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While you're looking into this, you really need to jump on your cofounder Jason, who is currently making a complete ass of himself (and WPEngine) with bullshit

While you're looking into this, you really need to jump on your cofounder Jason, who is currently making a complete ass of himself (and WPEngine) with bullshit like this: https://twitter.com/asmartbear/status/261103840231825409 https://twitter.com/asmartbear/status/261103840231825409 https://twitter.com/asmartbear/status/261103530855784448 https://twitter.com/asmartbear/status/261103530855784448 Ben, I really appreciate you taking the time to post this here and demonstrate that you take this seriously, but your cofounder is currently publicly ridiculing customers who have paid good money and been dissatisfied with your service. As a current customer of WPEngine (who has had issues), nothing makes me want to bail on you guys as much as those two tweets. From the CEO. Completely disgusting. EDIT: This is more what I expected to see from Jason, though even this has a weird tone: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4086553 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4086553

neilwillgettoit 14y ago
Customer service 101: don't publicly shame a negative review. It only helps your ego, not your business.
thejosh 14y ago
What makes someone think "Hey, our service is blowing up on HN today, I'm going to post of public tweets bad mouthing this guy"?
grey-area 14y ago
I don't see what you think is disgusting about these tweets, they express a personal opinion, here they are in case they are deleted: @billmcneely yup, there's always someone bitter and hateful. Sometimes they even have a point, but choose to make it in a destructive way. @P_Doubleya @gozmike thanks guys. That's also why I ignore HN. There's always haters. That's not ridiculing customers, and it's not disgusting or disrespectful, it's just saying that there will always be people critical of your service (not even necessarily customers), particularly when an online mob forms as in this case, furnished with a one-sided story of how things went wrong. Of course you may disagree with the tone, or the content, but disgusting is a little strong isn't it? Can we dial down the hyperbole a little?
- ryanwaggoner 14y ago
  No, he's basically brushing the OP and everyone in this thread off as being hatful and bitter, and not really worth interacting with. It's incredibly dismissive, especially since multiple people in this thread (myself included) have mentioned that they've had issues and are or were paying customers. I'll grant you that "ridiculing" is probably not the right word...maybe dismissive or condescending would have been more accurate. And yes, I do find it disgusting that he's publicly behaving this way towards a customer.
  - grey-area 14y ago
    I'm not convinced a public forum is the best place for customer support - witness Ben's very reasonable statement above which is still accruing negative responses, in spite of going well beyond the call of duty in refunding money paid to a completely different service. It's quite hard to interact with a crowd baying for blood - emotions run high, and people tend to pick sides and pick holes in any argument. One response to that is to ignore the crowd and try to deal with the particular customers - that's what I take the tweets to mean. It's fair to criticise those tweets and I don't feel they are appropriate really, but I don't think they should be classified as disgusting - misguided and inappropriate at this particular time, perhaps, but not disgusting. Isn't it better to deal with situations like this without escalating emotions further and degenerating into both sides insulting each other?
    - jacques_chester 14y ago
      OK. This I can't be reasonable about. The completely different service refund wouldn't be necessary if the not different service had been up to expectation in the first instance. I feel absolutely justified in being refunded that amount by WPEngine.
    - ryanwaggoner 14y ago
      He spent weeks trying to get help from them, to no avail. It's more than reasonable for him to post a negative review at this point, explaining the situation, taking blame where he should, and warning others to think twice. All I want to see from the CEO in a situation like this is: "I'm sorry. We fucked up. Here's how we'll make it right, and here's how we'll make sure it doesn't happen again." And if you genuinely can't say that because you don't think the customer is right and you're not willing to do anything for them, just keep your mouth shut.
davesims 14y ago
"Completely disgusting" is taking it a bit far, but it's certainly puzzling, as is the irrational potshot at HN -- a hub of potential customers! "Disgusting"? No. "Bizarre", especially for the man behind A Smart Bear?? Yes.
eranation 14y ago
Let's give the man the benefit of the doubt, he is obviously sorry about this and said it was "an unfortunate mistake where I didn't know what I was responding too" (see links), let's not crucify someone on a field trial, none of us want to be in his shoes. I'm neither justifying nor criticizing what he said, just let's be careful not to burn someone or something based on one mistake that we all can one day find repeating. His clarification tweets: https://twitter.com/asmartbear/status/261189038696960002 https://twitter.com/asmartbear/status/261189038696960002 https://twitter.com/asmartbear/status/261188913991913472 https://twitter.com/asmartbear/status/261188913991913472 I'm sure he'll be more careful on public tweets next time, but I think jumping to conclusions on his company etc is going too far. He made a mistake, obviously seems he learned from it, and we all learned a nice little lesson in customer service, public relations and social web dynamics.

neilwillgettoit 14y ago

Customer service 101: don't publicly shame a negative review. It only helps your ego, not your business.

thejosh 14y ago

What makes someone think "Hey, our service is blowing up on HN today, I'm going to post of public tweets bad mouthing this guy"?

grey-area 14y ago

I don't see what you think is disgusting about these tweets, they express a personal opinion, here they are in case they are deleted: @billmcneely yup, there's always someone bitter and hateful. Sometimes they even have a point, but choose to make it in a destructive way. @P_Doubleya @gozmike thanks guys. That's also why I ignore HN. There's always haters. That's not ridiculing customers, and it's not disgusting or disrespectful, it's just saying that there will always be people critical of your service (not even necessarily customers), particularly when an online mob forms as in this case, furnished with a one-sided story of how things went wrong. Of course you may disagree with the tone, or the content, but disgusting is a little strong isn't it? Can we dial down the hyperbole a little?

ryanwaggoner 14y ago
No, he's basically brushing the OP and everyone in this thread off as being hatful and bitter, and not really worth interacting with. It's incredibly dismissive, especially since multiple people in this thread (myself included) have mentioned that they've had issues and are or were paying customers. I'll grant you that "ridiculing" is probably not the right word...maybe dismissive or condescending would have been more accurate. And yes, I do find it disgusting that he's publicly behaving this way towards a customer.
- grey-area 14y ago
  I'm not convinced a public forum is the best place for customer support - witness Ben's very reasonable statement above which is still accruing negative responses, in spite of going well beyond the call of duty in refunding money paid to a completely different service. It's quite hard to interact with a crowd baying for blood - emotions run high, and people tend to pick sides and pick holes in any argument. One response to that is to ignore the crowd and try to deal with the particular customers - that's what I take the tweets to mean. It's fair to criticise those tweets and I don't feel they are appropriate really, but I don't think they should be classified as disgusting - misguided and inappropriate at this particular time, perhaps, but not disgusting. Isn't it better to deal with situations like this without escalating emotions further and degenerating into both sides insulting each other?
  - jacques_chester 14y ago
    OK. This I can't be reasonable about. The completely different service refund wouldn't be necessary if the not different service had been up to expectation in the first instance. I feel absolutely justified in being refunded that amount by WPEngine.
  - ryanwaggoner 14y ago
    He spent weeks trying to get help from them, to no avail. It's more than reasonable for him to post a negative review at this point, explaining the situation, taking blame where he should, and warning others to think twice. All I want to see from the CEO in a situation like this is: "I'm sorry. We fucked up. Here's how we'll make it right, and here's how we'll make sure it doesn't happen again." And if you genuinely can't say that because you don't think the customer is right and you're not willing to do anything for them, just keep your mouth shut.

davesims 14y ago

"Completely disgusting" is taking it a bit far, but it's certainly puzzling, as is the irrational potshot at HN -- a hub of potential customers! "Disgusting"? No. "Bizarre", especially for the man behind A Smart Bear?? Yes.

eranation 14y ago

Let's give the man the benefit of the doubt, he is obviously sorry about this and said it was "an unfortunate mistake where I didn't know what I was responding too" (see links), let's not crucify someone on a field trial, none of us want to be in his shoes. I'm neither justifying nor criticizing what he said, just let's be careful not to burn someone or something based on one mistake that we all can one day find repeating. His clarification tweets: https://twitter.com/asmartbear/status/261189038696960002 https://twitter.com/asmartbear/status/261189038696960002 https://twitter.com/asmartbear/status/261188913991913472 https://twitter.com/asmartbear/status/261188913991913472 I'm sure he'll be more careful on public tweets next time, but I think jumping to conclusions on his company etc is going too far. He made a mistake, obviously seems he learned from it, and we all learned a nice little lesson in customer service, public relations and social web dynamics.