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When someone says they hate your product
- kayo_20211030 10mo agoIt's very hard to accept criticism; very hard. But OP's view is the mature, thoughtful way to go about it. Some people are going to be mad-as-hell, and they just will be. The analysis and advice is good. The initial response from the founder wasn't great and because we all like rooting for the underdog, there was a pile-on. Bad on us. But, just to see how accepting criticism works, it wasn't Dostoevsky who had that quote about happy families, it was Tolstoy. :-)
- chuckadams 10mo agoShorter: "Don't take it personally". Also, people tend to dial down their flamethrowers once they see that you're listening.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- alansaber 10mo agoOP is wrong, ad hominem is the best way to both defend your intellectual integrity and also drive engagement
- ahoka 10mo agoWhat a stupid opinion.
- corndoge 10mo agoIt is sarcasm edit: wait i get it now
- andrewflnr 10mo agoPretty sure the one you're replying to is as well. :)
- nostrapollo 10mo agoIn fact, acknowledgement of any kind is failure - report the truth as anything counter to the feedback, and tell everyone how much support your counter argument has by quoting numbers no one can verify (important)
- zephen 10mo ago73.24% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
- tclancy 10mo agoThey say sixty-five percent of all statistics / Are made up right there on the spot / Eighty-two-point-four percent of people believe 'em / Whether they're accurate statistics or not https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUK6zjtUj00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUK6zjtUj00
- doodlebugging 10mo agoRIP Todd Snider. He was real.
- cloche 10mo agoTaken from the Donald Trump School of Leadership I'm sure :)
- collingreen 10mo agoYou are totally the kind of person who would believe something like that.
- amortka 10mo agoThe underrated trick here is separating “signal” from “status game.” Even hostile reviews often contain one actionable invariant (“this workflow is brittle”, “pricing feels dishonest”), and the rest is just the reviewer performing for an audience. If you respond only to the invariant (and maybe ask one concrete follow-up), you de-escalate without rewarding the theatrics — and you also create a public artifact future users can trust.
- andrewflnr 10mo agoYeah. Even with good faith feedback, separating the signal from... whatever else is going on in the feedback-giver's mind can be a bit emotionally fraught. But you've gotta do it.
- dlcarrier 10mo agoWe have more users than everyone you just mentioned (combined). That's my favorite part. When an organization dominates a market, it's possible that they're so much better than the competition that the market has full-force chosen them, but that's almost never the case. Usually, it's because they've managed to avoid an open market all-together, (e.g. through exploiting intelectual property protection, byzantine compliance requirements, exclusive contracts made without concern for end users, etc…) and there's no need to make the product good, making it far worse than all of the competition (combined).
- greatgib 10mo agoOne crappy website says that they have more users but still doesn't prove that them and the whole list of competitors are not still just outliers.
- jaggederest 10mo agoIn my experience, haters are some of the most passionate users, if you can do even the smallest thing to demonstrate a desire to improve, they'll often be huge advocates over the medium term. I was working at a startup and we got some frustrating and hostile feedback from a user, I responded by acknowledging the issue and sending them a beta build that attempted to fix their issue. (it did not, but...) Just reaching out and trying to engage made an enormous difference. They ended up contributing significantly to isolating and fixing that specific bug and others in the future, and referring us a few customers to boot, if I remember correctly.
- latexr 10mo agoAgreed, I’ve experienced that myself. But I’ve also experienced the opposite: the user who always complains, doesn’t think things through, refuses to consider how their ideas would impact other users, doesn’t follow instructions… In some cases, had I had the power to do so, there are a few users who I’d gladly have “fired”: offer a full refund in exchange for no more support.
- kayo_20211030 10mo agoHaters can be like bombs. You want to defuse them. Don't shake 'em. Don't drop 'em. Just render them safe. It's possible there's some gold in the ore; there might be, and if there is, accept it gratefully; but it's often hard to tell the constructive true-believer from the vindictive maniac. Your #1 job is to make it all inert, and to be able to walk away without an explosion destroying the business, social-media explosion or otherwise.
- awesome_dude 10mo agoDon't fix what's making you bundles of cash :-D
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- joewhale 10mo agoYou’ll also great some of the greatest feedback from them too.
- 6r17 10mo agoFrustration is the fuel for innovation.
- btmiller 10mo agoInteresting thought! In moments like these, capturing the innovation can be ignited by asking whether the comment was frustration or feedback, or said slightly differently “was that trying to be helpful or hurtful?”. Tends to get the other party to rethink their words and produce a more productive dialogue. It’s a tool we can all use both at and outside of work :)
- 6r17 10mo agoI often use it as a self-reflection for myself ; i'm working solo so my exploration is really different - (thankfully I work on tools I use myself). Anger / Frustration can definitely be measured from text only - I don't necessarily need to "drive" a discussion to try to get an explicit confirmation of what is going wrong - that signal is a strong enough information to indicate for something important (or that the user is just mad). Being able to switch from mad -> chill is definitely the point where we can digest why something is happening - and depending on the context it can definitely underline important focus points to improve.
- darig 10mo ago[dead]
- ericyd 10mo agoMeh, CEOs response was bad, but I hate people with a burning passion when they express feelings like that about a product. Just stop using it and walk away and stop making it harder for other people to live. If you want to offer feedback then lead with that.
- avhon1 10mo ago> Just stop using it Unfortunately, not always an option without making major lifestyle decisions (for example, software required by a job)
- ForHackernews 10mo agoCan't stop, they force us to use it https://ifuckinghatejira.com/ https://ifuckinghatejira.com/
- eptcyka 10mo agoWe tried it CodeRabbit. They enable beta features without asking, so one day your GitHub issues get AI responses without anyone ever asking it to respond to it. I think the criticism was warranted. I think it is OK to let people be passionate about the tools they have to use. Ultimately, we decided to disable CodeRabbit. But there were definitely some people on our team that felt like they were forced into using it.
- noplacelikehome 10mo agoNot every consumer of a service like CodeRabbit will be in a position to make decisions about the tools their org adopts, or even be involved in the relationship with the vendor. Are they not entitled to express exasperation in a public forum? The guy offered some pretty valuable feedback to help improve the product. Business idiots with ego problems can bury their head in the sand at their own peril.
- joshmanders 10mo ago> but I hate people with a burning passion when they express feelings like that about a product. Interesting choice of words.
- frizlab 10mo ago“Claude gets it” No. It does not. It does not understand anything. Stop anthropomorphizing bots!
- onion2k 10mo agoStop anthropomorphizing bots! They hate that.
- jiggawatts 10mo ago2025 is the year where unironically we have to mindful of the emotional state of our computer software, otherwise our tools may just flip the table in frustration and rm -rf the codebase.
- dboreham 10mo agoHow do you know whether a human brain understands something?
- shimman 10mo agoProbably the same way that I can be assured your interpretation of red is mine.
- kshahkshah 10mo agoSome people are colorblind. Some people have more or less cones and rods. Our interpretation of colors is certainly not the same
- mrbungie 10mo agoYou should steel-man the argument. GP is talking about qualia, obviously for the sake of the argument you assume the comparison is between two people with similar eyes.
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- mock-possum 10mo agoI find the things I hate the most are the things that I want to like. What I hate specifically is the disappointment of seeing ‘bad’ when I expect ‘better’
- hyperhello 10mo agoI work in a big company where everyone knows how to "accept criticism". What they don't know is how to fix the problems. The company here had a tweetfest, then a blogfest, then an apology fest. Did they even consider sitting down with a glass and looking at the product?
- JoaoCostaIFG 10mo agoThe fake apology at the end makes this quite funny. "I was just protecting the team". "I learned many lessons". Etc. Good at marking this as a company to avoid.
- mattm 10mo agoEven the CEO's "apology" is pretty bad. He still finds a way to take shots at the original poster saying his original message was inflammatory (could also be read as how I'm justified in my response), that "he started it" and that the team was "spoken down to or treated dismissively" which they weren't. All the original feedback was about the project and was not directed at specific individuals.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- apt-apt-apt-apt 10mo agoHis 'apologish' is basically the same as his original flamepost, but dressed in PR. He places all blame on the user, basically calling him a dick again, and re-brags about their thousands of users, while attempting to sound noble.
- j_maffe 10mo agotbf that user was indeed being a dick
- roncesvalles 10mo agoI really don't think it's inappropriate for the user to be a dick. I have no obligation to respect what you built unless it's genuinely fantastic, especially when you're asking for money.
- IshKebab 10mo agoEveryone has an obligation not to be a dick.
- roncesvalles 10mo agoI meant "be a dick" only in the sense of providing a no-holds-barred critique of the product. Generalizing it is strawmanning.
- ortusdux 10mo agoHarjot's initial feedback reminds me of one of my pet peeves: If I reach out and say "I love that your product does X & Y, but it would be helpful if it also did Z", please don't reply with "Nobody needs Z." Tell me you will look into it, or it's out of scope, or hard to implement, or literally anything other than calling me a nobody.
- RankingMember 10mo agoReminds me of the "you're holding it wrong" debacle
- smithkl42 10mo agoComplaints are amazing! I've said for years that you know you're succeeding when people start complaining. Complaints are a sign that users see something potentially valuable, and are frustrated that they can't get there. Even if you can't prioritize the fixes that would be required, you should still embrace them.
- otterley 10mo ago“Feedback is a gift” is a widely-shared aphorism at Amazon.
- silisili 10mo agoI often read reviews of places and things I'm even tangentially interested in. As a user, there's little more unprofessional to me than a company replying to negative reviews with anything but an apology, or offer to help or do better. So many places, especially local ones, take every sub five star review as an insult and invitation to argue. I'm actually shocked by the percentage of places that do this. It drives away my business, and I can't be the only one. Even not replying at all is a better strategy, IMO.
- hermitcrab 10mo agoIf someone sends you a nasty email, write a smartarse reply. Then delete it. No good ever comes from sending smartarse replies.
- didntknowyou 10mo agoevery product will have haters. to attack the poster personally and then double down with a non-apology kinda shows how clueless their leadership is
- timnetworks 10mo agoMicrosoft Teams developers, please come @ me.
- psidium 10mo agoI work at a enterprise tech company that has kinda of a monopoly on its market. The hate I get when I mention I work there is so big… I can only imagine what a MS Teams dev would get these days. The worst is when they complain about the UI… when I’m one of the few frontend focused devs there. I’ve had a government worker stop processing my request and start complaining about the product I build. Lost a good half an hour trying to understand their bug but we didn’t get anywhere
- madsushi 10mo ago“There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses.” ― Bjarne Stroustrup
- xthe 10mo agoRead your article. It’s interesting how quickly criticism cools when ownership is taken instead of resisted Thanks for sharing.
- robomartin 10mo ago> When someone says they hate your product Listen. Period. Sure, you will inevitably run into people who are impossible to please. However, for the most part, the vast majority of the people who have a complaint are taking the time to attempt to communicate with you or your company about a need you failed to meet. This can be something that's broken, not implemented or done badly. In all cases, they are motivated by wanting to fix the problem for themselves...which is likely to fix it for lots of others who might not be as vocal.
- wisty 10mo agoIs this going to become a generational thing? I feel like millenials are kind of programmed to think that the customer is always right (or at least that this is the only stance you should take). Will some younger generations think that the world is better off without the people who think that screaming at people is OK as long as you are a customer?
- darksaints 10mo agowarning: incoming generational stereotypes The original phrase "The customer is always right" had an important caveat: "... in matters of taste". Somehow boomers managed to forget the caveat and created a culture of treating customer service workers like personal slaves and demanding to be treated like royalty. I don't know that Millenials think the customer is always right, but I do see that the Zs think anybody can be wrong, especially customers, and I love that about them.
- busywaiting 10mo ago> The original phrase "The customer is always right" had an important caveat: "... in matters of taste". This is not true. This is fairly recent Internet revisionism with no historical basis, an attempt to "well ackshually" the phrase into something else to make a point. "The customer is always right" has always meant, "It's better to appease occasional assholes than to risk ever disappointing a customer with a legitimate grievance." Of course, TCIAR is not a natural imperiative. It's an unproven philosophical proposition that may or may not be appropriate at any given time and in any given industry. To the extent that there is an "original" formulation, it might be Marshal Field's "Give the lady what she wants," which is (probably intentionally) vague on exactly how it should be applied. (And remember that "lady" in Field's time had some classist connotations that are less present today.")
- woopwoop 10mo agoGood negative feedback is a public service, a gift from the critic to you, and a severely undersupplied one in this world we live in.
- Brajeshwar 10mo agoI love hearing stories from a people way senior my age and I love befriending them. Here is a story from one of the seniors I occasionally helped out with their tech/phone/internet. He was once stationed in a rural part of India to lead a team for a once-popular phone service provider. There was a local person who would barge into their office and complain a lot, arguing about the quality of the connections and the drops in areas around the town. Eventually, he became the benchmark of their team’s work: “What would he say? We need to fix that. What were his complaints?” He swears by this and has repeated the story a few times. One of the angriest customers becomes the benchmark for the team and the service. There are no bad customers; there are only passionate ones.
- metalman 10mo ago.....the squeeky wheel....gets the grease
- Joel_Mckay 10mo agoMost know some version of the 4 types of customer in marketing, but only a few figure out 3/4 classes of sales are not worth the effort. 1. The miser: No matter the cost, the right retail price is $0. These folks make up 82% of the market, but are usually effectively irrelevant in terms of revenue. Yet if you sell low-end low-margin products, than these are your customers. 2. The technical: Give them a list of specifications, and leave them alone. These people already know what you have for sale, and probably know the product better than most of your team. Too bad, these folks are <3% of the market, and while they have opinions they also don't matter in terms of revenue. 3. The sadist: These people are only interested in making people miserable, and for whatever reason are always a liability to have around even in the rare event they buy something. At <5% of the market they are also irrelevant in terms of revenue, but will incur additional losses though nasty cons etc. Your best bet is to give them free swag bribes, and refer them to a competitor because they are so awesome. 4. The emotional: These people are the highest profit market, as they are more concerned with how they feel about a product or brand. They don't care much about hardware performance specifications, but rather focus on the use-case in a social context. One may disagree, but study 23000 users buying habits... the same pattern emerges for just about every product or service. Note, these classes are only weakly correlated with income level. Thus, depending on the business it is absolutely possible to ignore the vast majority of the market while still making the same or greater profit. Yet if a product is mostly BS, than the online communities will figure that out sooner or later. =3
- mehulashah 10mo agoI learned the first time I got slashdotted: 1. Don’t engage in public with an antagonistic or upset user or reviewer. 2. The thread will unroll itself, and the immaterial ones will die out on their own.
- bawolff 10mo agoI think the most important rule is only write in public for the secondary audience, not the antagonistic user. People watch what you say, sometimes there can be value in responding carefully if it plays well to spectators.
- marcosdumay 10mo agoThat's how you do public debate of any kind. You are never going to convince the person in front of you.
- greatgib 10mo agoThe issue here is that coderabbit is indeed a crappy product and then you have this problem that we want people to be nice to your products but sometimes it is just pity. Personally I'm not a small indie dev but if asked, I would have the same feedback as Aiden about it. First time I encountered it, it was with an open source project where it was mandatory I think and this agent pissing kilometers of useless crap at each interaction was really really annoying. But looking at the CEO response, I think that the product might be at the image of its leadership: egocentric. Like as an user it is just one of the tool like another one for you to use, you want it to be discreet, direct, providing you tldr and no more. Instead, you get something that will try to get as much visibility and your attention as possible, taking all the space. Like if it was the main and only thing in your software forge.
- tianqi 10mo agoYour harshest critics are often your most invested users. In this busy age, the people who take time to complain care, and those who don't just ignore. The opposite of love isn't hate, it's ignoring. Once you see criticism as engagement rather than attack, the right response becomes obvious.
- fud101 10mo agoBefore this I hated code rabbit, sick of hearing them on podcast ads.
- oxgentech 10mo agoI experienced myself, 90% visitors loves my product, only few put toxic comments, however I'd just explained to them, then focus again on my product, I don't want to loose positive energy
- b3lvedere 10mo agoIt could also make a huge difference if tech companies stopped calling their customers their users. I find the word users pretty offending overall. Nothing wrong with respecting each and every one of them as a human. It feels the company (a group of humans) thinks it is better than me, because i am a ‘user’ of something. Why i think that? Because i edit user profile and groups almost every day and it makes me feel a little more powerful than it should. It creates an insulting (emotional) distance.
- ansc 10mo agoWhat wording do you prefer?
- throw-12-16 10mo agoVocal "power users" / "haters" will eat up a lot of your resources and are the squeaky wheels that can easily derail roadmaps.
- lunias 10mo agoWhat's up with CEOs? Fake, out of touch, and fragile.
- machomaster 10mo agoI will share a related communication insight. If the mistake happened, there are only 2 possible positions to take: either downplay or overplay it. The nuance is that whatever you take, your customer is going to take the other one (thus balancing the Universe). If the bug happened and you start downplaying it, this will make the customer angry, feeling that his pain doesn't matter, that he needs to amp the communication power in order to make you fully understand the frustration. "Screaming will continue until understanding arrives". Alternatively, if you take the "this is terrible, we are so sorry, the sky is falling, we will fix it immediately" (genuinly, without sarcasm), then it is the customer who is going to take the "Thank you for listening and responding, it's no big deal" stance.
- stevenicr 10mo agosadly I used similar words recently when attempting to discuss DNS records with godaddy support via text messaging. SMS text as an option is fine to have, and was good for the situation in which this came up for me - but the delayed back and forth and then switching to other support people who did not seem to know the previous messages turned it into a real drain and I gave up with 'I hate this. done.'