Definitely! Case in point, I reported a bug in the iOS ePub reader I was using (crashing on the iOS beta I was running), and the developer responded to say they

Definitely! Case in point, I reported a bug in the iOS ePub reader I was using (crashing on the iOS beta I was running), and the developer responded to say they were working on it. Contrast that with the little bugs I’ve reported to Apple; they’ve not been fixed, and I don’t know if they ever will be. It’s disheartening and has undermined my trust in my phone’s OS and the company behind it. What I know from years of dealing with customers is that listening to their problems and acknowledging them, even if you can’t fix anything, works wonders (1). I once talked with a man who’d been utterly let down by our phone system as he waited outside to get his groceries: we’d told him he could come in early as we had his order done, but the system didn’t know that. When I went outside he was super frustrated, and rightly so. I heard him out and acknowledged that we’d dropped the ball, then asked him if he still wanted his groceries. It’s amazing how just being willing to listen can turn a situation from one where no one is happy to one that you can laugh about together (at how stupid software can be!). 1: part of listening and acknowledging is becoming the customer’s advocate and elevating as needed; this was something I did. Sometimes the answer was still “we can’t help”, but seeing that you did your best might be all they need.