Livejournal customer relations

[matgb]

Hey everyone, guess what? Yup, you've got to log in (again) and are probably going to encounter some more problems for a bit longer. It appears that putting news, lj_dev and lj_maintenance on your main friends page is currently an esential plan.

Great. You see, the thing is, from what I can tell, they could've predicted some of these problems, they could have warned us, they could have... You get the picture.

So, here's how to deal with this sort of thing and not piss off your paying customers.

1. Identify problem and realise it's fucking urgent.
2. Crash solve it.
3. Announce you've solved the immediate threat
   1. Admit it's an incomplete solution
   2. admit there may be knock on effects
   3. give all users access to a specific, dedicated support reporting page for this problem only
   4. keep people informed
   5. be 100% open and honest; this is the internet, we'll find out what the problem was anyway, it'll leak
   6. don't say things like "a flaw in a popular browser" but instead say "X flaw in Y browser"
4. make sure that if you're doing something that will affect all users, warn them if possible and ensure they know after the fact if not
5. Apologise, and let those that may lose out medium to long term know that, when the problem is over, you'll make it up to them, and to be patient
6. keep people informed (did I mention that one?)

Here's what Livejournal have instead done:

1. Identify problem and realise is fucking urgent.
2. Crash solve it and think it's all over
3. Announce you've solved the problem
   1. Give the impression it's all done with
   2. Not warn people there may be knock on effects
   3. Not adequately explain the issue
   4. Tell people after the fact with incomplete data
   5. Tell people you'll post info on lj_dev but
      1. not do so for 5 days
      2. not provide people a link and instead call it "our development journal"
   6. Fail to tell people they may not currently be logged in in an accessible way (twice)
4. Thank us for "understanding" (something not fully explained) and hope we "have fun"
5. Give a priviledge that many thought was good enough to pay for to all users, and
   1. replace said priviledge with something most can't effectively use (more phone posts. w00t)
   2. do this as a follow up to another significant tipping factor being lessened (# icons, I paid to go from 3 to 15, I could live with 6)
   3. act all surprised like when people are wondering if a paid account is now worth it
6. Fail to keep everyone informed

Yup, I'm pissed. Keeping your paying customers happy is something that businesses need to do. I love LJ, I like the flexibility, the utility, the community. But the management and PR people suck. I effectively work in marketing/PR (it's a significant part of my job), and I know pissing people off by not keeping them informed is a bad idea. When the people you piss off most are the paying customers that your business model relies on heavily? Clusterfuck.

Short version: log in (again). Oh yeah, one good thing, Manage your login sessions (if they get it working...)

Comments

[atlanta06.livejournal.com]

What does PR stand for? I see it everywhere and it's not in the Wiki...*confuzzled*

[waka-laka.livejournal.com]

It's public relations, isn't it?... shoot me if I'm wrong.

And yeah, I really don't know why I'm paying money for this thing anymore, even if it is only $5 every two months, still, it's just not worth it.

[matgb]

You're right, on both.

The nice bits, like post pages in layout, email forwarding, adding syndicated feeds, etc are just nice.

I paid for a year, I have until August to decide, they may give me something worth it between now and then.

The auto pinging various update servers is useful but, well, I can live without that, I have blogs for that...

[atlanta06.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

Join the exodus! Get a blog! *pimps self (http://thechameleon.blogsource.com)* It's free and easy!

BlogSource (http://www.blogsource.com) doesn't look like much now since it's pretty new. But has potential for really awesome growth with input from new users and such.

If that's not your cuppa,there's tons and TONS of other blogs out there. Some you can pay for the full experience and some that are free and still workable. And if you can't bear to leave the LJ format,there's places out there that mimick LJ without all its hassles...

*is happy she jumped ship earlier*

[matgb]

Hmm, let's see.

nolittleengland? That's me (and paulatpingu. torbaylife? That's me, waka_laka, busdriving and another local blogger I haven't set a feed up for (yet). But LJ is good as an aggregator and filtering is useful. I use it to read stuff more than much else.

They're likely to fix the issues, but no matter how good blogsource gets, it'll never have metaquotes ;-)

Still not used to CJ as female; only CJs I know are male, and all American, it's just not on to be called 2 letters in the civilised anglosphere ;-)

[atlanta06.livejournal.com]

*shrug* I hate my real name. "C.J." is a combo of my first and middle...

I get called "Atlanta" too...

[stonefox84.livejournal.com]

matty you think too much.

[matgb]

Well, y'see, I always was a fan of Descartes, and also, given my finances, thinking is about the only thing I can afford at the moment...

[stonefox84.livejournal.com]

you could reply to emails people send to you.

oh, im sensing deja vu!

[matgb]

Thought I had, my memory's going; I'm ill and old...

[freddiefraggles.livejournal.com]

I'd like to second the replying to things...

I was bored in EUSO and you didn't reply to my text! :-(

[matgb]

Meh, phone was in coat pocket. Besides, was busy doing research stuff and reading looong comment threads on maintenence and dev.

[freddiefraggles.livejournal.com]

Excuses, excuses...

[fearmeforiampink]

I've hardly noticed all the kerfuffle, bar having to change my password. Then again, I've always been happy with typing in my password to log in each time.

[matgb]

If you always log in anyway, then it makes no difference; I've got remember me switched on at home and work. So unless I check, or try to comment, I miss f-locked posts. Not a major issue, but, well.

Besides, I have nothing else to rant about currently...