37signals' follow up on "Get Satisfaction, Or Else..."

http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1661-follow-up-on-get-satisfaction-or-else

by steamboiler • 17 years ago

112 140 17 years ago

I'm impressed with how Jason handled it. GS made some changes that sounded good enough to me, but after reading this post, I'm firmly on 37signals side. GetSatisfaction is a good idea but it's presented very deceptively and has the potential to hurt customers as much as it helps.

mdasen2• 17 years ago

The problem is that morality comes into competition with money in this situation. The more legitimate and official and connected to the company Get Satisfaction makes their pages look, the more customers are going to use them as a way to try to get official-ish support. The more users use them as a way to get support, the more pressure there is on the company to use it as a support mechanism - whether they want to or not.

Even beyond that, Get Satisfaction is essentially operating an unofficial forum that a company can pay to co-opt. Their paid plans specifically say that you get to shape the conversation. How Orwellian! So, you'll let users post bad things about my company on your service unless I start paying you in which case I get to decide what gets posted? That's just gross on both sides. And, of course, the more official it looks, the more it matters when people are posting bad things. Plus, once a company starts endorsing it, more customers will use it meaning that they can never stop paying.

There's a huge moral hazard there. If their business plan were to offer an unofficial support system for all companies, that would be great. If their business plan were to offer a product companies could sign up for to outsource their support IT infrastructure, that would be great. But their business plan is to offer the first in the hopes that companies will feel pressure to do the second.

EDIT: I want to clarify that I don't think Get Satisfaction is maliciously plotting in this way. I'm guessing that their plotting is to give customers the best support channels possible - in cases that they can be official, that means being official, but in other cases, it means giving customers the chance to unofficially talk about the company/products. However, it also means that their profits become tied to whether companies feel pressure to make Get Satisfaction an official support mechanism and the more people that use it because it looks official-ish, the more their profits are likely to be.

batasrki19• 17 years ago

As I said in a comment just posted, the user who wanted satisfaction, no pun intended, created that page on GetSatisfaction forums. If anything, the failure was technical, since GS did not notify 37Signals that a page has been created for their company.

Matter of fact, same can be said for any third-party service that lets users create pages/forums for companies they have beef with.

zacharypinter• 17 years ago

This situations reminds me a bit of yelp, where there are rumors of yelp accepting money to remove negative reviews.

I think this will start to become a trend. Anonymous feedback can be overly hostile and ruin companies. However, feedback moderated by the company in question might as well be a sales page. In the middle there are companies who try to play both sides, giving the appearance of openness while also being willing to take money to moderate the feedback.

webwright• 17 years ago

I really don't think that's the motivation at all-- but, of course, the Internet mob loves a villain, so pour on the hyperbole. Jesus, did you just make a 1984 reference aimed at a site that's trying to encourage businesses to have public support conversations!? Do you REALLY think it's Orwellian for forum software to allow the admin to delete threads?

It's not extortion to build a channel for discussion and have that channel get used enough that the company really oughta start paying attention. If it was, Twitter would be guilty. Let's bring our torches and pitchforks to all of the other forums out there that focus on technical issues with specific products.

The officialness of non-sanctioned forums (<20% of their signups nowadays, apparently) is clearly a problem which they agreed to and are addressing-- and I honestly think they need to do more than they did (notably: they need to fix how they appear in search engines when they are non-sanctioned forums).

I think you're taking a short view of profits. GS might be able to make a few bucks by faking people out on purpose and trying to extort companies. They stand to make a lot more if they do the right thing. And, if you actually take the time to read about the founders and the company, it seems like they are trying to do that.

brlewis• 17 years ago

It may be possible to bring money and morality into line. I'm going to find out: https://ourdoings.com/ourdoings-startup/2009-04-01

saturdayplace• 17 years ago

I wondered why Jason didn't just contact GS directly with his concerns. Even if his customers might be confused by GS, Jason knows who/what they are and could of raised his grievances with them directly. Instead he published some serious accusations on his widely-read blog knowing it'd get a lot of buzz. I imagine this whole story could've played out a little better if instead of jumping the gun and shouting 'malice' he'd've taken some extra time to work things out directly with GS.

rimantas• 17 years ago

Because acting this way assures that the problem will be noticed and acted upon. Private letter would achieve nothing at worst and maybe some tweaks to 37signals page on GS at best. Customers of the other companies would get the same confusing message making it easy to take GS pages as official support. As you can see I don't believe in GetSatissfaction "mistakes". All the design decisions (which eventually led to the trouble with 37s) they took look very logical.

adamhowell• 17 years ago

Reposting my comment from the post itself:

"@Tom: “why call them out so publicly on it, did you try an email and that failed? Why do it so angrily and so publicly?”

This is such a weak claim, that pointing out things on blogs rather than keeping them private is somehow wrong.

A) If you, as a company, are doing something that is arguably wrong, underhanded, etc., it is entirely fair game to be called out on that in public. The best analogy I can come up with at the moment is, it’s like being angry at whistle blowers for going public instead of solely trying to resolve the issue inside the company. Tobacco, Enron, etc.

B) Doing stuff in public - and getting the momentum of other people behind you - gets things done a lot faster than being pissed in private does. It’s also a lot more transparent, which is a part of what the web is all about.

We all open up criticism of ourselves from anybody and everybody through blog comments, it’s totally natural to do the same through blog posts."

run4yourlives2• 17 years ago

He could have also just sent a cease and desist order from his lawyers. Point is that the way Jason reacted was his choice. Notably, it was pretty much in the same form that GS promotes as a part of its service.

batasrki19• 17 years ago

I don't agree with anyone who has replied here. The public rant equivalent to shouting through a megaphone, while 80,000 people who might have their own, smaller megaphones intently listen.

There was no need for this, unless the private e-mail did not resolve the problem. Refer back to what Sarah said. The user who had a problem with 37Signals created the initial page. How is this GetSatisfaction's issue and more importantly, how is it a justification for publicly slamming another business?

jsdalton• 17 years ago

I don't actually agree with you, but I upvoted you because I think your point is at least legitimate.

I wish people on HN would stop downvoting comments simply because they disagree with them. Different perspectives add value to conversation!

Brushfire4• 17 years ago

Personally, I'm more on the side of Get Satisfaction on this one. There are some valid points about how GS is doing things, granted, but Jason at 37Signals seems to have problems with the entire concept of their business/service. I dont. I think its fantastic.

I think it puts the impetus on companies to either really flush out their support processes, or to find a vendor that will do it for them.

That said, I think the 'Unofficial' notification does need to be more obvious.

gsmaverick• 17 years ago

How can you be? I mean GS is making the 37signals page look really official and making their customers mad because 37signals isn't answering their questions. They are clearly in the wrong. This has nothing to do with support processes.

Brushfire4• 17 years ago

I said previously that I think the 'Unofficial' needs to be more noticeable. Once that is corrected, I dont see it as a huge issue.

People are not idiots, but they are generally frustrated about support options. If there are tons of people using GS's unofficial support forums instead of your own, that tells you that your system is broken, and needs to be repaired.

dougp• 17 years ago

They should at least take down the page on request.

Brushfire4• 17 years ago

Definitely, that seems fair.

mustpax2• 17 years ago

Consider the flip-side: how would you feel if Comcast went around filing crease and desist notices to take down 3rd party customer support sites like dslreviews?

GS has every right to create a forum where customers can air grievances. They should add links to the official support forum, and throw in a couple more "unofficial"s in there as well. But beyond that, they don't have an obligation to take down the whole forum. That's extreme.

The really sad part is: GS is easy to confuse with 37 signals, because they are both minimalist and elegant web sites. It's the high polish that adds to confusion.

GS should go the extra-mile to avoid confusion, but let's not lose our heads here.

Edit: It's been pointed out that I was using "DMCA request" incorrectly. I replaced it with "cease and desist."

mhp3• 17 years ago

"I think it puts the impetus on companies to either really flush out their support processes, or to find a vendor that will do it for them."

I have to say, I think you're missing the complaint. It's not against them providing support FOR COMPANIES THAT DON'T ALREADY DO IT. It's another for them to make MY company have to go to their site and look for customers who are expecting answers. Imagine if there were five companies just like GS competing... I would now be competing with them for PageRank on google searches and having to visit EVERY one of their sites to make sure I don't have any confused customers thinking they're going to get answers from us on those sites.

It's unmanageable. 37Signals HAS a support process in place and GS is putting the burden on them to go to their site and fill out their free doohicky that points people there. That's just ridiculous. It's automatically opting you in to a system that you didn't ask to be part of.

Brushfire4• 17 years ago

I see your point -- but you dont see it as an issue that there is a place where your own customers are posting complaints instead of your process? Clearly that means your internal support processes are too hard to find, to difficult to use, or too onerous overall. These are YOUR CUSTOMERS -- they should already know how to find you. If they dont, and they find GS instead, that says a lot.

bluefish• 17 years ago

The key dispute here is not about having a forum for individuals to provide support for each other and discuss issues with the company regardless of the company's involvement. I don't think that 37signals would argue over a resource like that. The dispute comes when GS presents themselves as the authoritative source for customer service for a company, especially when that company all ready cares deeply about their customers and tries to provide support elsewhere.

Accountability good, deception bad. It's a tough balance to strike for GS. Obviously they want to appear as the authority thus attracting customers and companies, but they risk alienating companies that have their own methods of triaging support issues.

unalone5• 17 years ago

SH in the comments explains just why she was so upset:

We found out because a very, very angry customer posted in a comment on our blog about our lack of reply to his inquiries. Now, we know as a company that years ago, we didn’t offer the same support we offer now. But I also know that I reply to EVERY email for support we receive, and I’ve done so for 2 years now. Two months ago, we hired Michael as our second support person, so we can reply with even more timely and more informative emails.

We scoured our records and found no trace of his email. I had our system administrator manually search our incoming mail logs and found nothing. Finally, the customer himself pointed me to the GS page he had created to ask 37signals a question. I was dumbfounded. Angry. Extremely, beyond belief, upset by this.

Customer support is my job, and I take it very seriously, and I am very, very good at it. To have another website undermine that job which leads to a customer with 1) a bad experience, 2) a bad impression of our company, 3) a bad impression of my work…well, it’s infuriating. Not only was I angry on the customer’s behalf, I was angry on behalf of our company to see our name and logo plastered all over a site we had never known about until then. (After that, there were two identical incidents over the past year.)

So that’s how we found out. Our frustration isn’t new, and it’s not unfounded. It’s based purely on the bad experiences GS has caused for our customers, and the harm it’s caused our brand. I’ve been friends with GS’s co-founder Lane Becker for years, and I don’t think he has sour intentions at all. But I do think perhaps as a company, GS is blinded to the harm their site can cause other companies.

pchristensen2• 17 years ago

Geez, I hope I can hire a support person that committed and thorough.

brm2• 17 years ago

Some things here still don't jive...

37Signals customer support person (Sarah Hatter) just wrote a comment stating that they've known about this for a year and that she's been friends with the founder of GetSatisfaction for a long time. I don't see how that leads to angry blog post to 80k people... What it really sounds like is Jason was in a bad mood and now they're doing damage control

Jem3• 17 years ago

I've stayed out this for the most part because neither company are of interest to me, but Tom's comment on this follow up post is interesting. It's almost as if 37signals knew about the site, made an attempt at using it and then couldn't be bothered to continue - instead preferring to wait a while and cause a little controversy (possibly for their own benefit). That's not to say that GS were/are in the right, but why wait nearly a year to start a conversation on this?

unalone5• 17 years ago

Do you always follow such a logical path to everything you do? I know I've gotten in situations where I've reacted to bad things way after it might have been necessary, because things build up to a bottleneck. And 37signals prides itself on being a small company where the individual people matter. They aren't professional in the smooth-and-polished-and-impregnable sense, and while that leads to some immaturity, it makes their company seem more human. So I doubt there's conscious scandal-making effort here: they don't strike me as cynical enough to work like that.

http://getsatisfaction.com/37signals/topics/customer_service...

That's from 10 months ago. The guy's mad, they respond (on GetSatisfaction, mind you), and the guy gets happier. But they don't keep using GS, because they do have their own support forum for this. Apparently they got more upset responses over the past year. So the first one wasn't terrible, but when you keep getting people hating you for poor customer service, eventually you hit a point where you flip and yell at GS for not providing a good intuitive solution.

brm2• 17 years ago

I don't think anyone said there was a scandal in the works here, but in the realm of much ado about nothing... some things dont seem to add up and they're seemingly less human and honest when they start having stories that don't match for pr and damage control purposes... thats big corporation stuff just as much as it is small company with personality (especially now that that personality is turning towards full of themselves)

Jem3• 17 years ago

I'm a woman, of course I'm not always logical ;)

Seriously though, I personally find that the longer I leave something the less likely I am to get worked up about it. After a few weeks it's probably gone from my mind altogether, so yeah, 10 months does seem like a really long time to wait.

I don't really know that much about 37signals apart from what I've picked up here on HN, but I believe any company - any person - is capable of spinning a story for a little drama to bring their company PR. Maybe I'm just a cynic though :)

mhp3• 17 years ago

Another problem not mentioned is this business model doesn't scale well for the companies it targets. It isn't just Get Satisfaction's pages you have to check... it's UserVoice's as well, and I'm sure there are others.

If people have a problem or a feature request and I don't choose to use those businesses, shouldn't it be the burden of those business (and not me) to make that clear to my customers if they inadvertantly end up there? Otherwise I have to sign up with them, or at least check their sites regularly...

Semiapies24• 17 years ago

That's the blackmail aspect for this niche, if not properly and ethically handled. "Hey, we've set up a page to catch unhappy customers. Better pay us time and/or money or we'll get them good and pissed-off at you."

simonk• 17 years ago

Most places like Uservoice only the site owner can sign-up.

Semiapies24• 17 years ago

This follow-up by Rundle gives a good dissection of the GS page design. He doesn't even mention the "Popular products & services from 37signals", where GS uses 37S's product logos as category links. Nor does he mention the fact that one of the two bits of GS branding on the page is a "Powered by" icon that an unfamiliar person would mistake for server software - or a service. Go to that page, and the word "Unofficial" and a small-print disclaimer are your only tip-offs that this is a "community".

The bad part of it all is that there's no need or justification at all for designing a customer support page that looks that official and target-company-branded if it isn't. There's no call for using another company's product logos as category links. As much as GS supporters laud that company as being a great bunch of people, I have trouble coming up for an honest purpose for these details.

I do note that they appear to have pulled down 37S's logo from the heading, though they've conspicuously left it up for other companies that don't use their support ( http://getsatisfaction.com/ups ).

calambrac5• 17 years ago

The frustrating thing about this for me is that I liked Get Satisfaction. It's a really well-done site, for the most part, and it was easy and convenient. I had never used it deeply, and only for services that were actually using it as their primary support channel, so I didn't even realize that they had pages for companies that hadn't signed up with them.

All the GS pages look pretty much identical, save for a few logos. After a while, you blow past the repeated boilerplate on each page, and you just use the functionality. I was one of the people who would never have noticed the small distinctions between official and unofficial; I would have thought any GS page was sanctioned by the company, because frankly, it never would have even entered my mind that GS would so brazenly try to unilaterally pose as a company's support channel.

This is exactly the kind of thing that trademarks are intended to protect against. I hate to say it, but all the hand-wringing over whether 37s was being rude by dropping a bomb of a blog post, is kind of silly. It could have very legitimately been a bomb of a lawsuit.

jerf• 17 years ago

"It could have very legitimately been a bomb of a lawsuit."

I agree, there's a very strong case for a trademark lawsuit. What's more, I think I can almost guarantee that some other company will file a lawsuit if Get Satisfaction doesn't clean up their act. And I'd bet on whoever files the lawsuit, too. This is quite clearly trademark infringement, from my non-lawyer-but-spent-time-studying-this point of view.

geebee• 17 years ago

Some people actually need to lose, big, in order to gain introspection.

I remember Steven King on NPR talking about the guy who badly injured him in a car accident. He was frustrated that the courts were lenient, because he said the guy continued to seem in denial about the connection between his actions and the damage he had caused. Apparently, this guy had a history of reckless driving (Steven King had been walking on the side of the road when he was hit), but he continued to view these accidents as bad luck, circumstance, things happen, and so forth. When asked what he wanted to see from the courts, Steven King said he wasn't looking for vengeance, but he wanted to see the guy placed into a situation where he'd be forced to finally confront his actions and fully acknowledge his role in the damage he had caused.

Now, obviously GetSatisfaction is not guilty of something as serious as physical harm. But I still hear the same lack of introspection, the same denial, that I think Steve King was referring to. They are still calling this a "learning experience", an "error", something to "discuss and improve on." Their tone alternates between defensive, accusatory, and chirpy.

This shows a complete lack of introspection and self-awareness. It's alien to most, but some people require a true legal defeat to develop introspection, something that strips away every final defense and puts them in a position where they have no recourse but to truly and deeply acknowledge their behavior.

As long as 37Signals engages with these folks in a blog vs blog thing, they're going to see this as a he said, she said, where there are good points to be made on each side. Personally, I don't get any indication they recognize how manipulative, deceptive, and wrong their actions really are.

batasrki19• 17 years ago

I don't understand why this is top of HN. Sure, GetSatisfaction screwed up their text on one of their badges, but that shouldn't have been cause for Jason to go off on a rant.

Also, I think that GetSatisfaction could have notified 37Signals when the page got created as per this quote from Sarah: "customer himself pointed me to the GS page he had created to ask 37signals a question".

However, these are all issues that could have been handled differently, most notably NOT being aired out to the general public. If Jason Fried thought that GS has "blackmailed" him, isn't he stooping to their level then by publicly denouncing their service, thereby essentially blackmailing them into action? Seriously, let's all be adults.

mechanical_fish3• 17 years ago

I don't understand why this is top of HN.

Because apparently a lot of people need an elementary lesson in trademark law and the reason it exists.

Of course, you don't have to learn about trademark law before you build your startup. You could always learn about it after you've constructed and deployed an automated system for violating it.

batasrki19• 17 years ago

Of course, had there been a bug in your "automated system" and you did not intend on violating the law in the first place, you'd still want to be publicly embarrassed just because the person who's angry with you did not have the manners to do it privately?

Semiapies24• 17 years ago

Sadly, quite a few people are having trouble grasping that critical blog posts are the absolute least of your worries when you break laws and infringe on others' identities. Or that being nice, smart people running a startup with some fanboys is not actually a get-out-of-jail card for your misbehavior.

sscheper• 17 years ago

I'm glad Jason stuck to his guns and didn't back down. He's right.

dpnewman• 17 years ago

I think the question of "honesty" in business is always more complex than we'd like it to be. It's amazing how powerful is the pull to make a business model "work". And very hard to balance that with being conscious of the fairness of it. I very much like how Jason broke down the various aspects of what "customer service" can be.

I think this incident is a great reminder, that we have to be incredibly diligent in balancing the pursuit of our business goals, with creating truly healthy communication and commercial ecosystems.

Semiapies24• 17 years ago

Yes. I think this whole thing has been valuable in terms of discussion, which is why I'm glad Fried actually took things out into the realm of open, transparent communication in his first post.

marbletiles• 17 years ago

The point of Get Satisfaction is to give people a way to corral ignorant and unresponsive companies into taking action. This a good thing. Concomitant with doing that, though, is a bit of extra work for responsive companies who are already good at support.

Fried's demands about unofficial badging and so on would destroy the good that GS does. If he can emblazon the page with UNOFFICIAL and LOOK HERE FOR SUPPORT, then what's to stop ShittyCorp from doing the same and pointing people to their own useless support pages?

To an extent, GS has to subvert the official support pages, otherwise it doesn't work. Fried's real argument is "this whole business model annoys me", but instead of just admitting that, he's going on about badges and design.

inklesspen• 17 years ago

So, you're saying 37signals should expend their own energy to help GetSatisfaction's business model succeed, simply because their competitors don't have good support? Sounds asinine to me.

dave_au• 17 years ago

If GS really highlighted the unofficial part and also linked to official support pages then companies with good support and / or people who are neutral on whether the company is ignorant or unresponsive get the check out the official support forums first and won't be confused about the nature of the GS page.

People who have already something against the support offered by ShittyCorp will stick around and use the unofficial support provided on GS - why on earth would they follow a link that they know would be unhelpful? It's only a problem if you assume a staggering amount of stupidity on the part of the target market.

As long as ShittyCorp doesn't have the option of making the GS page automatically redirect to the useless support pages all is good.

jhawk28• 17 years ago

The flip side is that if a company is to create a good QA site for an another company...Wouldn't they want it to be so official looking that the user would not be able to see the difference?

sachinag2• 17 years ago

We have an "official" page on GS. But I am astounded at how good their SEO is:

[dawdle support]: http://www.google.com/search?q=dawdle+support&ie=utf-8&#...

[dawdle help]: http://www.google.com/search?q=dawdle+help&ie=utf-8&...

But this is pretty old hat for online retailers:

[dawdle reviews]: http://www.google.com/search?q=dawdle+reviews&ie=utf-8&#...

I totally, totally get why 37signals is upset - but, sadly, what GS is doing isn't new. I'm envious that Jason has a big enough soapbox to get things changed; we certainly don't. That's why I'm thrilled he's being as public as he is.

trapper3• 17 years ago

Is it just me or was getsatisfaction nowhere to be seen on those links?

If so, go google!

mahmud• 17 years ago

Yep, google seems to have done its deed.

tptacek7• 17 years ago

Check the comments out. This started because a "very, very angry customer" yelled at them about their questions not getting answered. Still on the fence about GS?

Semiapies24• 17 years ago

One nice thing from Thor Muller in the comments:

"Very clear feedback, which we’re grateful for and will take to the drawing board. And yes, we are as serious as can be about removing all confusion. As we’re in the midst of significant design effort, we will see changes continue to hit the site regularly. It should be no surprise that we welcome public feedback about it as it happens.

My apologies again."

Yes, that's what they should have been saying all along instead of playing the poor-misunderstood-and-bullied-community-site card. However, they may be taking matters seriously enough to actually fix their approach.

shiranaihito• 17 years ago

However, they may be taking matters seriously enough to actually fix their approach.

Or they may be just throwing up smoke and mirrors. If they stopped doing their thing in an underhanded way, would they have much of a business left?

quellhorst• 17 years ago

I was considering using Get Satisfaction until I found out they would create pages for companies that hadn't asked for them.

Even if the service is good, I don't support companies that don't match my values.

gsiener• 17 years ago

So do I go to 37signals' website for support on GS now?

WebTom• 17 years ago

Get Satisfaction should stop creating support pages for companies that HAVE NOT SIGNED UP .

That is the end of the problem and the ONLY WAY TO GO .

37 Signals isn’t creating Basecamp accounts for companies that have not signed up, is it?

Get Satisfaction business models is very similar to Yelp = Extortion 2.0

daleharvey• 17 years ago

somewhere around 95% of the 37s fanboys comments I have read in between the last 3 threads are seemingly oblivious to what get satisfaction actually provides

1. there are the small companies who would like and out of the box solution for their support to save them time / money

2. there are the large companies that have terribly supported products and the community generally has to replace them, their official support channels are usually private (so they only help 1 person), or very heavily moderated to the point where they are just a pr exercise and of very little use. (remember creative?)

the idea that companies can ban users from provided the support that they should rightly be doing themselves is just plain ridiculous

axod• 17 years ago

Right. and Google shound not index pages of websites that have not signed up! Google even use your name in their search results!

37signals' follow up on "Get Satisfaction, Or Else..."

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