evanhamilton

Agreed, thank you for calling me out. I've updated the post and HN title.

Agreed. Thanks for the feedback, I've updated the HN and blog title. Lame move, thank you.

I definitely see things through the lens of community management, as marketers may see things through the lens of marketing. I haven't seen Home Depot's response to the deaths in their stores so I don't have any comment on that, but it's likely I would if I saw them. I wrote this post based on my disgust at Uber's response and the lesson I think companies should learn from it.

Lots of folks have complained about the surge pricing notifications, which is why I'm repeating those complaints. Perhaps Uber has improved that messaging since the last, highly-publicized round of complaints.

I appreciate your feedback on the title and I agree. I've updated the post and HN title. Thanks for keeping me honest...that was a lame move on my part.

Thanks to everyone for your feedback on the title of this post. I was trying to catch the eye and, in doing that, misrepresented my point. This article is not designed to hurt Uber...it was born out of frustration at their public response to this situation, and designed to point out that they, like many companies, would benefit from a stronger focus on their community.

This is a line from my article:

"Is it Uber’s responsibility to do something here? No."

So no, I don't think they should take the hit for this, and I don't think they're legally culpable.

Perhaps I didn't make it clear in the article: I think Uber is making people dislike them through their lack of empathy in this and other situations.

This is bad for Uber, and I'm suggesting they change this. That is all.

So, now that we've covered that...

I think your point about Uber staying out of your business is valid. Some people prefer that, and perhaps Uber doesn't need to try to build a strong connection with their community. As I said at the end of the article, I don't think this attitude will kill Uber, but I do think it'll make it lose some customers. Maybe, to your point, that's totally ok because they're keeping the type of customers they want. Would be interesting if that was their strategy!

Thanks for reading.

I explicitly state in the article that I feel no legal responsibility rests with them. I state that in the first few paragraphs.

What I am trying to make clear is that treating a tragedy like a legal technicality is not a way to build community. People are disgusted by their reaction.

For the record, I don't use any of the car services...this is not meant to promote Lyft or degrade Uber in any way, just to advise companies to invest in community. I would have hoped my numerous clear messages that I do not harbor anything against Uber would have made that clear.

I agree that my headline was designed to be provocative (though it is addressed in my very first sentence) and perhaps a bad choice on my part.

Did you mean to write "I'm not excited to use Uber."? Just wanted to clarify!

It's just how the brain works. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKKa_OlSXgQ

Sorry, couldn't resist. :)

I don't think Windows is done because there's always going to be a market for cheap(er) laptops and desktops. My girlfriend is a teacher. She can't afford a Mac. She doesn't want a Chromebook because she spends time in locations with no internet connection. She'll be buying a Windows machine for THOSE reasons.

Someone could absolutely disrupt Microsoft in the low-price market (and who knows, Chromebook might get there) but we're not going to see everyone switch to Macs just because the new Windows isn't great.

I think it's scheduled for next week. :)

FYI dinosaurs are at 05:08

But where's robo-Lemmy?

I'm a big fan of "Confessions of a Public Speaker". Even if you don't agree with all the advice, it gives you some great perspective.

While I do like tags for myself, they are also inherently problematic with a group. I tag a photo of my friend "Chardo" (his nickname). Friend #2 tags another photo of him "Richard" (his real name). Now viewing all items tagged "Richard" won't show all the photos of Richard. (Replace human names with names of places, descriptions ["bbq" vs "tom's party"], etc)

Do you have any plans for how to address this?

Sure, it might...but your financials will also look bad if you slowly bleed customers through bad customer service. Again, I think this is an opportunity for organizational change - even if the employee can't solve my problem right then, he should bring up the inflexibility of his system with his employers and they should try to change it.

That said - and as many commenters have pointed out - the employee probably wasn't empowered to make or suggest any changes to the business. :\

+300 :)

Thanks for the feedback, hluska. I hear you...I've been in the same jobs and had no power. I was really trying to use this example to point out how companies need to have a culture of actually solving problems rather than shrugging and saying "sorry". I do think it needs to happen at the company level, otherwise you're right...the dude at the coffee shop will do what is less likely to get him fired.

Great point. That's why company culture is important - you need to have frontline employees who care. Probably not going to happen at the bakery, sadly, but something you CAN build into a startup.

Sure...I think that's a big part of Rich's point. If you're bootstrapping or building a lifestyle business, this isn't the way you want to go. Neither is right or wrong (though some specific instances certainly seem a bit gross).

(And regardless, eventually you will need to make money)

@Jon That's awesome! Shoot me an email, I'd love to hear more about it: evan[at]uservoice[dot]com

Just to expand on what Rich said: we try to build products that solve people's problems. We're very focused on making sure additional features solve a lot of people's problems (our feedback forum helps us figure this out: feedback.uservoice.com/forums/1-general-feedback), not just single clients (even if they have a lot of money). It's a lesson we've learned (painfully) several times. So we tend to make our own schedule and try to delight customers with the things we add, rather than rush to keep up with things potential customers have on their shopping list.

Ah, it's worth clarification here. Here's how we use the nomenclature:

Ticket - a message a customer sends in about an issue or question.

Bug - an issue (that can come from any source) which we track and resolve.

We just Trello for bugs (which may be reported in tickets) but we use UserVoice Helpdesk (http://www.uservoice.com/helpdesk) for tickets. Helpdesk is designed around customer communication, Trello is designed around development.

Hope that clarifies! :)

Sorry about that, I guess I was more interested in the process! :) You should ping http://twitter.com/jessemaan about the system...I'm sure she'd be happy to share.

I wasn't necessarily trying to imply that, though I'm sure it is true. :)

Based on what they told me, it sounds like the scheduling was the hardest part. Second hardest was probably finding the right phone system that worked perfectly for them.

If you have any specific questions, I recommend you tweet http://twitter.com/jessemaan directly...I'm sure she'd be happy to answer if she can!

Thanks for the clarification. We totally agree that any tool can be used incorrectly, which is why we're always working to educate our customers (and businesses in general) about best practices for customer service and customer feedback. One blog post at a time, we'll get people there. :)

You should spend a second on http://www.uservoice.com/helpdesk. We've never said that UserVoice was a replacement for a support system, and we've actually very clearly stated that we think customer-powered support doesn't work as a standalone solution for 99% of companies (blog.uservoice.com/entries/customer-powered-support-doesnt-work).

UserVoice Feedback is a tool for getting prioritized feedback from your customers, not providing customer support. And how actively you respond to feedback is not something controlled by the tool, it's controlled by the company. We encourage our customers to actively respond to feedback, but we can't force them.

That's definitely a concern here at UserVoice. We're firm believers in saying "no" (and explaining why) rather than letting ideas sit open or in "under review" or "planned" piles. We do and will continue to preach that to our customers, and we're looking at ways to actually encourage them to respond via the UX.

Here at UserVoice, we're in love with:

* http://trello.com Easy card management for tracking all of our projects and bugs. We've got boards for every department.

* http://hipchat.com Fantastic way to chat in rooms or with individuals. Keeps our two offices connected.

* http://argylesocial.com Fantastic social media monitoring, publishing, and most importantly, measurement.

* http://airbrake.io Error collector, which we publish into Hipchat. (More info: http://blog.airbrake.io/awesome-airbrakers/uservoice/)

* http://optimizely.com/ Simple and powerful A/B testing tool

...and probably a bunch of others I'm forgetting. Thank you for creating these wonderful apps, everyone!

So if I told you that I wasn't a person but in fact a 15-person team who posts comments across the web, you wouldn't be weirded out? :P

I'd argue that a pseudonym is /very/ different from having all support responses come from a a fake person. "tomkarlo" could be a pseudonym and I'd be fine interacting with you...but if I find out that "tomkarlo" is actually 12 employees at Microsoft posting on boards across the web, I'd be very upset.