Week #378
Summer has just started in Europe and Linking Paths week #378 comes to an end. No big news this week. We have been working in projects like Plankio, Verkami and supporting Qstion’s development. Also trying hard to support Stage’s users and to push some new features. If I’m being repetitive, please, tell me, but this week I’d like to focus again in one of the key activities for any company’s success and how it pays back: customer service and support.
This week we were praised by a customer who organizes small workshops and courses with Stage who really likes the way we support his business. Most of our customers don’t even know, but we track deliverability for every email sent from Stage. Every time an email with booking’s details can’t be delivered or is marked as spam it creates a new ticket in our support system.
Usually it’s just that the buyer misspelled the email address. Sometimes the problem is caused by a weird error in some mail server configuration. No matter what is the reason, every time it happens we investigate the issue and take the measures to ensure he gets his tickets. On the few occasions we can’t find the typo or an alternative email address, we call the buyer by phone directly and/or notify event’s organizer about the problem. And we do all this, regardless of the event being free or not. We do it because we believe it’s the right thing to do, and it’s very nice when a customer recognizes all the work we put to make his business thrive.
Today’s recommended reading is quite short. It’s a small story of customer care and how to handle mistakes. If you run a SAAS business you often fears to make a mistake while deploying a new release with important changes. You fear to make a mistake, to shutdown your service, to send some unwanted emails, etc. You really hold your breath and almost sweat every time you start a deploy. Or at least I do. After 3 years of running Stage I still do it, and I think it’s good so.
Well, this week the guys from Code School while doing one of these important deploys, made a mistake and notified current and former users that their credit cards had being charged successfully. Can you believe it?. I do, they are just humans. The good point is that they reacted to this mistake in the only way: being open and honest. Kudos to the guys behind Code School for the service and for the handling of this situation.
No matter what your business is, you should never forget that your customers are as human as you and therefore they’ll understand the problem if you talk to them: they just don’t like the uncertainty of not knowing what’s happening.
Have a nice weekend.
