgiving of your product mistakes.

by kloncks 15y ago

georgemcbay 15y ago

The great thing about delivering surprisingly good service these days is the bar is so low. Treat your customer like a human being and they'll be very surprised.

skrebbel 15y ago
Remarkably true. Anecdote: first real customer (a reseller) of a consumer product that involved cell phone apps, web services and custom hardware. He had to drive by his customer 3 times because our product failed 3 times (hardware failure, configuration mistake, error in the manual). Each time the phone rang at our office we were slightly afraid it was him again. Most of the times, it was. After it was all over and the product flew and the consumer was happy, the reseller sent us a mail about how much he enjoyed working with us and how we really cared about him and his customer. We had given him cause to drive to his customer, 100km away, 3 times too often. We expected an angry resignation, not compliments! The bar really is ridiculously low.
- moe 15y ago
  With large companies the bar is often as low as being able to reach a human at all. Anyone ever try to report a bug to Apple? It's a black hole.
glimcat 15y ago
Also, it's by far the easiest way to generate brand evangelists.

andrewljohnson 15y ago

The better your customer service, the less good your product needs to be. Especially when you get started, you want people to be forgiving of your product mistakes.