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I don't know if I fully agree with this post. I mean its true you don't need every customer but if someone uses your product or service and is upset by specifi

I don't know if I fully agree with this post. I mean its true you don't need every customer but if someone uses your product or service and is upset by specific features/aspects, its important to make them feel heard by acknowledging their sentiment. That doesn't mean you go and build whatever they wanted you to build. But it just means you value people who took the time to say something. I think every customer or user wants to feel valued.

tptacek 14y ago
Without redefining the word "important", can you say why it's important to make every customer feel valued? There are finite number of hours in the day, and 5 minutes you spend trying to make an intractable customer feel better is 5 minutes not spent on something else.
chipotle_coyote 14y ago
In theory, I agree with this -- in practice, I suspect you have to do a bit of subjective triage, particularly once you get past a certain volume level (which is itself subjective). The key is "upset by specific features/aspects." Bob writes to you, "Hey, I really like this app, but feature X is very important to me." Sam writes to you and says, "Your app is a useless piece of shit." Writing back to Bob to say, "Thanks for your feedback, I'll consider that for the next version" -- or even to say, "Thanks for your feedback, but I'm sorry to say that feature X isn't on our roadmap" -- may well be worth your time. (Especially since your time, in this case, is probably about two minutes, less if you set up a couple Text Expander snippets for this.) But is writing back to Sam worth your time? It may be that Sam feels the same way that Bob does, that he mostly likes your app but considers feature X a critical omission. But you have to get him to stop flinging flaming poop at you and actually explain what his dilemma is. And he may just hate your app, full stop. He may be too inarticulate to explain what he needs from your app. He may just like flinging flaming poop.
hcarvalhoalves 14y ago
> I don't know if I fully agree with this post. I mean its true you don't need every customer but if someone uses your product or service and is upset by specific features/aspects, its important to make them feel heard by acknowledging their sentiment. No, you don't. Just as one shouldn't try to please everyone and be understanding to all in their personal life. This is toxic.

tptacek 14y ago

Without redefining the word "important", can you say why it's important to make every customer feel valued? There are finite number of hours in the day, and 5 minutes you spend trying to make an intractable customer feel better is 5 minutes not spent on something else.

chipotle_coyote 14y ago

In theory, I agree with this -- in practice, I suspect you have to do a bit of subjective triage, particularly once you get past a certain volume level (which is itself subjective). The key is "upset by specific features/aspects." Bob writes to you, "Hey, I really like this app, but feature X is very important to me." Sam writes to you and says, "Your app is a useless piece of shit." Writing back to Bob to say, "Thanks for your feedback, I'll consider that for the next version" -- or even to say, "Thanks for your feedback, but I'm sorry to say that feature X isn't on our roadmap" -- may well be worth your time. (Especially since your time, in this case, is probably about two minutes, less if you set up a couple Text Expander snippets for this.) But is writing back to Sam worth your time? It may be that Sam feels the same way that Bob does, that he mostly likes your app but considers feature X a critical omission. But you have to get him to stop flinging flaming poop at you and actually explain what his dilemma is. And he may just hate your app, full stop. He may be too inarticulate to explain what he needs from your app. He may just like flinging flaming poop.

hcarvalhoalves 14y ago

> I don't know if I fully agree with this post. I mean its true you don't need every customer but if someone uses your product or service and is upset by specific features/aspects, its important to make them feel heard by acknowledging their sentiment. No, you don't. Just as one shouldn't try to please everyone and be understanding to all in their personal life. This is toxic.