What happened to "asking for help"?

http://www.alwinhoogerdijk.com/2011/11/09/what-happened-to-asking-for-help/

by reinier • 15 years ago

80 49 15 years ago

wccrawford3• 15 years ago

The problem is the normal response to their questions. Most companies, or even just people, will respond negatively to bug reports, especially if they aren't good reports. This has trained the users that they shouldn't bother asking.

Instead, they do what gets them results: They complain publicly. See, you can't ignore them if they're speaking publicly. Everyone else gets to see the problem and response, or lack thereof. In this situation, they either get a fix for the problem, or the developer loses future sales.

Here's an example from my life: I bought a mousepad on eBay for like $10. Ridiculously cheap, compared to what others were asking. When it arrived, it wasn't the right one. Now, I had 2 choices. I could contact the seller, and they'd probably tell me to ship it back at my expense, which would cost me more than the product was worth and waste my time, which was even more valuable.

Or I could just give them a low-star rating and explanation, and be done with it. I wasn't about to waste my valuable time, so I chose the bad rating.

The seller contacted me, upset. "Why didn't you contact us?" And I explained the above, and said that there was nothing they could do because I wasn't willing to spend the time and money to send the item back.

They ended up refunding my money and letting me keep the product. (Which probably sits in my closet somewhere, unused and unwanted.) I allowed them to nullify the rating.

tl;dr - So why do users take that route? It's quicker, easier, and works better.

gaustin• 15 years ago

It's also quicker, easier and more effective than navigating most companies' support tools. I don't want to spend half an hour or more registering, confirming and entering a bug report that will most likely be ignored.*

* A company taking reports seriously in a visible way is a rare occurrence in my experience.

dcminter• 15 years ago

It's the ignoring not the complexity that's frustrating. I'm suffering from an annoying bug in Google Groups. I've raised it a few times and it disappears into the void. Next time there's a bug, even if it's serious, will I bother? Probably not - my expectations are set.

-- (Edit)

Incidentally, for software issues this makes a public bug tracker something of a marketing tool. Even knowing my bug rather than lost without trace would be an improvement.

SomeCallMeTim2• 15 years ago

In the Android Market, there's a "Contact Developer" button for every app. Click it and write an email. No "registering" or complex forms to fill out.

In my game, there's also a "feedback" button. I say early in the app description to please contact me if you have any problems. I answer any questions that come in, and am polite even to the insulting emails. Well, at least mostly polite. ;) And I typically answer them in hours, at most.

And yet I still get 1-star "complaint" posts that hurt my ratings, from people who have never contacted me. Frequently they just say that they hate the ads, which are only shown between levels, and therefore don't interfere with game-play. I guess I should work for free?

I don't think it helps to justify their behavior; if they make the least attempt and give up, that's one thing, but if they don't even try when dealing with an indie app developer who's obviously not some faceless company, that's just lazy (and in many cases selfish -- they can pay to turn off ads, after all, and the games don't write themselves). It's the EASY thing for them to do, and they're being jerks.

Or if, as you say, they've been hurt before, they're taking out hurt from Faceless Corporation on me, which is pretty much indistinguishable from being a jerk from my point of view.

anothermachine• 15 years ago

If you didn't bother to ask for help, how do you know they wouldn't have helped?

I bought a book from No Starch Press, and I hated it. (Possibly due to my own fault.) I wrote to them to complain, and they refunded my money and told me to throw away the book.

wccrawford3• 15 years ago

Past experience tells you what percentage of businesses will help, and what percentage will waste your time and money.

That has almost always tilted into the 'better off not trying' category. I end up with more of my time, and happier, if I don't go through the official channels. On average.

That's what companies have trained customers into.

stewartbutler• 15 years ago

The cynic in me wonders how many of these warnings and one-star reviews are from authors/supporters of competing apps.

Down-vote bots are becoming quite common in other forms of media (Reddit, etc). I wish there were some way of computing the number of players 'gaming' the system.

alex_c• 15 years ago

Given the sheer number of inane "reviews" with bizarre complaints, I think the sad truth is that most of them do come from real users.

ericdykstra• 15 years ago

I saw an absolutely excellent Japanese app that was at 3.5 stars because a bunch of people 1-starred it for not being in English.

scott_s2• 15 years ago

Remember: you're more invested in your application than your users. Even if it's possible for them to have a dialog with you to fix their problem, they may not care to.

Posting a negative review is not part of that investment - it's just a cathartic release, and after that, they move on. If you're selling a relatively cheap application that your users don't need (such as a comic-viewing app), you may only have one chance with your users.

CPlatypus• 15 years ago

I see the same thing even from my close colleagues. With one in particular, the first I'll even know he's using my code is when he bitches about it on Twitter. Forget about usable information in a bug report about what he did to trigger it (usually turns out to be utterly insane hacked configs), sometimes we've been talking on IRC and then I switch windows to find he's slagging the code on Twitter.

I think it's a cultural thing. Righteous anger is addictive. In this case it's anger at bad code, and the craving for another hit precedes any attempt to find out if the anger is even justified - let alone to work constructively toward a resolution. Some people (lots here BTW) are just rage junkies, and should simply be ignored.

ja2ke• 15 years ago

It's often easier to find the review form on the App Store than it is to find a human-answered "contact us" form or address for the developer.

When a user writes a shitty review, they know for a fact the developer will read it, whereas many app store developers may not even have a web presence, let alone a reliable looking way to contact them.

I'm not saying that's good by any means -- dialog with your customers gets to the bottom of things and usually leaves them happier -- but right now if it's easier for your customer to find and leave a public vent session on your app store page than it is to find out how to contact you, they are going to take the path of least resistance.

If user to developer dialog is important to you, enable your users to do it, don't expect them to jump through hoops to seek you out when there's an easier alternative.

alexchamberlain• 15 years ago

There is no way to fix actual bugs in your software, because you can’t learn what the problem is exactly, what might be causing it, how to reproduce it, etc… Making it next to impossible to fix the bug, let alone help the user (and possible other users running into the same bug!).

You can fix bugs without having a conversation with a user. It involves a two prong approach: 1. Proper testing - Most people are probably doing more testing than they can possibly bear, but we all know we should do more. 2. Proper tracing - If an app crashes, the logs can be studied to work out what went wrong. - I accept this might not work on a phone as well as with web/desktop apps.

wisty• 15 years ago

People optimize like crazy to get users to convert. I'm pretty sure that if it were as easy to get help as it was to download the app, more would do so.

You used to only get users who were smart enough to find the download link, which might have even been on a subpage. Now, you get the people who can only be bothered if they need only press the great big button in the center of their field of view.

marquis• 15 years ago

We provide immediately an invitation for our users to interact with us, such as having a 'click to call' button on our login site at all times and having start page that asks them to contact us. Before we made it obvious that we actually have a great support team, there was certainly less interaction and our users have responded well to these changes. Can you put a splash screen on your app that makes it clear that you're available to help?

mcculley• 15 years ago

There is no mailto: link anywhere on that page. If you don't reduce friction for people to contact you, they might not bother.

jroseattle• 15 years ago

Google -- that's what happened. They enabled crowd-sourced customer service.

The chances someone else has already encountered a similar problem? Good or better.

The chances someone else already commented online about the problem? Good or better.

The chances somebody else posted about how to address the problem? Good or better.

The chances of a Google query's response time being better than direct customer service? Whatever the maximum of "good" is.

Combined with most companies lack of decent customer service, it's obvious it has come to this.

puranjay• 15 years ago

I'll tell you what happened: trolls who instead of helping out, will post a smug "let me google that for you" reply and assume everyone else is as big a know-it-all as them.

Trolls, reinier, trolls killed 'asking' on the internet.

beder3• 15 years ago

We just had this problem. Someone posted a 1-star review on the App Store saying:

> I create puzzles under the username: [---]. The editor is designed to allow you to upload an increasing number of puzzles as a reward for earning high ratings on those puzzles you've created so far. However, if the rating drops, the puzzles you can upload may actually drop. This is lame and unfair. Numerous times I've trashed a puzzle with the intention of replacing it with a new one, only to find that I am now not allowed to upload a new one because my max number of uploads has dropped. Fix this and I will give you 5 stars. Otherwise I will stop uploading puzzles altogether.

The annoying thing is, he's absolutely right. We didn't think of this use case, and we're fixing it right now (it should be rolled out within a few days). But it's so frustrating that he felt like he had to threaten us ("otherwise I will stop uploading puzzles altogether") and didn't even think to contact us first.

And what's more, he decided that our game deserves 1 star, even though he's clearly played it for many, many hours, and presumably has really enjoyed it.

TheAmazingIdiot• 15 years ago

I, on a few occasions, have went the nice route by firing off an email (or phone call) about problem and have it deleted or a form letter sent back. In essence, my problem was ignored.

In that case, I went on Google and linked my name to a nasty complaint. Lo and behold, they called or emailed back and solved it if I removed the negative feedback.

Time and time again, if I complain publicly and become a cost sinkhole I get results. If I am a sheep, I get nothing.

beder3• 15 years ago

I understand that, and it's happened to me a few times also.

But I still feel like the first response, if it's possible, should be an email. We're just a couple of guys, and both our website and our game's credits make it clear that we're not a major faceless company.

I suppose people are conditioned by large companies ignoring them, so I hope that the proliferation of indie developers in the App Store can recondition people to actually send emails.

We love getting direct email from people, and we respond to every single one. I think people are sometimes surprised to get a personal reply; hopefully that won't be such a surprise if enough developers do it.

scott_s2• 15 years ago

Don't look at it as a threat, because I don't think the user intended it as one. He's not saying "Fix this bug or else I will stop playing." He's saying "Not fixing this bug will cause me to stop playing."

As for the rating, he's saying that this bug is so bad that it kills the entire experience for him. This is how people react to things they don't like: if they enjoy something for 9 hours and absolutely hate the 10th hour, most people will just say they hate it.

As for contacting you first, how easy is it for him to contact you? Did you say anywhere in the game that you all are happy to hear suggestions for improving the game? Also remember that for most users, the App Store is the only place they will interact with you. That's the model. Even if you had said in the game itself that you welcome suggestions and how to reach you, that may not be how users think about you and your game.

rkon• 15 years ago

Does your app have a "report a bug" option? I sure hope so, otherwise this complaining blog post would look awfully hypocritical.

qjz• 15 years ago

They’re addressing other users, asking “Is anyone else having this problem?” What’s that about? How is finding other with the same problem going to help you?

Sounds like the user hasn't ruled out a configuration error or buggy device and is simply looking for a solution. This is due diligence before reporting a bug (along with reading the documentation, of course).

michaelbuckbee• 15 years ago

There is a big gap between a two way medium like Twitter and something like the frustratingly one way App Store reviews.

I think HN is mostly familiar (and admiring of) Zappos and their awesome customer service. Twitter is bar none the easiest, cheapest way to get positive public customer support stories.

Most twitter users have a handful (less than a 100) people they regularly interact with and are kind of amazed that a company would take the time to message them directly about an issue they were having.

From there it is usually easy to get a dialog going and when their issue is fixed they aren't just satisfied but ecstatic about your company and product (typically they go back on Twitter and talk you up to their friends).

hammock• 15 years ago

Instead of blaming your users (terrible idea), improve your app so that it is clear to the user what they should/can do if they experience problems, e.g. a Help function, link to an online forum or your email, etc. Ideally this would pop up whenever they get an error.

eCa• 15 years ago

This is in no way a software issue, this is a social issue. Everywhere people are complaining about everything that doesn't work exactly according to their wishes. Not seldom in order to gain something themselves, such as threating hotels with bad reviews if they don't get a discount..

Then again, when a customer complaints about a bug, this (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3208990) is probably not a good way to keep them from going public.

ctdonath• 15 years ago

Funny the article never addresses "they don't ask for help because either there's nobody to talk to or nobody who isn't reading from an inapplicable script." After that becomes the dominant customer support experience, seems the only solution is fling bad vibes into the ether[net] and buy a different product.

You know the drill. My obligatory anecdote: bought a popular notebook from a big name computer company. Called tech support for the same problem six times. Five times was connected to someone who ran me through a pointless drill and refused to vary from the script, culminating in sending the machine in for replacement of random parts, which each time worked briefly then the device died again. The sixth time someone more conversant was willing to LISTEN to me, understood my job is designing such things, went off script, and informed me he was not allowed to tell me that complete exploded mechanical drawings were available online at http://www.bigcompco.com/foobar/product_X_disassembly.pdf ... I expressed my happy dismay that he couldn't tell me what he told me, hung up, took the machine apart (now knowing the secret sequencing), and proceeded to vacuum out the clogged heat sink which somehow nobody in the repair department managed to notice FIVE TIMES. Worked fine ever since.

Anecdote 2, short version: called MegaSoftware Corp about a non-booting OS. Was told to delete all 2GB of somebody else's data (a huge amount at the time) and reinstall everything - and was told this for $29. Unwilling to, 20 minutes later figured out copying one file solved the problem. Credit charges were soon reversed.

Upshot: we're now conditioned to assume there's nobody (or nobody competent) to talk to. The only hope to get attention is to leave scathing feedback and assume nobody will notice anyway. Quite a surprise when competent willing support appears.

dman• 15 years ago

Sometimes doing things right means bumping the price up which for some reason companies are unwilling to do. Apple gets this very right in my opinion. Here is an anecdote about HP. If you buy HP elitebooks which cost > $1000 you get 3 years of warranty with shipping paid both ways for free. On top of that you get 24/7 access to enterprise level support. On a few occasions HP has overnighted me parts when I have needed them. On the other hand I have bought HP consumer line laptops which dont come with support or 3 year warranty by default and my experience has been horrible. In other words consumers need to stop buying the cheapest provider.

kaybe• 15 years ago

Obligatory XKCD reference for you: http://xkcd.com/806/ :)

o1iver• 15 years ago

I think one of the problems may be that people dealing with AppStore or Android Market customers are not realizing that they are dealing with a different kind of user group. One cannot compare the feedback that HN users (developers/advanced-users/early-adopters) give, with the responses from your average iPhone user. He doesn't understand how complex a piece of software may be. There is probably an expectation that even a free app should work perfectly well.

Additionally the abundance of similar apps means that there is no real interest in "asking for help"; the user can just try the next app. Still, before doing that he will post his comment for the benefit of future users (this app is (terrible|bad|doesnt-work|...).

Finally the feedback channels may not be as easy to find as for traditional software. I am not sure where I would send feedback about some indie-app that doesn't even have a homepage (or that may be ranked on page 20 on Google).

DanBC• 15 years ago

> There is probably an expectation that even a free app should work perfectly well.

I'm disappointed that this appears to be an unreasonable expectation.

jvandenbroeck• 15 years ago

It should be a rule in every company "don't blame the user"; if they don't contact you with their problems, it's _your_ task to let them contact you. Put a big "contact" button in your app, make it easier to give them direct feedback to you instead of in the app store.

And, obviously, don't release software that's not ready for production. The mindset "we'll just release without proper testing, the users will point out the bugs" - is so 1995

droithomme• 15 years ago

I have to use that sort of feedback sometimes myself.

Here's an example. Recently I tried a demo version of an upgrade to a program I already own. Certain things were broken that used to work fine. The only support allowed is to sign into my account on their website and use a feedback form. Email support is not allowed, nor is there a product forum. When I filled in the form it told me that I was not a registered user of version 2, therefore support was not available. So then I went and wrote a scathing public review advising people to avoid the product for specific reasons.

Compare that to another product I have and seldom use which I also wanted to check the upgrade out. I tried the demo, and there were essential features missing. I emailed the developer using the link in the program and explained myself. He wrote back saying that feature would be added in version 3 and I could upgrade 1 to 3 when it comes and skip 2, no problem. And so that was the end of it for now.

georgieporgie• 15 years ago

I say it's partly due to Google's record of pushing customer service to the bottom of the priority list, but it's also because we're getting the "unwashed masses" online now. Everyday people are now online, have smart phones, and are purchasing apps. They don't know what a bug report is. They may not even know what good customer service is. They don't want to spend their time and mobile minutes/data on helping you fix your product. They just want things to work.

agscala• 15 years ago

These new users probably carry their expectations from the real world to the internet as well. If some merchandise from a store isn't good, you don't appeal to the company who produces it, you simply tell other people your negative experience with the product and encourage everyone to avoid it, just like what's happening on these app stores.

ap22213• 15 years ago

We just naturally assume that any reported issues that we receive are vastly under represented. I assume that only 10% of users actually report things.

jellicle• 15 years ago

I think the average customer service response from a company nowadays goes something like this:

Me: "I'm having a problem with the fribbulator. It appears to be broken - the metal is snapped cleanly in two."

Them: {no response}

Me: "I sent you this last week but didn't receive a reply. I'm having a problem with the fribbulator. It appears to be broken - the metal is snapped cleanly in two."

Them: "Here are instructions on how to reinstall Windows. Please see our FAQ as well. Did this response answer your question [Y/N]?"

That sort of response might as well include a .gif of a raised middle finger. Companies that intend to provide better-than-this customer service should factor in customer conditioning into their plans. The customer has been conditioned to complain publicly first. You'll have to fix that explicitly if you don't want it to happen to you.

shaggyfrog• 15 years ago

This kind of conversation happens all the time with "support" accounts on Twitter. I tweeted the @ParallelsCares account for help and ended up in or around the third circle of hell [1] trying to get a simple answer to a simple question [2].

I think customer conditioning, as you suggest, is part of the solution. Training also needs to include learning how to thoughtfully write a response, which would then show empathy. Instead what we have are a lot of Twitter support accounts whose names end with "Cares" run by a lot of people who don't.

[1] https://twitter.com/#!/shaggyfrog/status/100974626112421888 [2] https://twitter.com/#!/shaggyfrog/status/100727705112285184

pasbesoin• 15 years ago

After 7+ hours on the phone with Adobe Support until I finally convinced one of them to push a manager to execute a 10 minute fix (including walking over to and appropriately chatting up the manager, and passing on my explanation of what actually needed to be done -- whose product/support role is this, anyway?), I was all too happy (as a turn of phrase) to write the strongest cogent complaint I could manage on the site where the installation package was purchased.

I see two common scenarios:

Disposable products lead to or correspond with an attitude that customers are disposable. (And a corresponding, irritating frenzy around "customer acquisition" to address the resulting churn.)

Hotel California: You can check out, but you can never leave. You're dealing with a quasi- or literal monopoly, who know all to well that they can simply tell you to fuck yourself. Once in a while, they'll say it to your face. Most of the time, they'll just ignore you until you give up pestering them.

When I do have a genuinely positive support experience, I usually am willing to go out of my way to credit it, internally or externally.

But these days I'm predisposed to expect a bad experience, especially when I'm not dealing with the other party face to face (or even voice to voice).

It's part of what makes what would otherwise be an uneventful purchase so agonizing: You know that if you "choose wrong", essentially you're screwed. Or if the warehouse pulls the dropped, shaken, stirred, or restocked package for your order.

P.S. I guess my comment isn't really adding anything. I thought I'd gotten over that 7 hour experience -- maybe not quite yet.

kyebosh• 15 years ago

Being a "customer review" log, I think the sentiment of the comments posted are valid. If the App crashes, you assign a star rating accordingly. Sounds exactly like what one should expect.

It's unforgiving out in the wild. It might not be ideal, but that's the system we have (until support systems are integrated into the store). Even if there was a brilliant direct feedback/support portal & the customer used it to your satisfaction, I believe it's still appropriate to rate a product based on your experience with it. If it crashes, it's going to get a lower rating, regardless of how many reps apologised & promised to fix it.

LogicX• 15 years ago

Here's a fun anecdote which I think summarizes why people don't ask for help:

Two days ago I read an article about a local company; deciding my wife may find enjoyable work with them, I decided to visit their website and careers page. The careers page presented an SSL cert error. I decided to write an email to the DNS administrator explaining that their intermediary signing cert was expired, and why this is a problem, and even provided a helpful link.

Amazingly, I got a reply - within hours, but unfortunately it went like this:

Them 2) You're going to the wrong site, its here:

Me 3) The URL you've provided me 302 redirects to the URL I said is the issue. Here's a paste from wget of this action happening:

Them 4) What browser are you using? Works fine here.

Me 5) I've tested this on 3 machines in 3 different browsers, here's output from browsershots.org showing it doesn't work on 78 other browsers.

Them 6) I'm forwarding this to someone else.

... silence...

Now one must question -- would have I gotten a better response by publicly @mentioning this multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical company that can't get SSL working on their careers site? (Just confirmed its still broken)

(edited for formatting readability)

chops• 15 years ago

The general principle at work here is the "early-adopter" vs "mainstream". Your early users probably recognized that it was a new product and were willing to take a risk with it, recognizing that it's a small organization in charge and that their answers are likely to be answered in a timely manner. Once you've got 10,000+ users and hundreds or thousands of reviews, then you're "established" and people will be much harsher in their reviews, and less likely to contact support expecting some kind of auto-responder and days response time.

What happened to "asking for help"?

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