17 ms·

Why I Won’t Be Using BetaPunch for User Testing

359 points by dmor 14y ago

kt9 14y ago
Rule number 1 of business: No matter what, regardless of who is right or wrong, never, ever antagonize or nurture a conflict with anyone. Especially not a potential customer. If you can't get someone onboard as a customer, work on figuring out why and building a relationship so maybe you can get them onboard later. Edit: Also wanted to add that if someone uses your beta product you should be thanking them for taking the time to try out your new product (and hopefully giving you feedback) rather than expecting them to thank you.
- eranation 14y ago
  Yep, not just of business, my rule for any personal conduct.
- aneth4 14y ago
  That is rule number 1 of business like "be nice" is rule number 1 of dating. Many great personal brands and businesses are launched and made with antagonism. Steve Jobs, Donald Trump, Richard Branson, Larry Flynt, Steve Ballmer, Rush Limbaugh, George W Bush, ... the list goes on of characters who have used antagonism successfully for personal and corporate marketing, and to divide the world between strong followers and detractors instead of a sea of disinterest. If you are right or interesting, there is nothing wrong with being a little antagonistic. Intelligently picking a fight can bring much needed attention. That said, this is not a case of being right or interesting - only immature and asinine. They did successfully get a major influencer to write about them, and if the old adage about any press applies, then it was a success. This is not the way I would want to appear or conduct business, but it may actually be better than being ignored.
  - larrys 14y ago
    "They did successfully get a major influencer to write about them, and if the old adage about any press applies, then it was a success." Exactly. It's like WD40. The carrier wears off and the active ingredient remains and does the work.
josscrowcroft 14y ago
Wow... speechless. I was geared up for an unfair dismissal of a very–early–stage product, but this made me cringe. Saved with a hint of irony in my Social Media Ideas folder
jacalata 14y ago
Wow, 'ungrateful'? What do they expect exactly if I were to use their one free test today? A thank-you card, or just attribution somewhere if I were to release the product one day? Could they put that up front please, so I don't get surprised later on by a grudge held by their social media intern?
- jacalata 14y ago
  Actually, having now gone through some twitter history, @betapunch says "The public test was posted for less than 1 hour then deleted / apologized and sent 2 additional tests as a make-up and not a single thanks.." So they actually wanted her to say thanks for trying to make up for the way they screwed up in the first place. I guess at least I'm clear if I were to just use their service and they don't screw up?
  - jmharvey 14y ago
    As icing on the cake, it appears that their tweets discussing the results of Danielle's user test are still public: https://twitter.com/BetaPunch/status/256384610529857536 https://twitter.com/BetaPunch/status/256384610529857536
tolvak 14y ago
BetaPunch needs to revoke the access of whoever is responsible for writing tweets and have a PR focused person handle tweeting. They were too emotionally invested, and it just made them look petty. Definitely not the sort of discussion you want potential customers to read when researching about you.
- lwat 14y ago
  It's probably a one-man-show...
coloneltcb 14y ago
Don't blame you for shining a light on them. A top post on Hacker News is a tough way, but if they are to have any future success, this is a lesson they need to learn.
- natejenkins 14y ago
  I think it is kind of amazing that "don’t be mean to customers" is a lesson that would ever need to be learned. I guess nothing is obvious.
vasco 14y ago
Wonder how this is relevant for Hacker News. Is this soap-opera tuesday?
- eterpstra 14y ago
  A little colorful drama never hurts. You can only read so many articles about Lisp...
  - TallboyOne 14y ago
    Well I dunno about that .____.
- notatoad 14y ago
  nope - it's Wednesday. Or possibly even Thursday, depending on your part of the world, but definitely not tuesday.
- coloneltcb 14y ago
  It's relevant because it was voted to the top by the Hacker News community. That's why.
- podman 14y ago
  It's relevant as many here are entrepreneurs. There is a very good lesson here about proper social media etiquette for companies. There are an incredible multitude of ways this situation could have been handled better, especially on a forum as public as Twitter.
hahla 14y ago
I found it interesting when an unrelated twitter user posted that they shouldn't insult a "influencer" as it would just hurt their reputation. For some reason this struck a wrong chord with me, while the BetaPunch guys handled this entirely the wrong way, if they were in the right and a "influencer" didn't like what they had to say I wonder what would happen.
- josscrowcroft 14y ago
  I think it strikes the wrong chord because it shouldn't matter whether the person is an "influencer" or not — that's just not the way to talk to anybody when you're trying to build a brand, unless your brand is built on public spats
  - radicaldreamer 14y ago
    Exactly, treat every one of your customers with respect and if they choose a competing product, attempt to understand why instead of demanding, in a very passive aggressive way, that they become your customer or are grateful/thank you for some free service which you unilaterally provided.
- dweekly 14y ago
  Hi - I'm said twitter user; guess I said it wrong! Really anyone with a Twitter account and/or blog is an "influencer". The point is being in a netwide pissing match with customers is (obviously?) a bad idea.
- RegEx 14y ago
  Tech has a small but noticeable celebrity culture to it. Danielle has a decent number of twitter followers and has had articles at the top of HN at least a few times. I don't find it too surprising that she has some fans willing to defend her with a "You don't know who you're messing with!" message to the BetaPunch people.
- IsaacL 14y ago
  I felt the same way. It's like celebrities who yell "don't you know who I am?!", but instead of being an A-lister, it's just someone with a few thousand Twitter followers.
mingpan 14y ago
That was some serious WTF factor. However, I'm not so sure I agree that public shaming is the correct response.
- sachingulaya 14y ago
  IMHO it reflects poorly on both parties involved.
  - markdown 14y ago
    How so? Are we only supposed to share positive experiences on our blogs and social media accounts? User testing is a service I see myself using quite often over the next year. I'm always grateful for reviews or comments on the services that exist out there.
    - sachingulaya 14y ago
      No, sharing negative experiences is ok. But reading the exchange between them I see some snarky comments back and forth. Its not the reporting that irks me but the choice of language. "i'm annoyed" "that's something you should think but probably not actually say" "And BetaPunch, you’re welcome for the traffic… enjoy the SEO, too." It feels a bit too vindictive and that isn't a flattering quality. Some people like that image and it works for them professionally. Personally, it turns me away. I don't think its a stretch to say that it could have been handled more professionally. Dmor took an opportunity to showcase her professionalism and instead sunk to their level. That's my impression at least.
      - markdown 14y ago
        > I don't think its a stretch to say that it could have been handled more professionally. Dmor took an opportunity to showcase her professionalism and instead sunk to their level. That's my impression at least. Of course it could be handled more 'professionally', but I much prefer an honest, human expression of annoyance than putting some bullshit corporate 'professional' facade on things. This wasn't a press release by a department of some faceless corp, this is a blog post by a human being.
eterpstra 14y ago
Does anyone see the irony here? The whole point of the BetaPunch service is to elicit critical feedback. I kid you not, the quote below is taken directly from their site as instructions for site testers: "Be as critical as possible when reviewing a website. It's ok to be positive but don't just talk about how great you think their site is. These websites sign up for BetaPunch because they know they have things that can be improved upon. They want you to be as honest as possible with them as to your feelings about their website. Figure out what makes sense to you and what doesn't. And be sure to VOICE your opinions as you navigate the site."
- chrisgoodrich 14y ago
  It doesn't sound like they really understand the point of user testing. User testing is not about being critical/positive, it's about if the user can complete the and if not why? I don't care what my user testers think; I care what they are thinking. A very important distinction.
egfx 14y ago
I have mixed feelings on this. One the free video test revealed a gaping bug that I was only made aware of through the video. And I'm thankful for that. But I didn't know these tests were promoted to the public! Not cool Betapunch. And anyways, checkout http://criticue.com http://criticue.com for their free service. I'm getting 3-5 helpful reviews a nite. They only reqiuire you to test other sites for a one to one return.
- natejenkins 14y ago
  Thanks for the link, this looks great. I love the idea of peer-review for websites.
- dools 14y ago
  Critcue sounds a bit like feedback roulette.
petroica 14y ago
Wow. BetaPunch really doesn't know when to quit and apologize: https://twitter.com/BetaPunch/status/289178660366348288 https://twitter.com/BetaPunch/status/289178660366348288
- drivebyacct2 14y ago
  This is soooo cringe worthy.
eranation 14y ago
I think everyone agrees - never say anything nasty to any potential customer, but if you do this mistake, at least don't do that publicly on a social network or anything that can be recorded. On the other hand, there is no such thing as bad publicity, maybe it's their weird way to get recognition, by treating their customers like they owe them something. After all I'm sure most of the readers will go to their website, just to see what it is, and even try their service. So in the end, the bad customer service led to a blog post by the customer that was being badly treated, which might give them more traffic than if they were just nice, ironic.
- rscale 14y ago
  They're not in a position of power. They're offering a commodity service, and they're positioning themselves as "the option with poor customer service." I don't think that's going to attract much in the way of customers, or investment. I don't wish them ill; but they really need to stop digging, and they haven't figured that out yet.
  - jessaustin 14y ago
    I'm not disagreeing with you, but I'm curious: if this is a "commodity service", what competitors of BP would you recommend? I don't mean just some consultant: where can I go where the process will be similar, in that I don't have to talk to anyone and I don't have to hire anyone but I just have to enter my particulars and pay for what I want?
    - simonw 14y ago
      User Testing was mentioned in the OP http://usertesting.com/ http://usertesting.com/
    - rscale 14y ago
      This list may contain errors, but UsabilitySciences, BugPub, Testlio, UserTesting, UserZoom, RemoteResearch, and uTest all look to offer related value propositions. Craigslist, CrowdFlower, ClickWorker, CloudCrowd, Reddit's /r/forhire and Amazon's Mechanical Turk can probably be used similarly. When I've done UX testing, I've gone out, located the real target market of the specific product we were testing, and tested in-person. A couple times this process included a Craigslist post, but generally it was fully in-person. As such, I'm not qualified to recommend a specific service.
jorde 14y ago
Sadly Danielle's site is down so I can't read the original post. I also had the pleasure of interacting with BetaPunch's Twitter account a while back: they posted several tweets advertising that they were doing user testing for our service. I thought my co-founder had signed up for them but I still felt it was unethical to post details about clients publicly and asked them to tone down the tweets. The result was that they called me a "silicon valley douche"[1] which I can't help to find entertaining even still today. Only afterwards I learned that nobody from our company had signed up for them and they were using our name just to give the impression that we were using them. [1]: https://twitter.com/jorilallo/status/261977607757778944 https://twitter.com/jorilallo/status/261977607757778944
- cheald 14y ago
  Wooooooooow. I don't know who is running things over there, but they need to be fired immediately. It's this kind of thing that makes you want to see a service fail, because that sort of behavior doesn't deserve any measure of success.
  - josscrowcroft 14y ago
    Yeah – I was and still am super grateful for the free test I received from BetaPunch (implemented feedback from it, too) but after seeing that "silicon valley douche" tweet, I am very glad I didn't become a paying customer.
- lukethomas 14y ago
  But I thought this was what growth hackers do? ;)
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- dmor 14y ago
  I'm really sorry about the site, it went down so hard that I can't even get a cached version for Cloudflare to serve. Time to upgrade some things... personal blog is so neglected. Update: Google cached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&tbo=d&biw=1116&bih=603&sclient=psy-ab&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.daniellemorrill.com%2F2013%2F01%2Fwhy-i-wont-be-using-betapunch-for-user-testing%2F&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.daniellemorrill.com%2F2013%2F01%2Fwhy-i-wont-be-using-betapunch-for-user-testing%2F&gs_l=hp.3..0l4.2394.8245.0.8494.10.9.1.0.0.0.228.798.2j3j1.6.0.les%3B..0.3...1c.1j2.uocrMlHI_x4&pbx=1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&tbo=d...
ncavig 14y ago
Cached link: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.daniellemorrill.com%2F2013%2F01%2Fwhy-i-wont-be-using-betapunch-for-user-testing%2F&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.daniellemorrill.com%2F2013%2F01%2Fwhy-i-wont-be-using-betapunch-for-user-testing%2F&aqs=chrome.0.57j58j61j60l2.1349&sugexp=chrome,mod=0&ie=UTF-8 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%...
eduardordm 14y ago
I was like both of them. I was unable to solve a single problem without arguing. Emotions were the main motive behind every single exchange of arguments. But I wasn't a CEO. I was just a teenager programmer unable to resolve disputes and prone to let ego guide my actions. I got better by maturing, studying and I even took a mediation course. That said. Danielle, this is NOT how a CEO solve problems. Betapunch, what happened? I'm a client and never had a problem, I actually have been recommending your service to a lot of people. Danielle and the betapunch employee who replied to her are unable to run serious businesses right now. God, I remember being called SOB by customers over the phone and replying 'Please, I'm sorry' even when the fault was not even close to ours. You guys really could use a mediation course.
- rscale 14y ago
  I found myself thinking of the apocryphal Mark Twain saying: "Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
- lopatin 14y ago
  Well, Danielle isn't really trying to solve problems here. They're not getting her business, and that's that. She's simply calling them out on their Twitter BS, because eventually somebody had to.
- markdown 14y ago
  > That said. Danielle, this is NOT how a CEO solve problems. I'm obviously missing something here... what exactly did the author of the blog post do wrong? A person who trialled a free service was asked why she no longer used the service, and she provided free feedback on why. They didn't like the answer and got mean (publicly). In what universe is she even remotely in the wrong here?
  - eduardordm 14y ago
    Conflict can always be avoided and, when you lead people, this is your daily job. The blog post serves no purpose to Danielle. It might kill betapunch, but it will die the same. Why would you do that? You just found an opportunity to make something better!!! How great it would be if Danielle used her skills as a CEO to make betapunch understand how f'up their twitter tactics are. As a CTO/COO (not a startup, large company) it actually makes me HAPPY when I turn _bad_ into something better. Changes do not come from sheer force, influence or conflict, it usually comes from understanding. There is pure evil, where changes are impossible and there is nothing you can do, but this is not the case. Edit: Read how jorde reacted to betapunch wrongdoing and, after that, a direct insult. That's a CEO.
ggoodale 14y ago
Fascinating. A bit of digging suggests the founder, Ross Nochumowitz[1], has a second business as well: Big Boyz Bail Bonds[2] (note the identical avatars). He was CEO of the latter as recently as October[3]. Never having utilized the services of a bondsperson, I'm not qualified to comment on the similarity of the two businesses. Perhaps Ross can comment here! [1] http://www.facebook.com/ross.nochumowitz http://www.facebook.com/ross.nochumowitz [2] http://klout.com/#/BigBoyzBail http://klout.com/#/BigBoyzBail [3] http://citypaper.com/news/big-boyz-bail-bonds-banned-from-central-booking-1.1392414 http://citypaper.com/news/big-boyz-bail-bonds-banned-from-ce...
- joshdotsmith 14y ago
  Ouch, from your third link: "Paul Nochumowitz used a racial slur during the confrontation and, at one point, asked if Stansbury, who is African-American, 'wanted a banana.'"
  - ggoodale 14y ago
    Clearly an organization that values people skills.
  - rexreed 14y ago
    Same family, but different person - BetaPunch is lead by Ross Nochumowitz. Same tree, but the apple might not fall in the same place.
    - joshdotsmith 14y ago
      They were both involved in the altercation I mentioned, and that was a family business.
      - rexreed 14y ago
        You're right, just saying that the particular offensive quote was attributed to another member of that family. Still, I see what you are saying about birds of a feather.
peeplaja 14y ago
Now when you google "betapunch", the blog post ranks high for the keyword. People might forget, but Google won't. They've made their life very difficult. It never pays to be a righteous *hole.
DanBC 14y ago
A great man once said: > be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others. The TCP Robustness Principle from Jon Postel applies nicely to a lot more than TCP.
AnthonyJoseph 14y ago
I am going to play devils advocate here, as I loved the book, "Trust Me, Im Lying", and a lot of what is written in there pertains to this "drama". The person controlling that twitter account is probably a little too emotionally invested, and probably a little immature. I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing, its passion, just misdirected (not everyone is passionate about their product, no matter what gets said on these types of forums). I would be curious about the internet habits of people who do not want their tests shared (a TOS/Disclaimer should have been listed on the site), but I would guess between gmail/facebook etc, betapunch is the least of their worries. I just assumed that a tech-savvy audience assumes that anything they put online is fair game...because...well, it is. On the other hand, its better to be emotionally invested in something you have built, but never reveal those emotions I would think. tldr; if you can raise ANY doubt about who is in the right, and who is in the wrong, and get a shit load of hits, controversy may not be such a bad thing.
dools 14y ago
We used BetaPunch extensively whilst testing our latest Decal CMS tour/on-boarding process[1] and I have nothing but good things to say about the service and Ross himself who was very pleasant and responsive. I've recommended the service to everyone I've met since. For the type of user testing you get, you just can't beat the price. Although some of the testers weren't exactly in the "target market", by having some people that weren't designers or developers muddle through our demo, we were able to fix some really critical bugs. I even met some people through the service (testers) that were willing to jump on Skype with me to discuss the product and who were interested in taking the beta process further. I'd highly recommend you try them out. The social strategy Ross is going for here may be a little misguided, but the product itself, and indeed Ross (as far as I've dealt with him) are hard to fault. [1]http://www.decalcms.com/ http://www.decalcms.com/
- joshdotsmith 14y ago
  While it's useful to know he was nice to you (and I also had good interactions with him), it's still only one data point. That there are more than a few data points showing a profound inability to play nicely with others is far more enlightening. We all make mistakes, but I'm guessing most of us here seldom make very public, mean-spirited mistakes like his.
  - dools 14y ago
    Yes, mine is one data point, as is Danielle's, as are a few others' stories on this page. I wanted to add my data point to the list to provide some balance, I think it's a great service and I never had any problems with him.
- jfarmer 14y ago
  Sorry, but come on, "social strategy?" What is that, exactly? Antagonizing your potential customers?
  - joshdotsmith 14y ago
    Yeah, I don't think there's any strategy here. Strategery, maybe.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
rrrhys 14y ago
I did some work for BetaPunch last year. It's sad to see such an error of judgement (a big one, but nonetheless) which will really hurt after slowly gaining steam.
venturebros 14y ago
I always thought BetaPunch was some sort of scam. I see them posting on r/forhire every week hiring people to record vids for $5.
avree 14y ago
BetaPunch is a funny company. They have web recording software they've licensed and find 'testers' exclusively from reddit.com/r/beermoney. Danielle mentions that she 'hopes this is a social media intern' - BetaPunch is certainly a one-man shop, and you can see some of the guy's postings here: http://www.reddit.com/user/betapunch http://www.reddit.com/user/betapunch
- tibbon 14y ago
  TIL about beermoney
- rexreed 14y ago
  You can see for yourself Ross Nochumowitz pitching BetaPunch at the Baltimore TechBreakfast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAdI5mhpKsA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAdI5mhpKsA. This is from just a month and a half ago.
stevoski 14y ago
Oh the irony: I went to the homepage of betapunch.com, where they proudly promote their "raw unbiased user" testing, and some text on their home page renders incorrectly. Even more ironically, the problematic rendering includes this text: "Receive feedback and discover problems." Even if the "all publicity is good publicity" concept applies here, they are wasting that publicity, at least on me, with their site problems.
chuckreynolds 14y ago
lol sigh
Skywing 14y ago
Personally, when I see a blog post like this I make a mental note about the author and the accused. I generally avoid both of them in the future. Yes, it says all of the bad things about the accused that the author lays out, but it also tells me the the author likes to stir up drama. When I do business, I like to do business with those companies that you often don't here about, positive or negative. The ones that just "do work". Companies like Mixpanel, for example. You only hear about them when they're offering some new feature. They don't blog about how somebody on Twitter did something dumb. And I just realized that this was dmor's personal blog, but hey guess what, I only have ever seen her picture on her blog associated with her company, so those are now linked and that's enough for me.
- mcgwiz 14y ago
  You're certainly entitled to your personal opinion, but really? You're saying that it reflects poorly on someone to relay a story of poor treatment toward them? You don't find any value in knowing this? Have the experiences of others never influenced your own decisions? The author let the other party's tweets speak for themselves. There was no unnecessary or subjective sensationalization. Personally, I found this an informative (and weighty) data point.
- icambron 14y ago
  I couldn't disagree with this more. When people do something you find shady, you should complain! Loudly! This "keep your head down and don't stir up trouble" attitude is a huge part of why so many things never get fixed. And pointing out that a business has poor practices isn't drama; it's more like a review.
  - ricardobeat 14y ago
    I agree with you, but I think it's more about the tone. The naming and point does give a bad impression for both sides.
- drivebyacct2 14y ago
  So I'm not allowed to talk about bad experiences? This seems vastly overly reductionary and "nice" to a weird fault. If I eat at a restaurant and the service is bad, I'll tell my friends to avoid it. If someone representing a company offers poor customer service and acts like a jerk, I'm going to warn my friends.
Kiro 14y ago
I remember a thread on 2+2 where the founder of BetaPunch were getting sued by BetaBait for copying their site.
vanillapod 14y ago
This poster is using bad service she received into SEO juice for herself, while robbing another company of further business. Because I find this practise distasteful, I won't be using refer.ly. On the other hand, I would wait and see if Betapunch learned their lesson, and will use them. The person who posted this is too clever for her own good.
jqueryin 14y ago
The unfortunate tragedy of this is that BetaPunch is getting attention out of this, for better or for worse. I would err to say they likely got at least a few parties to test them out. It's definitely undeserved attention. Professionalism is everything when it comes to social networks.
ia 14y ago
ah, public shaming. the easiest and most low-brow way to sway opinions on the interent.
briandear 14y ago
Maybe this is off topic, but Referly looks suspiciously similar in design to Fab. Even down to similar image overlays. Perhaps I could write a blog explaining why I won't be using Referly due to a pretty unoriginal design and equally uninspiring concept. But, I've been up all night with a crying baby, so perhaps I'm being unnecessarily hostile.
howeyc 14y ago
You guys must have seen something other than I did, all I saw was childish bickering from both sides in public for all to see. Here's what I saw: D: Company A is awesome. B: Company B is better and cheaper, use us! (Spam) (Could have ended here!! I can not emphasize this enough!!) D: You suck Company B, go away and die! B: Wut?? You used our service FOR FREE to improve your product, you ungrateful nincompoop. D: Correct, you suck and now everyone knows you suck because I said so, hahaha. Now I will write blog post, everyone else will agree with me and Google search will say you suck too. lol, I F'd your public image yo. BAM! Hacker news: Yay! Go D, B sucks ass, thanks for letting us know.
- benaiah 14y ago
  Actually, it seemed to be more like this: D: Company A is awesome. B: Why not use our product? It's cheaper! [Spam] [Certainly, it could have ended here. But they asked the question - why is it wrong to answer them why you don't use it? Perhaps they don't realize their public posts are alienating customers, and the feedback would be helpful. Perhaps she might want to give them another chance if they 'fess up and apologize (Perhaps not, she has no obligation to do so). At this point, she is not being mean at all (not that she is later, either). At this point, there is no argument to end. It's still just a conversation.] D: I did use your product. You inappropriately and publicly broadcast private information. [Answering the question they asked, honestly and without pulling punches - something advocated constantly by popular and applauded posts on HN, I might add.] B: Yeah? Well you didn't thank us for the free trial of a service we were trying to sell you. whine whine whine [Completely inappropriate and rude. This is the first sign of actual hostility, as opposed to honesty.] D: This is why I'm not using you [Again, answering their question. Rhetorical or not, they asked it.] You probably should not say that publicly. [Helpful and useful criticism. Again, something recommended by HN on a public basis.] Now, I'm not saying she wasn't pissed by the end. She probably was (I would be). But she never said anything rude or explicitly hostile. In addition, she didn't escalate it to public status. Twitter is a public forum, and they started accusing her of... not thanking them for their sales pitch? Her response on Twitter was entirely appropriate. As to the blog post, this is the exact same thing that something like Amazon reviews does - publicly states the quality (in this case, in regards to courtesy) of a company or product. She is the customer. This has no bearing on her relationship with her customers (which I will not comment on, having never experienced it). This only affects her relationship with someone trying to sell her something - and the onus of making the interaction positive is entirely on the salesman, who completely screwed up. She was never rude. Since she is not the seller in this situation, common courtesy (as you'd give a stranger you were talking to) is the only obligation she has, and she meets it.
thomasbk 14y ago
FWIW, the founder has informally responded here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=36587703&postcount=33 http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=36587703&#3...
baytekadam 14y ago
ertwertwertwert

359 points by dmor 14y ago

kt9 14y ago

Rule number 1 of business: No matter what, regardless of who is right or wrong, never, ever antagonize or nurture a conflict with anyone. Especially not a potential customer. If you can't get someone onboard as a customer, work on figuring out why and building a relationship so maybe you can get them onboard later. Edit: Also wanted to add that if someone uses your beta product you should be thanking them for taking the time to try out your new product (and hopefully giving you feedback) rather than expecting them to thank you.

eranation 14y ago
Yep, not just of business, my rule for any personal conduct.
aneth4 14y ago
That is rule number 1 of business like "be nice" is rule number 1 of dating. Many great personal brands and businesses are launched and made with antagonism. Steve Jobs, Donald Trump, Richard Branson, Larry Flynt, Steve Ballmer, Rush Limbaugh, George W Bush, ... the list goes on of characters who have used antagonism successfully for personal and corporate marketing, and to divide the world between strong followers and detractors instead of a sea of disinterest. If you are right or interesting, there is nothing wrong with being a little antagonistic. Intelligently picking a fight can bring much needed attention. That said, this is not a case of being right or interesting - only immature and asinine. They did successfully get a major influencer to write about them, and if the old adage about any press applies, then it was a success. This is not the way I would want to appear or conduct business, but it may actually be better than being ignored.
- larrys 14y ago
  "They did successfully get a major influencer to write about them, and if the old adage about any press applies, then it was a success." Exactly. It's like WD40. The carrier wears off and the active ingredient remains and does the work.

josscrowcroft 14y ago

Wow... speechless. I was geared up for an unfair dismissal of a very–early–stage product, but this made me cringe. Saved with a hint of irony in my Social Media Ideas folder

jacalata 14y ago

Wow, 'ungrateful'? What do they expect exactly if I were to use their one free test today? A thank-you card, or just attribution somewhere if I were to release the product one day? Could they put that up front please, so I don't get surprised later on by a grudge held by their social media intern?

jacalata 14y ago
Actually, having now gone through some twitter history, @betapunch says "The public test was posted for less than 1 hour then deleted / apologized and sent 2 additional tests as a make-up and not a single thanks.." So they actually wanted her to say thanks for trying to make up for the way they screwed up in the first place. I guess at least I'm clear if I were to just use their service and they don't screw up?
- jmharvey 14y ago
  As icing on the cake, it appears that their tweets discussing the results of Danielle's user test are still public: https://twitter.com/BetaPunch/status/256384610529857536 https://twitter.com/BetaPunch/status/256384610529857536

tolvak 14y ago

BetaPunch needs to revoke the access of whoever is responsible for writing tweets and have a PR focused person handle tweeting. They were too emotionally invested, and it just made them look petty. Definitely not the sort of discussion you want potential customers to read when researching about you.

lwat 14y ago
It's probably a one-man-show...

coloneltcb 14y ago

Don't blame you for shining a light on them. A top post on Hacker News is a tough way, but if they are to have any future success, this is a lesson they need to learn.

natejenkins 14y ago
I think it is kind of amazing that "don’t be mean to customers" is a lesson that would ever need to be learned. I guess nothing is obvious.

vasco 14y ago

Wonder how this is relevant for Hacker News. Is this soap-opera tuesday?

eterpstra 14y ago
A little colorful drama never hurts. You can only read so many articles about Lisp...
- TallboyOne 14y ago
  Well I dunno about that .____.
notatoad 14y ago
nope - it's Wednesday. Or possibly even Thursday, depending on your part of the world, but definitely not tuesday.
coloneltcb 14y ago
It's relevant because it was voted to the top by the Hacker News community. That's why.
podman 14y ago
It's relevant as many here are entrepreneurs. There is a very good lesson here about proper social media etiquette for companies. There are an incredible multitude of ways this situation could have been handled better, especially on a forum as public as Twitter.

hahla 14y ago

I found it interesting when an unrelated twitter user posted that they shouldn't insult a "influencer" as it would just hurt their reputation. For some reason this struck a wrong chord with me, while the BetaPunch guys handled this entirely the wrong way, if they were in the right and a "influencer" didn't like what they had to say I wonder what would happen.

josscrowcroft 14y ago
I think it strikes the wrong chord because it shouldn't matter whether the person is an "influencer" or not — that's just not the way to talk to anybody when you're trying to build a brand, unless your brand is built on public spats
- radicaldreamer 14y ago
  Exactly, treat every one of your customers with respect and if they choose a competing product, attempt to understand why instead of demanding, in a very passive aggressive way, that they become your customer or are grateful/thank you for some free service which you unilaterally provided.
dweekly 14y ago
Hi - I'm said twitter user; guess I said it wrong! Really anyone with a Twitter account and/or blog is an "influencer". The point is being in a netwide pissing match with customers is (obviously?) a bad idea.
RegEx 14y ago
Tech has a small but noticeable celebrity culture to it. Danielle has a decent number of twitter followers and has had articles at the top of HN at least a few times. I don't find it too surprising that she has some fans willing to defend her with a "You don't know who you're messing with!" message to the BetaPunch people.
IsaacL 14y ago
I felt the same way. It's like celebrities who yell "don't you know who I am?!", but instead of being an A-lister, it's just someone with a few thousand Twitter followers.

mingpan 14y ago

That was some serious WTF factor. However, I'm not so sure I agree that public shaming is the correct response.

sachingulaya 14y ago
IMHO it reflects poorly on both parties involved.
- markdown 14y ago
  How so? Are we only supposed to share positive experiences on our blogs and social media accounts? User testing is a service I see myself using quite often over the next year. I'm always grateful for reviews or comments on the services that exist out there.
  - sachingulaya 14y ago
    No, sharing negative experiences is ok. But reading the exchange between them I see some snarky comments back and forth. Its not the reporting that irks me but the choice of language. "i'm annoyed" "that's something you should think but probably not actually say" "And BetaPunch, you’re welcome for the traffic… enjoy the SEO, too." It feels a bit too vindictive and that isn't a flattering quality. Some people like that image and it works for them professionally. Personally, it turns me away. I don't think its a stretch to say that it could have been handled more professionally. Dmor took an opportunity to showcase her professionalism and instead sunk to their level. That's my impression at least.
    - markdown 14y ago
      > I don't think its a stretch to say that it could have been handled more professionally. Dmor took an opportunity to showcase her professionalism and instead sunk to their level. That's my impression at least. Of course it could be handled more 'professionally', but I much prefer an honest, human expression of annoyance than putting some bullshit corporate 'professional' facade on things. This wasn't a press release by a department of some faceless corp, this is a blog post by a human being.

eterpstra 14y ago

Does anyone see the irony here? The whole point of the BetaPunch service is to elicit critical feedback. I kid you not, the quote below is taken directly from their site as instructions for site testers: "Be as critical as possible when reviewing a website. It's ok to be positive but don't just talk about how great you think their site is. These websites sign up for BetaPunch because they know they have things that can be improved upon. They want you to be as honest as possible with them as to your feelings about their website. Figure out what makes sense to you and what doesn't. And be sure to VOICE your opinions as you navigate the site."

chrisgoodrich 14y ago
It doesn't sound like they really understand the point of user testing. User testing is not about being critical/positive, it's about if the user can complete the and if not why? I don't care what my user testers think; I care what they are thinking. A very important distinction.

egfx 14y ago

I have mixed feelings on this. One the free video test revealed a gaping bug that I was only made aware of through the video. And I'm thankful for that. But I didn't know these tests were promoted to the public! Not cool Betapunch. And anyways, checkout http://criticue.com http://criticue.com for their free service. I'm getting 3-5 helpful reviews a nite. They only reqiuire you to test other sites for a one to one return.

natejenkins 14y ago
Thanks for the link, this looks great. I love the idea of peer-review for websites.
dools 14y ago
Critcue sounds a bit like feedback roulette.

petroica 14y ago

Wow. BetaPunch really doesn't know when to quit and apologize: https://twitter.com/BetaPunch/status/289178660366348288 https://twitter.com/BetaPunch/status/289178660366348288

drivebyacct2 14y ago
This is soooo cringe worthy.

eranation 14y ago

I think everyone agrees - never say anything nasty to any potential customer, but if you do this mistake, at least don't do that publicly on a social network or anything that can be recorded. On the other hand, there is no such thing as bad publicity, maybe it's their weird way to get recognition, by treating their customers like they owe them something. After all I'm sure most of the readers will go to their website, just to see what it is, and even try their service. So in the end, the bad customer service led to a blog post by the customer that was being badly treated, which might give them more traffic than if they were just nice, ironic.

rscale 14y ago
They're not in a position of power. They're offering a commodity service, and they're positioning themselves as "the option with poor customer service." I don't think that's going to attract much in the way of customers, or investment. I don't wish them ill; but they really need to stop digging, and they haven't figured that out yet.
- jessaustin 14y ago
  I'm not disagreeing with you, but I'm curious: if this is a "commodity service", what competitors of BP would you recommend? I don't mean just some consultant: where can I go where the process will be similar, in that I don't have to talk to anyone and I don't have to hire anyone but I just have to enter my particulars and pay for what I want?
  - simonw 14y ago
    User Testing was mentioned in the OP http://usertesting.com/ http://usertesting.com/
  - rscale 14y ago
    This list may contain errors, but UsabilitySciences, BugPub, Testlio, UserTesting, UserZoom, RemoteResearch, and uTest all look to offer related value propositions. Craigslist, CrowdFlower, ClickWorker, CloudCrowd, Reddit's /r/forhire and Amazon's Mechanical Turk can probably be used similarly. When I've done UX testing, I've gone out, located the real target market of the specific product we were testing, and tested in-person. A couple times this process included a Craigslist post, but generally it was fully in-person. As such, I'm not qualified to recommend a specific service.

jorde 14y ago

Sadly Danielle's site is down so I can't read the original post. I also had the pleasure of interacting with BetaPunch's Twitter account a while back: they posted several tweets advertising that they were doing user testing for our service. I thought my co-founder had signed up for them but I still felt it was unethical to post details about clients publicly and asked them to tone down the tweets. The result was that they called me a "silicon valley douche"[1] which I can't help to find entertaining even still today. Only afterwards I learned that nobody from our company had signed up for them and they were using our name just to give the impression that we were using them. [1]: https://twitter.com/jorilallo/status/261977607757778944 https://twitter.com/jorilallo/status/261977607757778944

cheald 14y ago
Wooooooooow. I don't know who is running things over there, but they need to be fired immediately. It's this kind of thing that makes you want to see a service fail, because that sort of behavior doesn't deserve any measure of success.
- josscrowcroft 14y ago
  Yeah – I was and still am super grateful for the free test I received from BetaPunch (implemented feedback from it, too) but after seeing that "silicon valley douche" tweet, I am very glad I didn't become a paying customer.
lukethomas 14y ago
But I thought this was what growth hackers do? ;)
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
dmor 14y ago
I'm really sorry about the site, it went down so hard that I can't even get a cached version for Cloudflare to serve. Time to upgrade some things... personal blog is so neglected. Update: Google cached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&tbo=d&biw=1116&bih=603&sclient=psy-ab&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.daniellemorrill.com%2F2013%2F01%2Fwhy-i-wont-be-using-betapunch-for-user-testing%2F&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.daniellemorrill.com%2F2013%2F01%2Fwhy-i-wont-be-using-betapunch-for-user-testing%2F&gs_l=hp.3..0l4.2394.8245.0.8494.10.9.1.0.0.0.228.798.2j3j1.6.0.les%3B..0.3...1c.1j2.uocrMlHI_x4&pbx=1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&tbo=d...

ncavig 14y ago

Cached link: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.daniellemorrill.com%2F2013%2F01%2Fwhy-i-wont-be-using-betapunch-for-user-testing%2F&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.daniellemorrill.com%2F2013%2F01%2Fwhy-i-wont-be-using-betapunch-for-user-testing%2F&aqs=chrome.0.57j58j61j60l2.1349&sugexp=chrome,mod=0&ie=UTF-8 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%...

eduardordm 14y ago

I was like both of them. I was unable to solve a single problem without arguing. Emotions were the main motive behind every single exchange of arguments. But I wasn't a CEO. I was just a teenager programmer unable to resolve disputes and prone to let ego guide my actions. I got better by maturing, studying and I even took a mediation course. That said. Danielle, this is NOT how a CEO solve problems. Betapunch, what happened? I'm a client and never had a problem, I actually have been recommending your service to a lot of people. Danielle and the betapunch employee who replied to her are unable to run serious businesses right now. God, I remember being called SOB by customers over the phone and replying 'Please, I'm sorry' even when the fault was not even close to ours. You guys really could use a mediation course.

rscale 14y ago
I found myself thinking of the apocryphal Mark Twain saying: "Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
lopatin 14y ago
Well, Danielle isn't really trying to solve problems here. They're not getting her business, and that's that. She's simply calling them out on their Twitter BS, because eventually somebody had to.
markdown 14y ago
> That said. Danielle, this is NOT how a CEO solve problems. I'm obviously missing something here... what exactly did the author of the blog post do wrong? A person who trialled a free service was asked why she no longer used the service, and she provided free feedback on why. They didn't like the answer and got mean (publicly). In what universe is she even remotely in the wrong here?
- eduardordm 14y ago
  Conflict can always be avoided and, when you lead people, this is your daily job. The blog post serves no purpose to Danielle. It might kill betapunch, but it will die the same. Why would you do that? You just found an opportunity to make something better!!! How great it would be if Danielle used her skills as a CEO to make betapunch understand how f'up their twitter tactics are. As a CTO/COO (not a startup, large company) it actually makes me HAPPY when I turn _bad_ into something better. Changes do not come from sheer force, influence or conflict, it usually comes from understanding. There is pure evil, where changes are impossible and there is nothing you can do, but this is not the case. Edit: Read how jorde reacted to betapunch wrongdoing and, after that, a direct insult. That's a CEO.

ggoodale 14y ago

Fascinating. A bit of digging suggests the founder, Ross Nochumowitz[1], has a second business as well: Big Boyz Bail Bonds[2] (note the identical avatars). He was CEO of the latter as recently as October[3]. Never having utilized the services of a bondsperson, I'm not qualified to comment on the similarity of the two businesses. Perhaps Ross can comment here! [1] http://www.facebook.com/ross.nochumowitz http://www.facebook.com/ross.nochumowitz [2] http://klout.com/#/BigBoyzBail http://klout.com/#/BigBoyzBail [3] http://citypaper.com/news/big-boyz-bail-bonds-banned-from-central-booking-1.1392414 http://citypaper.com/news/big-boyz-bail-bonds-banned-from-ce...

joshdotsmith 14y ago
Ouch, from your third link: "Paul Nochumowitz used a racial slur during the confrontation and, at one point, asked if Stansbury, who is African-American, 'wanted a banana.'"
- ggoodale 14y ago
  Clearly an organization that values people skills.
- rexreed 14y ago
  Same family, but different person - BetaPunch is lead by Ross Nochumowitz. Same tree, but the apple might not fall in the same place.
  - joshdotsmith 14y ago
    They were both involved in the altercation I mentioned, and that was a family business.
    - rexreed 14y ago
      You're right, just saying that the particular offensive quote was attributed to another member of that family. Still, I see what you are saying about birds of a feather.

peeplaja 14y ago

Now when you google "betapunch", the blog post ranks high for the keyword. People might forget, but Google won't. They've made their life very difficult. It never pays to be a righteous *hole.

DanBC 14y ago

A great man once said: > be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others. The TCP Robustness Principle from Jon Postel applies nicely to a lot more than TCP.

AnthonyJoseph 14y ago

I am going to play devils advocate here, as I loved the book, "Trust Me, Im Lying", and a lot of what is written in there pertains to this "drama". The person controlling that twitter account is probably a little too emotionally invested, and probably a little immature. I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing, its passion, just misdirected (not everyone is passionate about their product, no matter what gets said on these types of forums). I would be curious about the internet habits of people who do not want their tests shared (a TOS/Disclaimer should have been listed on the site), but I would guess between gmail/facebook etc, betapunch is the least of their worries. I just assumed that a tech-savvy audience assumes that anything they put online is fair game...because...well, it is. On the other hand, its better to be emotionally invested in something you have built, but never reveal those emotions I would think. tldr; if you can raise ANY doubt about who is in the right, and who is in the wrong, and get a shit load of hits, controversy may not be such a bad thing.

dools 14y ago

We used BetaPunch extensively whilst testing our latest Decal CMS tour/on-boarding process[1] and I have nothing but good things to say about the service and Ross himself who was very pleasant and responsive. I've recommended the service to everyone I've met since. For the type of user testing you get, you just can't beat the price. Although some of the testers weren't exactly in the "target market", by having some people that weren't designers or developers muddle through our demo, we were able to fix some really critical bugs. I even met some people through the service (testers) that were willing to jump on Skype with me to discuss the product and who were interested in taking the beta process further. I'd highly recommend you try them out. The social strategy Ross is going for here may be a little misguided, but the product itself, and indeed Ross (as far as I've dealt with him) are hard to fault. [1]http://www.decalcms.com/ http://www.decalcms.com/

joshdotsmith 14y ago
While it's useful to know he was nice to you (and I also had good interactions with him), it's still only one data point. That there are more than a few data points showing a profound inability to play nicely with others is far more enlightening. We all make mistakes, but I'm guessing most of us here seldom make very public, mean-spirited mistakes like his.
- dools 14y ago
  Yes, mine is one data point, as is Danielle's, as are a few others' stories on this page. I wanted to add my data point to the list to provide some balance, I think it's a great service and I never had any problems with him.
jfarmer 14y ago
Sorry, but come on, "social strategy?" What is that, exactly? Antagonizing your potential customers?
- joshdotsmith 14y ago
  Yeah, I don't think there's any strategy here. Strategery, maybe.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

rrrhys 14y ago

I did some work for BetaPunch last year. It's sad to see such an error of judgement (a big one, but nonetheless) which will really hurt after slowly gaining steam.

venturebros 14y ago

I always thought BetaPunch was some sort of scam. I see them posting on r/forhire every week hiring people to record vids for $5.

avree 14y ago

BetaPunch is a funny company. They have web recording software they've licensed and find 'testers' exclusively from reddit.com/r/beermoney. Danielle mentions that she 'hopes this is a social media intern' - BetaPunch is certainly a one-man shop, and you can see some of the guy's postings here: http://www.reddit.com/user/betapunch http://www.reddit.com/user/betapunch

tibbon 14y ago
TIL about beermoney
rexreed 14y ago
You can see for yourself Ross Nochumowitz pitching BetaPunch at the Baltimore TechBreakfast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAdI5mhpKsA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAdI5mhpKsA. This is from just a month and a half ago.

stevoski 14y ago

Oh the irony: I went to the homepage of betapunch.com, where they proudly promote their "raw unbiased user" testing, and some text on their home page renders incorrectly. Even more ironically, the problematic rendering includes this text: "Receive feedback and discover problems." Even if the "all publicity is good publicity" concept applies here, they are wasting that publicity, at least on me, with their site problems.

chuckreynolds 14y ago

lol sigh

Skywing 14y ago

Personally, when I see a blog post like this I make a mental note about the author and the accused. I generally avoid both of them in the future. Yes, it says all of the bad things about the accused that the author lays out, but it also tells me the the author likes to stir up drama. When I do business, I like to do business with those companies that you often don't here about, positive or negative. The ones that just "do work". Companies like Mixpanel, for example. You only hear about them when they're offering some new feature. They don't blog about how somebody on Twitter did something dumb. And I just realized that this was dmor's personal blog, but hey guess what, I only have ever seen her picture on her blog associated with her company, so those are now linked and that's enough for me.

mcgwiz 14y ago
You're certainly entitled to your personal opinion, but really? You're saying that it reflects poorly on someone to relay a story of poor treatment toward them? You don't find any value in knowing this? Have the experiences of others never influenced your own decisions? The author let the other party's tweets speak for themselves. There was no unnecessary or subjective sensationalization. Personally, I found this an informative (and weighty) data point.
icambron 14y ago
I couldn't disagree with this more. When people do something you find shady, you should complain! Loudly! This "keep your head down and don't stir up trouble" attitude is a huge part of why so many things never get fixed. And pointing out that a business has poor practices isn't drama; it's more like a review.
- ricardobeat 14y ago
  I agree with you, but I think it's more about the tone. The naming and point does give a bad impression for both sides.
drivebyacct2 14y ago
So I'm not allowed to talk about bad experiences? This seems vastly overly reductionary and "nice" to a weird fault. If I eat at a restaurant and the service is bad, I'll tell my friends to avoid it. If someone representing a company offers poor customer service and acts like a jerk, I'm going to warn my friends.

Kiro 14y ago

I remember a thread on 2+2 where the founder of BetaPunch were getting sued by BetaBait for copying their site.

vanillapod 14y ago

This poster is using bad service she received into SEO juice for herself, while robbing another company of further business. Because I find this practise distasteful, I won't be using refer.ly. On the other hand, I would wait and see if Betapunch learned their lesson, and will use them. The person who posted this is too clever for her own good.

jqueryin 14y ago

The unfortunate tragedy of this is that BetaPunch is getting attention out of this, for better or for worse. I would err to say they likely got at least a few parties to test them out. It's definitely undeserved attention. Professionalism is everything when it comes to social networks.

ia 14y ago

ah, public shaming. the easiest and most low-brow way to sway opinions on the interent.

briandear 14y ago

Maybe this is off topic, but Referly looks suspiciously similar in design to Fab. Even down to similar image overlays. Perhaps I could write a blog explaining why I won't be using Referly due to a pretty unoriginal design and equally uninspiring concept. But, I've been up all night with a crying baby, so perhaps I'm being unnecessarily hostile.

howeyc 14y ago

You guys must have seen something other than I did, all I saw was childish bickering from both sides in public for all to see. Here's what I saw: D: Company A is awesome. B: Company B is better and cheaper, use us! (Spam) (Could have ended here!! I can not emphasize this enough!!) D: You suck Company B, go away and die! B: Wut?? You used our service FOR FREE to improve your product, you ungrateful nincompoop. D: Correct, you suck and now everyone knows you suck because I said so, hahaha. Now I will write blog post, everyone else will agree with me and Google search will say you suck too. lol, I F'd your public image yo. BAM! Hacker news: Yay! Go D, B sucks ass, thanks for letting us know.

benaiah 14y ago
Actually, it seemed to be more like this: D: Company A is awesome. B: Why not use our product? It's cheaper! [Spam] [Certainly, it could have ended here. But they asked the question - why is it wrong to answer them why you don't use it? Perhaps they don't realize their public posts are alienating customers, and the feedback would be helpful. Perhaps she might want to give them another chance if they 'fess up and apologize (Perhaps not, she has no obligation to do so). At this point, she is not being mean at all (not that she is later, either). At this point, there is no argument to end. It's still just a conversation.] D: I did use your product. You inappropriately and publicly broadcast private information. [Answering the question they asked, honestly and without pulling punches - something advocated constantly by popular and applauded posts on HN, I might add.] B: Yeah? Well you didn't thank us for the free trial of a service we were trying to sell you. whine whine whine [Completely inappropriate and rude. This is the first sign of actual hostility, as opposed to honesty.] D: This is why I'm not using you [Again, answering their question. Rhetorical or not, they asked it.] You probably should not say that publicly. [Helpful and useful criticism. Again, something recommended by HN on a public basis.] Now, I'm not saying she wasn't pissed by the end. She probably was (I would be). But she never said anything rude or explicitly hostile. In addition, she didn't escalate it to public status. Twitter is a public forum, and they started accusing her of... not thanking them for their sales pitch? Her response on Twitter was entirely appropriate. As to the blog post, this is the exact same thing that something like Amazon reviews does - publicly states the quality (in this case, in regards to courtesy) of a company or product. She is the customer. This has no bearing on her relationship with her customers (which I will not comment on, having never experienced it). This only affects her relationship with someone trying to sell her something - and the onus of making the interaction positive is entirely on the salesman, who completely screwed up. She was never rude. Since she is not the seller in this situation, common courtesy (as you'd give a stranger you were talking to) is the only obligation she has, and she meets it.

thomasbk 14y ago

FWIW, the founder has informally responded here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=36587703&postcount=33 http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=36587703&#3...

baytekadam 14y ago

ertwertwertwert