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We've been overdue on something like this, but a public notice would have left us moving to a competitor. It's easy for it to happen if a colleague is away for

We've been overdue on something like this, but a public notice would have left us moving to a competitor. It's easy for it to happen if a colleague is away for a month, or has left, and the bill isn't being seen by anyone. Do you read (do you even receive?) out-of-office replies to your invoices? Of course it shouldn't be on an individual's email, but with annual billing it's easy to overlook.

hahn-kev 2y ago
IMO if I lose someone's business because they can't pay the bill... Good? Right?
- msh 2y ago
  Is this a case of can’t pay? It sounds more like a error. So you would loose out on future revenue.
  - McDyver 2y ago
    You'd lose out on headaches from your customer not paying and having to waste resources following up on it. If they can pay, then just pay for the service they got. Seems pretty straightforward.
    - plufz 2y ago
      Yeah, but you also lose all the income from that customer to save a few bucks for sending an extra invoice…? The customers who pay a little late have never been a noticeable cost for us. The ones that contact support for every little thing or those that have a million strange feature requests on the other hand.
      - krisoft 2y ago
        > lose all the income from that customer to save a few bucks for sending an extra invoice…? Maybe they sent all the extra invoices? It sounds like you are assuming discontinuing the service was the first and only thing they tried.
  - Pooge 2y ago
    Once they figure it out, they can come back as a paying customer. :) It's not the provider's responsibility to help their customer get their sh#t together.
    - jl6 2y ago
      This is a fine attitude to have if your problem is that you have too many customers.
      - Pooge 2y ago
        The opposite is not a fine attitude to have especially if you have too few customers. Once they know that they can ignore payments by using that kind of excuse, something very bad will happen to your subscription revenue.
  - luckylion 2y ago
    You typically get multiple reminders. If that's "an error", then that's an error that will happen again and again and again. That's a problematic customer you don't want unless you're otherwise broke or want to keep them for other reasons (e.g. publicity).
    - Symbiote 2y ago
      Multiple reminders to the same person isn't much use if he's in hospital, and you're ignoring the out-of-office replies. The time this happened to us, I was pleased the company looked at our website and phoned the receptionist. We paid the bill within an hour, and moved the responsibility to the finance and IT teams. Maybe there are too many customers who just ignore bills for services they no longer want to use, I don't know, but given these companies usually have a sales team it would seem worth the time to make a call or write a personal email to an existing customer to maintain their custom.
      - noAnswer 2y ago
        I know of a company that missed its yearly Microsoft Exchange Online payment. After four month Microsoft cut of their email. Which one could argue is also a "public notice" because emails bounced. (That did the trick and the company paid immediately.) You are telling me: 1. Microsoft should have tried to find a different way to contact and reach out. 2. That you would have moved your eMail/Groupware to someone else because of that. To each their own.
        Symbiote 2y ago
        A sales person from Microsoft emails us every 3-6 months or so trying to upsell us on a more expensive 365 subscription. I think their time would be well spent contacting a customer who hasn't paid. Blocking sending email would also be a more reasonable step before blocking receiving email. And yes, I'd consider moving.
    - dmurray 2y ago
      Or if your marginal cost is small (eg, if your primary product is software) so a slow or delinquent payer doesn't actually cost you anything.
  - JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y ago
    > It sounds more like a error It seems like Mozilla has made quite a lot of errors in the past few years.
jbirer 2y ago
Bad e-mail management is not a responsibility on my part, and a disorganized client moving to another company is not really a threat either.
latexr 2y ago
You’re making assumptions with details we don’t have. For all we know Mozilla is eight months behind on payment and this happens regularly. In your scenario, the hosting company’s reaction seems extreme. In mine, it seems mild. The truth is we just don’t know and should refrain from bold defences until more details are in.
tbrownaw 2y ago
> It's easy for it to happen if a colleague is away for a month, or has left, and the bill isn't being seen by anyone. Why TF would important things like that go to a single person's individual mailbox? Take a couple hours to set up a canned ticketing / helpdesk thing or something, and have bills and other vendor alerts go to that email alias.
- Symbiote 2y ago
  Because the companies make it easy to sign up with an individual's address, and that's often fine to test out the service. Some then make it difficult to use a more appropriate address. It's not ideal, but there's a huge amount of IT that doesn't follow the official policies — like all the teams using AWS rather than going through their official procurement procedure.

hahn-kev 2y ago

IMO if I lose someone's business because they can't pay the bill... Good? Right?

msh 2y ago
Is this a case of can’t pay? It sounds more like a error. So you would loose out on future revenue.
- McDyver 2y ago
  You'd lose out on headaches from your customer not paying and having to waste resources following up on it. If they can pay, then just pay for the service they got. Seems pretty straightforward.
  - plufz 2y ago
    Yeah, but you also lose all the income from that customer to save a few bucks for sending an extra invoice…? The customers who pay a little late have never been a noticeable cost for us. The ones that contact support for every little thing or those that have a million strange feature requests on the other hand.
    - krisoft 2y ago
      > lose all the income from that customer to save a few bucks for sending an extra invoice…? Maybe they sent all the extra invoices? It sounds like you are assuming discontinuing the service was the first and only thing they tried.
- Pooge 2y ago
  Once they figure it out, they can come back as a paying customer. :) It's not the provider's responsibility to help their customer get their sh#t together.
  - jl6 2y ago
    This is a fine attitude to have if your problem is that you have too many customers.
    - Pooge 2y ago
      The opposite is not a fine attitude to have especially if you have too few customers. Once they know that they can ignore payments by using that kind of excuse, something very bad will happen to your subscription revenue.
- luckylion 2y ago
  You typically get multiple reminders. If that's "an error", then that's an error that will happen again and again and again. That's a problematic customer you don't want unless you're otherwise broke or want to keep them for other reasons (e.g. publicity).
  - Symbiote 2y ago
    Multiple reminders to the same person isn't much use if he's in hospital, and you're ignoring the out-of-office replies. The time this happened to us, I was pleased the company looked at our website and phoned the receptionist. We paid the bill within an hour, and moved the responsibility to the finance and IT teams. Maybe there are too many customers who just ignore bills for services they no longer want to use, I don't know, but given these companies usually have a sales team it would seem worth the time to make a call or write a personal email to an existing customer to maintain their custom.
    - noAnswer 2y ago
      I know of a company that missed its yearly Microsoft Exchange Online payment. After four month Microsoft cut of their email. Which one could argue is also a "public notice" because emails bounced. (That did the trick and the company paid immediately.) You are telling me: 1. Microsoft should have tried to find a different way to contact and reach out. 2. That you would have moved your eMail/Groupware to someone else because of that. To each their own.
      - Symbiote 2y ago
        A sales person from Microsoft emails us every 3-6 months or so trying to upsell us on a more expensive 365 subscription. I think their time would be well spent contacting a customer who hasn't paid. Blocking sending email would also be a more reasonable step before blocking receiving email. And yes, I'd consider moving.
  - dmurray 2y ago
    Or if your marginal cost is small (eg, if your primary product is software) so a slow or delinquent payer doesn't actually cost you anything.
- JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y ago
  > It sounds more like a error It seems like Mozilla has made quite a lot of errors in the past few years.

jbirer 2y ago

Bad e-mail management is not a responsibility on my part, and a disorganized client moving to another company is not really a threat either.

latexr 2y ago

You’re making assumptions with details we don’t have. For all we know Mozilla is eight months behind on payment and this happens regularly. In your scenario, the hosting company’s reaction seems extreme. In mine, it seems mild. The truth is we just don’t know and should refrain from bold defences until more details are in.

tbrownaw 2y ago

> It's easy for it to happen if a colleague is away for a month, or has left, and the bill isn't being seen by anyone. Why TF would important things like that go to a single person's individual mailbox? Take a couple hours to set up a canned ticketing / helpdesk thing or something, and have bills and other vendor alerts go to that email alias.

Symbiote 2y ago
Because the companies make it easy to sign up with an individual's address, and that's often fine to test out the service. Some then make it difficult to use a more appropriate address. It's not ideal, but there's a huge amount of IT that doesn't follow the official policies — like all the teams using AWS rather than going through their official procurement procedure.