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Why is Get Satisfaction acting so irresponsibly?
Jason Fried of 37 Signals raises some excellent points.
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/16...
I like this site, and all, but those are some serious concerns. You guys need to work this out.
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/16...
I like this site, and all, but those are some serious concerns. You guys need to work this out.
I’m quite concerned
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Hi, Larry. Just to clarify, we don't charge $100/mo for companies to do that. Getting in, responding, setting a message that tells customers that you have alternate support options you would prefer that they use -- all of that is, was, and always will be free. We only charge companies to use features that involve them actively using Get Satisfaction as a primary customer service tool.
Jason does raise some excellent points about the language that we're using, which conveys an intent other than what we meant, and we appreciate his comments, agree with him, and are currently in the process of cleaning the language up.
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Inappropriate?He's right, they're trying to strong-arm companies by saying, "Give us at least $100 a month or we'll keep telling all your customers you don't care about them." These fake support forums show up in search engine listings -- this is serious. -
Inappropriate?Hi, Larry. Just to clarify, we don't charge $100/mo for companies to do that. Getting in, responding, setting a message that tells customers that you have alternate support options you would prefer that they use -- all of that is, was, and always will be free. We only charge companies to use features that involve them actively using Get Satisfaction as a primary customer service tool.
Jason does raise some excellent points about the language that we're using, which conveys an intent other than what we meant, and we appreciate his comments, agree with him, and are currently in the process of cleaning the language up.
5 people say
this answers the question
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Inappropriate?This feature isn't as prominent as it should be. The example given in the comments of the 37Signals post, New Relic (URL: http://getsatisfaction.com/newrelic), still conveys strongly that GetSatisfaction is the "Customer Support Community" for the company, in large, more prominent type over the company message, which blends in with the flair on the site. The company message really should take the place of the "Customer Support Community" language at the top.
And of course, the badge about the consumer pact is awful. Who wrote it? It links to a wiki page with a bunch of random signatures. When we looked at GS for support, we thought this was a joke. And now we're supposed to sign it? The whole pact thing really needs to be elaborated more on your site, not just a link to a random person's wiki page.
I’m disappointed
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Mark, to clarify: The reason the New Relic section of Get Satisfaction is shown as "Customer Support Community" is because 13 New Relic employees have signed up to represent their company on Get Satisfaction. If they all decide to leave Get Satisfaction, it will then say "Unofficial". -
Inappropriate?Thanks for the feedback. We're definitely working to respond quickly to these complaints. We'll post more here, for sure.
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Inappropriate?Hey, jL, et. al. We've done our best to respond to the opinions that Jason had about our service. For example, we blogged about it a few times:
http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2009/...
http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2009/...
http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2009/...
http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2009/...
We've removed ads from the site, and we'll move quickly to redesign details of our site so that hopefully no one is confused about what is official and what is unofficial. We also want to make it as easy as possible to link out to "official" support forums. We don't want there to be any confusion. We've always maintained that we're *not* a forum, and that our site is best used as an addition by many companies to their regular support forums -- if they even want to use us at all.
I'd like to also say that I personally believe we should increase the use of the word "Unofficial" in a number of ways. Our own brand is actually somewhat synonymous with that for consumers -- where you go when you aren't getting the help you need from the "official" sources. That's part of our original stance. Perhaps this bout of criticism can help us extend and build on that. We're doing our best to make lemons out of lemonade.
I’m soldiering on
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You never address the situation when a company provides superior service to what would be provided at GetSatisfaction. Why not do whats best for the customer and redirect your page to the official support resources?
GS should be entirely opt-in for companies. Right now we are forced to opt-in and create accounts because peoples questions are going unanswered on your site. If they had found the proper resource and not been misled by GS, that wouldn't have happened. -
We give companies a "Message from the Company" space that can be used to redirect customers to any area you want -- both Panic < http://getsatisfaction.com/panic/ > and IconFactory < http://getsatisfaction.com/iconfactory/ > have done this, for example. This is accessible in the admin area of the company site once the employee has been verified as an actual employee of the company.
We don't redirect the entire page because some customers choose to use Get Satisfaction for customer-to-customer conversation, and we welcome that. As we've pointed out in several recent blog posts and in our own Get Satisfaction area of Get Satisfaction, as well as anywhere anybody asks :), we're working to make this much clearer and explicit in those areas where companies aren't interested in participating, and intend to have design changes to address that out very soon. -
Inappropriate?First things first, I think you guys handled the whole 37S thing very well, and although some of the points that were raised by that blog post were spot on (especially on the logo trademark issue), most of the ranting going on come from a huge misunderstanding of what GS is about (it's about transparency. when I use a forum on the company's site itself, I have no assurance that a post, if negative, will not be removed. I have no assurance that what I read there has not been censored. This is why GS has legitimacy even when the companies don't agree about its existence).
However, I think that there is still an important improvement to make regarding companies that decide not to officially support their GS site. I'll use the example from Panic (http://getsatisfaction.com/panic/). Although the message is clear, because Panic added employees to the GS site, the "Unofficial" label is lost, and the badge says "Panic is committed to open conversation..." instead of the "has not endorsed..." text. I guess that they could close their account, but I think that an option in the Admin panel to "unofficialize" the site would be more convenient.
I know you guys are in a re-design phase and I guess it will be fixed, but I haven't seen this issue brought up in the comments I read and I think it shouldn't be overlooked.2 Comments Add a comment
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thanks, virgil. we are definitely aware of that issue, and will work to address it in the redesign. i just didn't get into it in my last answer because at this point we'd rather show than tell people what our plans are. there's already been a lot of talking this week -- time for some action! :)
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also, thanks for the kind words! we're going to work harder to make sure people understand why we're here and what we're about from here on in. apparently we have a bigger stage than we used to -- we've leveled up! -- and we need to address that in a variety of ways.
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