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...)