4 ms·

Coinbase is notoriously poor at customer service, so this doesn't make sense. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27653022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?i

Coinbase is notoriously poor at customer service, so this doesn't make sense. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27653022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27653022

oh_sigh 4y ago
1 employee per 2000 customers seems like it makes perfect sense as to why customer service would be bad.
- dubcanada 4y ago
  Why? Presumably your product works, so at best you'd only have like 1% (20) customers with issues on any given day. 1 customer service agent should be able to attend to 20 issues in a 7-8 hour shift.
  - ghshephard 4y ago
    Of course, when that customer service agent has to deal with 1% of 20_000 - 200 issues/day/agent - things start to add up.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ghshephard 4y ago
  Particularly as it's actually 1 employee per 20_000 customers.
- nickjj 4y ago
  It doesn't need to be. For example I do personal customer support for ~40,000 folks who take one of my video courses (programming and tech related). I often write personalized multi-sentence responses to their issues and follow up to reply back to them as many times as needed to get it fixed within minutes or hours of a request coming in. I think the big difference there is it's my business. The best possible customer experience outcome is the only option in my mind, if it would even hint at being anything less then I wouldn't have this business anymore.
  - arrosenberg 4y ago
    The big difference is that you aren't involved with peoples' finances. There is a whole other level beyond the crazy you attract in services and retail.
    - nickjj 4y ago
      That's true, but upset developers are up on the list of "how can I word this to be the most passive / aggressive as humanly possible". To be fair I think customer support in general is a hostile environment for the receiver. Everyone coming at you is usually dealing with an unexpected issue in some way that's preventing them from being able to do what they wanted to do. There's been a huge range of things I've seen. Everything from super nice folks including huge amounts of details and are calm to nothing more than "it's not working" and in 1 case a death threat because Docker wouldn't run on his Windows box. I don't think it was a serious threat (I'm still alive), but he wasn't trying to be funny. He was really upset. I don't let those things phase me. I help everyone equally regardless of how they treat me. From doing this for 5+ years I've learned that people act way differently initially when unexpected things happen but more often than not they calm down and apologize afterwards.
      - 8n4vidtmkvmk 4y ago
        docker desktop stopped working on my windows box yesterday. tried clearing my containers, didn't work. factory reset, didn't work. uninstall reinstall, didn't work. finally the reset kubernetes button was ungreyed and that worked but i still don't know why if i already reset everything. lost my dev data. not happy with docker desktop, but haven't issued any death threats yet.
kube-system 4y ago
Having a lot of employees does not necessarily make customer service good. Telecoms and large retail banks top the list for the largest number of customer service employees, but often are notorious for bad service.

Coinbase is notoriously poor at customer service, so this doesn't make sense. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27653022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27653022

oh_sigh 4y ago

1 employee per 2000 customers seems like it makes perfect sense as to why customer service would be bad.

dubcanada 4y ago
Why? Presumably your product works, so at best you'd only have like 1% (20) customers with issues on any given day. 1 customer service agent should be able to attend to 20 issues in a 7-8 hour shift.
- ghshephard 4y ago
  Of course, when that customer service agent has to deal with 1% of 20_000 - 200 issues/day/agent - things start to add up.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ghshephard 4y ago
Particularly as it's actually 1 employee per 20_000 customers.
nickjj 4y ago
It doesn't need to be. For example I do personal customer support for ~40,000 folks who take one of my video courses (programming and tech related). I often write personalized multi-sentence responses to their issues and follow up to reply back to them as many times as needed to get it fixed within minutes or hours of a request coming in. I think the big difference there is it's my business. The best possible customer experience outcome is the only option in my mind, if it would even hint at being anything less then I wouldn't have this business anymore.
- arrosenberg 4y ago
  The big difference is that you aren't involved with peoples' finances. There is a whole other level beyond the crazy you attract in services and retail.
  - nickjj 4y ago
    That's true, but upset developers are up on the list of "how can I word this to be the most passive / aggressive as humanly possible". To be fair I think customer support in general is a hostile environment for the receiver. Everyone coming at you is usually dealing with an unexpected issue in some way that's preventing them from being able to do what they wanted to do. There's been a huge range of things I've seen. Everything from super nice folks including huge amounts of details and are calm to nothing more than "it's not working" and in 1 case a death threat because Docker wouldn't run on his Windows box. I don't think it was a serious threat (I'm still alive), but he wasn't trying to be funny. He was really upset. I don't let those things phase me. I help everyone equally regardless of how they treat me. From doing this for 5+ years I've learned that people act way differently initially when unexpected things happen but more often than not they calm down and apologize afterwards.
    - 8n4vidtmkvmk 4y ago
      docker desktop stopped working on my windows box yesterday. tried clearing my containers, didn't work. factory reset, didn't work. uninstall reinstall, didn't work. finally the reset kubernetes button was ungreyed and that worked but i still don't know why if i already reset everything. lost my dev data. not happy with docker desktop, but haven't issued any death threats yet.

kube-system 4y ago

Having a lot of employees does not necessarily make customer service good. Telecoms and large retail banks top the list for the largest number of customer service employees, but often are notorious for bad service.