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How to earn customers for life [video]

120 points by O__________O 4y ago

k__ 4y ago
Good points. I fondly remember people DM me on Twitter how they got a job after reading my book. Selling stuff is good, but people telling you that they got more value than they paid for is awesome.
- totetsu 4y ago
  React from Zero sounds like It could as well be a martial arts book as a programming one.
- rozenmd 4y ago
  I'm one of them - thanks again!
  - k__ 4y ago
    You're welcome! :)
- O__________O 4y ago
  (Book being) React from Zero: Learn React Using the JavaScript You Already Know - https://www.newline.co/react-from-zero/ https://www.newline.co/react-from-zero/ - https://www.amazon.com/React-Zero-Learn-JavaScript-Already/dp/1796672815 https://www.amazon.com/React-Zero-Learn-JavaScript-Already/d... * No affiliation; book is linked to from OP’s profile.
  - k__ 4y ago
    "An okay book" - an Amazon customer Always makes me chuckle.
    - O__________O 4y ago
      To be fair, I was puzzled by rapid positive comments on HN, but lack of significant Amazon comments and/or easily finding significant prior coverage of the book. That said, book did receive prior coverage on HN, so sort of makes since: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17430059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17430059
      - k__ 4y ago
        I'm not a famous author and newline isn't a famous publisher. The book is quite old now and newer React features are missing, so I guess the lack of reviews won't change in the future.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- nicbou 4y ago
  Reader mail is probably the favourite part of my job. I now go out of my way to let people know how much I appreciate their work. It feels so good to know that your work had an impact on another person's life.
O__________O 4y ago
While advice is reasonable for a new startup, to me there is a notable gap between “how to earn customers” and “for life” — they even acknowledge that the common pattern is to scale to being a monopoly, then exploit the related leverage over customers. Am I missing something, or is that their advice?
- aflag 4y ago
  I think you summarised it very well "love your customers until you get what you want"
jwsteigerwalt 4y ago
I love seeing these guys at a slower pace focusing on customers. A bit different than their normal content.
hahamrfunnyguy 4y ago
It's weird that these days, caring about your customers is considered a superpower. It just shows the awful level of service and support that passes as "customer care" these days. I recently bought a hat from Boston Scally Company. It wasn't a super cheap made-in-China $10 hat like you can easily find on Amazon or eBay, I paid $50 for it. When I got the hat, it was covered in threads. Some needed to be cut off. When I emailed the company, their reply was "we're sorry you aren't happy with the quality of the hat, you can just remove the threads and it won't affect the integrity of the hat." That's the wrong response. The correct response is "We're embarrassed the hat shipped to you like that. Would you like us to send you a replacement or do you want to send it back for a refund?" I am certainly not going to buy anything from this company again when they can't acknowledge their screw up. Own your mistakes. In almost all cases it's the right move and you earn the respect of the customer.
- dazc 4y ago
  I bought a fold up bed from a company in the UK and one of the wooden slats broke so I emailed them to find out where I could buy a replacement. They replied with 'What was the model number?' and 'What is your address?' They sent me a free replacement and a spare in case it happens again (which several years later it hasn't). Such a simple gesture, with no fuss whatsoever, and here I am praising them https://www.jaybe.com/ https://www.jaybe.com/ whenever I get the opportunity. I bought it from a third party retailer so they would have been within their rights to give me the runaround instead.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    I have a similar memorable story from O’Brien water sports. We had a set of kids’ water skis where we’d lost one of the thumbscrew bolts to keep them connected while young kids are learning (100% our fault, 0% theirs). I wrote the company to ask where I could buy a replacement. The agent sent me a mail with a picture asking me to confirm that was the part I was talking about, mailed a replacement strap and two thumbscrews for free, and emailed a few days later to check that it arrived in time for our lake vacation. It made such an impression that O’Brien is my default/check-them-first brand.
zomglings 4y ago
Liked the video but think that’s only because it confirmed my biases. I have seen many companies succeed despite them clearly viewing their users as pawns. In fact, most YC companies that try to sell me things are blatantly transactional and while that has always ruled me out as a customer many of them are doing just fine. Would be better to have hard data rather than empathy porn.
teddyh 4y ago
Since this is advice for startups, the title is slightly inaccurate. It is not so much “for life” as it is for the duration of the honeymoon period; i.e. customer acquisition phase. When the VCs want their payout, it will inevitably change, and customers will notice.
Someone1234 4y ago
Customer retention is an area companies fail at hardest and most often. It makes me wonder what is being taught at business schools. There's nothing wrong with asking exiting customers if there were/are problems that could be addressed. But there absolutely is something wrong with badgering/harassing/tricking or wasting the time of customers leaving, as it will cause reputational damage and worse cause repeat custom to almost disappear. It is just yet another example of how modern US business culture values the Short over Long Term. In the short you see a slightly lower Customer turnover, but in the long term you see a HUGE reduction in returning customers (who remember the exit process from last time). To be clear: A short survey makes it feels like a company gives a crap about why you're leaving, but it needs to be via the same mechanism you used to sign up (e.g. online sign-up? Then online exit), and it shouldn't feel like a way to block the exit. This is particularly problematic if you're forced to call and the person on the other end is on commission. They're more often than not just there to wear you down and make you hate interacting with the company, by its very nature if you do leave you will be unlikely to return since that's the last thing you remember. I've blacklisted multiple businesses for that practice and I often check the cancellation process during sign-up to avoid it.
- corobo 4y ago
  Urgh, Adobe wound me up so much with that block the exit bullshit I'll go out of my way to tell anyone that needs it how to get out of their cancellation fee haha. Must have cost them a few grand by now in cancel fees never mind bypassed retention. They probably don't care but the person who can now bypass the timewasting and cancel out for free does. Posting it on HN would probably get someone to fix it. It's not a hack or anything illegal, lurking Adobe lawyer, put your headed paper away.
  - hirako2000 4y ago
    They don't care, it won't matter, and sadly just works better than not employing the practice. It's particularly sad given for certain co such as Adobe it's kind of hard to not go with it. E.g their file format is part of existing bits in the pipeline. They know, and it's been their strategy for decades now.
middleman90 4y ago
People like to talk to the founder of companies It's not working for me. I own a mobile app (B2C) with paying users and this is the hardest part: Talking to users. I'm literally offering money to my users to talk to them but nobody wants to. What am I doing wrong?
- dzink 4y ago
  The pain point your problem is solving is not big enough. It’s a vitamin. If there was a problem with their painkiller or they didn’t have alternatives they would be hammering on your door. (note, I have no idea what your product or company does)
  - middleman90 4y ago
    I'm afraid this could be the reason... But it's quite odd that people are willing to pay for the service I offer, but not to talk to me
    - aflag 4y ago
      Why do you expect them to? Did they have a bad experience for some reason? I personally avoid talking to customer's service as much as I can. I'm more likely to give up on a product or switch to alternatives than say anything. There are a very few exceptions to this. I suspect many other people are like me.
      - middleman90 4y ago
        I did expect them to talk because I read, and also listened in this video, that users are thrilled to talk with the founders of the product they use. I can understand what you say about unhappy users, they are the hardest to establish a conversation with, in fact, I had yet no luck with them. I also try to contact my most engaged and paying users, very little luck there. So, either everyone is laying (very unlikely), or I'm doing something wrong.
        4y ago
TexanFeller 4y ago
I bought a large Jackery battery generator a year or two ago and was having trouble finding anywhere to buy a second charger for it including their website. I emailed customer service asking where to buy it and they asked for my address to send it to me for free. I'll be recommending their products now.
nickpeterson 4y ago
My wife recently had some poor customer service ordering some earrings from mejuri.com. She selected rush shipping to try and get it in time for a birthday. They took two days to process the order and shipped it dhl which apparently doesn’t work on saturdays. A tiny box with rush shipping was going to take 6 days. The company has no apparent phone number and the chat support basically inundated her with copy pasted information from their faq when she asked for a refund on the rush shipping. Talk about disappointing your customers.
wintermutestwin 4y ago
In these discussions, I always like to suggest my favorite company as a case study. https://www.fractalaudio.com/ https://www.fractalaudio.com/ They make the highest end guitar audio processing HW and are constantly providing free SW updates that greatly enhance the unit. Their lack of a subscription model for SW flies in the face of current HW/SW product monetization "wisdom." Compare to their competition which maybe pushes out one or two firmware updates over the life of the product that are mostly bug fix. I have bought every main release of their flagship product and will keep doing so even though it is way more than a bedroom player needs. If you are into guitar and a hacker, I recommend checking it out. It is a massive evolution beyond the old school pedalboard and tube amp world (which of course have their old school charms). It has an insane level of depth and most parameters are controllable in real time.
cleanchit 4y ago
Sell heroine.

120 points by O__________O 4y ago

k__ 4y ago

Good points. I fondly remember people DM me on Twitter how they got a job after reading my book. Selling stuff is good, but people telling you that they got more value than they paid for is awesome.

totetsu 4y ago
React from Zero sounds like It could as well be a martial arts book as a programming one.
rozenmd 4y ago
I'm one of them - thanks again!
- k__ 4y ago
  You're welcome! :)
O__________O 4y ago
(Book being) React from Zero: Learn React Using the JavaScript You Already Know - https://www.newline.co/react-from-zero/ https://www.newline.co/react-from-zero/ - https://www.amazon.com/React-Zero-Learn-JavaScript-Already/dp/1796672815 https://www.amazon.com/React-Zero-Learn-JavaScript-Already/d... * No affiliation; book is linked to from OP’s profile.
- k__ 4y ago
  "An okay book" - an Amazon customer Always makes me chuckle.
  - O__________O 4y ago
    To be fair, I was puzzled by rapid positive comments on HN, but lack of significant Amazon comments and/or easily finding significant prior coverage of the book. That said, book did receive prior coverage on HN, so sort of makes since: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17430059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17430059
    - k__ 4y ago
      I'm not a famous author and newline isn't a famous publisher. The book is quite old now and newer React features are missing, so I guess the lack of reviews won't change in the future.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
nicbou 4y ago
Reader mail is probably the favourite part of my job. I now go out of my way to let people know how much I appreciate their work. It feels so good to know that your work had an impact on another person's life.

O__________O 4y ago

While advice is reasonable for a new startup, to me there is a notable gap between “how to earn customers” and “for life” — they even acknowledge that the common pattern is to scale to being a monopoly, then exploit the related leverage over customers. Am I missing something, or is that their advice?

aflag 4y ago
I think you summarised it very well "love your customers until you get what you want"

jwsteigerwalt 4y ago

I love seeing these guys at a slower pace focusing on customers. A bit different than their normal content.

hahamrfunnyguy 4y ago

It's weird that these days, caring about your customers is considered a superpower. It just shows the awful level of service and support that passes as "customer care" these days. I recently bought a hat from Boston Scally Company. It wasn't a super cheap made-in-China $10 hat like you can easily find on Amazon or eBay, I paid $50 for it. When I got the hat, it was covered in threads. Some needed to be cut off. When I emailed the company, their reply was "we're sorry you aren't happy with the quality of the hat, you can just remove the threads and it won't affect the integrity of the hat." That's the wrong response. The correct response is "We're embarrassed the hat shipped to you like that. Would you like us to send you a replacement or do you want to send it back for a refund?" I am certainly not going to buy anything from this company again when they can't acknowledge their screw up. Own your mistakes. In almost all cases it's the right move and you earn the respect of the customer.

dazc 4y ago
I bought a fold up bed from a company in the UK and one of the wooden slats broke so I emailed them to find out where I could buy a replacement. They replied with 'What was the model number?' and 'What is your address?' They sent me a free replacement and a spare in case it happens again (which several years later it hasn't). Such a simple gesture, with no fuss whatsoever, and here I am praising them https://www.jaybe.com/ https://www.jaybe.com/ whenever I get the opportunity. I bought it from a third party retailer so they would have been within their rights to give me the runaround instead.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  I have a similar memorable story from O’Brien water sports. We had a set of kids’ water skis where we’d lost one of the thumbscrew bolts to keep them connected while young kids are learning (100% our fault, 0% theirs). I wrote the company to ask where I could buy a replacement. The agent sent me a mail with a picture asking me to confirm that was the part I was talking about, mailed a replacement strap and two thumbscrews for free, and emailed a few days later to check that it arrived in time for our lake vacation. It made such an impression that O’Brien is my default/check-them-first brand.

zomglings 4y ago

Liked the video but think that’s only because it confirmed my biases. I have seen many companies succeed despite them clearly viewing their users as pawns. In fact, most YC companies that try to sell me things are blatantly transactional and while that has always ruled me out as a customer many of them are doing just fine. Would be better to have hard data rather than empathy porn.

teddyh 4y ago

Since this is advice for startups, the title is slightly inaccurate. It is not so much “for life” as it is for the duration of the honeymoon period; i.e. customer acquisition phase. When the VCs want their payout, it will inevitably change, and customers will notice.

Someone1234 4y ago

Customer retention is an area companies fail at hardest and most often. It makes me wonder what is being taught at business schools. There's nothing wrong with asking exiting customers if there were/are problems that could be addressed. But there absolutely is something wrong with badgering/harassing/tricking or wasting the time of customers leaving, as it will cause reputational damage and worse cause repeat custom to almost disappear. It is just yet another example of how modern US business culture values the Short over Long Term. In the short you see a slightly lower Customer turnover, but in the long term you see a HUGE reduction in returning customers (who remember the exit process from last time). To be clear: A short survey makes it feels like a company gives a crap about why you're leaving, but it needs to be via the same mechanism you used to sign up (e.g. online sign-up? Then online exit), and it shouldn't feel like a way to block the exit. This is particularly problematic if you're forced to call and the person on the other end is on commission. They're more often than not just there to wear you down and make you hate interacting with the company, by its very nature if you do leave you will be unlikely to return since that's the last thing you remember. I've blacklisted multiple businesses for that practice and I often check the cancellation process during sign-up to avoid it.

corobo 4y ago
Urgh, Adobe wound me up so much with that block the exit bullshit I'll go out of my way to tell anyone that needs it how to get out of their cancellation fee haha. Must have cost them a few grand by now in cancel fees never mind bypassed retention. They probably don't care but the person who can now bypass the timewasting and cancel out for free does. Posting it on HN would probably get someone to fix it. It's not a hack or anything illegal, lurking Adobe lawyer, put your headed paper away.
- hirako2000 4y ago
  They don't care, it won't matter, and sadly just works better than not employing the practice. It's particularly sad given for certain co such as Adobe it's kind of hard to not go with it. E.g their file format is part of existing bits in the pipeline. They know, and it's been their strategy for decades now.

middleman90 4y ago

People like to talk to the founder of companies It's not working for me. I own a mobile app (B2C) with paying users and this is the hardest part: Talking to users. I'm literally offering money to my users to talk to them but nobody wants to. What am I doing wrong?

dzink 4y ago
The pain point your problem is solving is not big enough. It’s a vitamin. If there was a problem with their painkiller or they didn’t have alternatives they would be hammering on your door. (note, I have no idea what your product or company does)
- middleman90 4y ago
  I'm afraid this could be the reason... But it's quite odd that people are willing to pay for the service I offer, but not to talk to me
  - aflag 4y ago
    Why do you expect them to? Did they have a bad experience for some reason? I personally avoid talking to customer's service as much as I can. I'm more likely to give up on a product or switch to alternatives than say anything. There are a very few exceptions to this. I suspect many other people are like me.
    - middleman90 4y ago
      I did expect them to talk because I read, and also listened in this video, that users are thrilled to talk with the founders of the product they use. I can understand what you say about unhappy users, they are the hardest to establish a conversation with, in fact, I had yet no luck with them. I also try to contact my most engaged and paying users, very little luck there. So, either everyone is laying (very unlikely), or I'm doing something wrong.
      - 4y ago

TexanFeller 4y ago

I bought a large Jackery battery generator a year or two ago and was having trouble finding anywhere to buy a second charger for it including their website. I emailed customer service asking where to buy it and they asked for my address to send it to me for free. I'll be recommending their products now.

nickpeterson 4y ago

My wife recently had some poor customer service ordering some earrings from mejuri.com. She selected rush shipping to try and get it in time for a birthday. They took two days to process the order and shipped it dhl which apparently doesn’t work on saturdays. A tiny box with rush shipping was going to take 6 days. The company has no apparent phone number and the chat support basically inundated her with copy pasted information from their faq when she asked for a refund on the rush shipping. Talk about disappointing your customers.

wintermutestwin 4y ago

In these discussions, I always like to suggest my favorite company as a case study. https://www.fractalaudio.com/ https://www.fractalaudio.com/ They make the highest end guitar audio processing HW and are constantly providing free SW updates that greatly enhance the unit. Their lack of a subscription model for SW flies in the face of current HW/SW product monetization "wisdom." Compare to their competition which maybe pushes out one or two firmware updates over the life of the product that are mostly bug fix. I have bought every main release of their flagship product and will keep doing so even though it is way more than a bedroom player needs. If you are into guitar and a hacker, I recommend checking it out. It is a massive evolution beyond the old school pedalboard and tube amp world (which of course have their old school charms). It has an insane level of depth and most parameters are controllable in real time.

cleanchit 4y ago

Sell heroine.