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Journal SlashChick's Journal: Learning From Your Mistakes 21

Journal by SlashChick

In the course of running a business, I've learned that one or two small mistakes can often ensure that your business doesn't do as well as it should (or could). It's amazing how much people talk on the Internet, and moreso than that, it's amazing how easy it is to be negative about things.

Slashdot has many great examples of this... just look at any TiVo article and you'll see three classic "disses" that are mentioned every time someone says "TiVo":

1) Who cares. I have a VCR. I don't see a need to pay a monthly subscription for a VCR, either.

2) Monthly subscriptions are the tool of the DEVIL!!! (Of course, I don't think paying monthly for Internet access is evil... just paying for TiVo monthly. And I've neglected to do my research and find out that you can pay for a lifetime subscription to negate all those oh-so-horrific monthly fees.)

3) Dude, I have like this 1337 setup that runs MythTV on Linux and it is so infinitely better than a TiVo. (Never mind that I have to have a keyboard and mouse by my TV and therefore I look like a complete geek... because see, this $500 PC here also runs MAME and therefore ALSO replaces a $99 Playstation!! OMG 1337!!!!11)

Riiiight.

99% of these types of respondents have never even used a TiVo, but they can't help being negative about it regardless. (Grr.)

Anyway, I'm getting offtopic. What this journal entry is about is a couple of mistakes Simpli has made and how they've helped to shape us as a company.

The first (and most major one) was a guy who leased a dedicated server from us, promptly moved all of his domains over without testing them, and broke everything. He emailed us from his Yahoo account stating that his server was broken and what-an-awful-server-we-had-given-him. Little did I realize that he had a reply-to set up on his emails that forwarded back to his main mail account... the one that was on his dedicated server, and, thus, was broken!

Well, after several hours of our non-responses (since they had gotten lost because of his reply-to settings), the guy writes a nasty message about Simpli on a message board. A customer of ours sees the message and points me to it, at which point my mouth promptly drops open because I realize that this guy hasn't gotten a single reply we had sent to him the entire day.

His mistake? Setting up the server without testing it. Sending us email from an account that had a reply-to that went back to the broken server (he didn't mention what domain names he tried to move over, so I didn't have any idea that that was broken, or that his reply-to was going back to the broken server.)

Our mistake? Not calling him.

What we learned: Now we promptly call all customers who are having problems with our services (which is surprisingly few people; we've never had someone who had the major issues this guy had). Since this guy left, we've beefed up support so nothing slips through the cracks. We're implementing a helpdesk system to better track requests, and we will be hiring again soon (more details on that later) because we need people to cover a few more hours so we have a true 24x7 support staff.

And we gave that guy a full refund.

Fast-forward to today. I was reading FortKnox's latest journal entry (by the way, the 2nd Slashdot Photo Contest is up again), and what do I see but a post from a guy who is unhappy that we haven't replied to his sales inquiry.

"Oh, sh*t", I think. "Here we go again." Sure enough, his hasn't been replied to. Sure, it was a bit offbeat and required some research on our end, but the fact was that I'd answered some doozies this month, and I'm not sure why that one slipped through the cracks.

What I learned (since I'm the one who responds to sales requests): I decided to get those sales inquiries out of my inbox and in to their own special little email folder, called (unsurprisingly) !sales inquiries. (I use the ! at the beginning to denote important email folders so they are placed first in the folder list.) I glance through them. We've received 17 sales inquiries through our contact form this month, and his is the only one I haven't replied to. Damn.

The good news is that with these filed safely away in their own folder, I can now easily glance at them and figure out who hasn't been replied to. Although we've probably lost him as a customer, the good news is that this probably won't happen again.

This has been an incredibly long journal entry, even by my standards! I guess I just needed to get that out there. Go forth and post comments... (oh, and vote in the Slashdot photo contest!)

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Learning From Your Mistakes More

Learning From Your Mistakes

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  • Wow, you're kinda all over the place there, aren't you?

    Well, on the TiVo thing, like you said it is only represenational of the hoards of non-logic you can find around this place. Take everything with a grain of salt and don't worry, there are enough reasonable people out there who will do the same about yours.

    I know all too well the feeling a vocal minority can play in a recent encounter (that I do not wish to go into more due to the trolls I have picked up from that). So, I know your worries, but reme

    • She hasn't lost a customer... ;o)

      • She hasn't lost a customer.

        Ok, I guess I misuderstood:

        Since this guy left, we've beefed up support so nothing slips through the cracks... And we gave that guy a full refund.

        I guess that guy leaving and getting his money back means somether other than he is no longer a customer of hers.
        • The first guy (who leased a dedicated server) is gone, yes. We lost him.

          Levi is the guy I was referring to who complained today that we hadn't replied to his email. Apparently, we haven't lost him. That's always a good thing. :)
    • Well, on the TiVo thing, like you said it is only represenational of the hoards of non-logic you can find around this place.

      Speaking as a long time Mac user: all three of those are completely logical and sound statements.

      What's got you irritated is that they're subjective assessments.

      And being objective takes time, effort and money. (Not to mention some measure of talent.)

      After all, they know they're safe *not* spending the money and *not* fixing what ain't broken.
  • ...I can only assume that mine didn't get through.

    I am making a web page to document all that I learned on email servers. I wanted to thank the kind folks who helped out by putting a link to their web sites & email addresses. I guess I don't really need to ask about web sites, but I want to be extra, extra sure that it is okay for me to do that with email addresses.

    Are you interested in having your company's web site listed on my page? I'm intending to make a short blub, approx. 3 sentences long. If y

  • I don't care, because I have a VCR, and don't pay a monthly fee to spend hours with the TV guide, change tapes all the time, and then hook up my bad-ass linux box with all sorts of random crap loaded on it-- hey, wait. I have a TiVo. It kicks total fscking ass. I don't have to figure out when/where a show comes on; I look for the name and it's there. I pay the monthly fee because... er.. I can't remember. I'll have to look into the 'lifetime membership' thing. I thought they discontinued it, tho.

    Oh, well.
    • Its for the channel guide. That's what the monthly fee is for.

      And it is 100% worth it. I have yet to find someone who has had a TiVo and didn't like it.
      • oh yeah. that's what it's for. it's like $5/month. Much worth it. Now I don't have to worry about when xyz show is on. Of course, I further don't have to worry today, as the dish and receiver are in storage.

        But NORMALLY, it's AWESOME. I get Samurai Jack, Simply Quilts, and 3-4 Law & Orders (from TNT) delivered daily. :)

        Without it, I'd never see SJ, I'm never up at 5:30am when SQ's broadcast, and L&O is a good show to wait for dinner with. And I don't have to watch anything I don't want to watch. I
  • This has been an incredibly long journal entry, even by my standards! I guess I just needed to get that out there. Go forth and post comments...

    I see seas of blood in the near future as both the guilty and the innocent are mowed down by East Timorese Communist gunfire.

    Wait, listen to me! Remember Cassandra... Cassandra...

    :P
  • Dont let that customer get ya :) Whenever you feel down, just go Here [illfuckinghostit.com] and laugh at what you wish you could say to your customers :)

    • Re:Bah (Score:2)

      by arb ( 452787 )
      Damn! I've just signed up with a hosting company this morning - I wish I had've seen these guys first! ;-)
    • These guys stike me in a lot of examples as overly hostile for no reason (the last guy in their losers.txt file seemed rather reasonable, though his internet english was rather absurd), and the girl who wanted PHP/MySQL didn't sound like she was ordering anyone.

      I think these guys just don't know how to deal with people properly, have some kind of superiority complex, and assume that everyone that has the gall to talk to them is an idiot. Sure, a lot of people are, but these guys sure seem to be overreactin
  • While I realize that's quite a provocative subject, and through your writing I see this post probably isn't necessary, I'm going to put in one recommendation (needed or not; apparantly not) about doing retail sales.

    Without pandering, if there's a problem, give the customer what they want. Make sure all your support staff, customer service, and so on know this as well. If someone comes to you with a problem, your first reaction (after listening and thinking about the issue) should be to ask them if they wan
  • The mistake of not following up emails with a phone call is one that every person could learn from, and I've had a similar experience.

    Last winter I became the director of the technology group at my company (minor plug: www.syrupnyc.com) and had to pick up the reigns of client relations where my predecessor had left off. At the time, we had a long standing client who was having problems with the site we had built for them.

    Long story short, the problem was serious enough that I devoted my personal time and
  • I don't know if it helps in your case, but the company I work for (and we are large-ish) has two things that help.

    One, is that the mail to a generic account is sent to a shared folder - viewable, (with Notify running) by three people whose job it is to put tickets into the helpdesk system. Once the help desk ticket has been generated, the mail is moved out of the 'pending' folder, and into a 'dealt with' folder. Since we have multiple people with access to that folder, we don't have to worry about vacatio

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