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Originally published on It’s All a Matter of Perspective,
Holly Jahangiri is the author of Trockle, illustrated by Jordan Vinyard; A Puppy, Not a Guppy, illustrated by Ryan Shaw; and the newest release: A New Leaf for Lyle, illustrated by Carrie Salazar.
She draws inspiration from her family, from her own childhood adventures (some of which only happened in her overactive imagination), and from readers both young and young-at-heart. She lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband, J.J., whose love and encouragement make writing books twice the fun.
Copyright © 1998-2025 Holly Jahangiri
Nothing on this website may be used without prior written consent of the author and owner.
The web has made us all judges, juries and executioners. Tech companies usually get the brunt of customers’ ire because, even in this day and age, people are still in awe of the digital priesthood. Case in point, Evernote is falling on hard times and it is evident in the for a that customers feel abandoned, ignored and/or taken for granted.
For years, I have enjoyed this note-taking, web-clipping idea stashing software. But, after many stumbles and wrong turns, it is slowly melting into a green blob of errors, swirling around the stumps of unwanted gee-whiz features.
Complaining by others has led me to the conclusion that it is futile to add my voice to the noise. I simply use Microsoft OneNote more and more.
I realize this is not the tactic most customers will take; especially if considerable sums of time, money and mental effort has been invested in a purchase. But, unless satisfaction is a guarantee, we should be prepared for the occasional possessed toaster. (I did read that somewhere; did you write about it, before? LOL)
Cheers,
Mitch
We’ve all got expectations, and over time, those tend to rot into a sense of entitlement that may or may not be justifiable. I’ve been irritated with my home network provide due to the erratic performance of the service, but moreso due to the difficulty in reaching a KNOWLEDGEABLE support rep who will take action without (a) sending me down a several hours’ long rathole of pointless troubleshooting steps; or (b) giving me the run-around (recently, a fiber optic cable got cut in Houston – the downdetector map for ALL providers was suspiciously similar, but only one was being forthcoming about it and communicating proactively with customers). I think one of the biggest issues people have with brands is their support agents wasting their time and/or lying outright to them (remember when I recently switched web hosting companies – to pay more for more a package that was not “unlimited” like my previous deal? That was why. Never, ever, EVER lie to me or tell me the problem is my fault, when it isn’t.)
That said, I was laughing at others who seemed to be totally losing it in the comments on Twitter and downdetector – I mean, my god, a 5 hour outage and customers were LIVID – demanding a month’s free service? Threatening to switch providers? To WHAT? (Cut cables happen. It’s unfortunate. It’s good they got it back up in 5 hours. How about $5 or $10 off your next bill? Or maybe a free chill pill? But I only say that because they DID openly acknowledge a problem and proactively communicated regular status updates online.)
It really is NOT futile to “add your voice to the noise” if you can add information about the problem or help to get the attention of the RIGHT person (e.g., actual customer support person who knows how to escalate a case when there’s a growing number of real data points to work with). I’ve used Evernote, liked it, but never felt that they had a really competitive offering at a competitive price point. OneNote just blows them away – IN MY OPINION. But Evernote has heavily invested, die-hard FANS. We all want fans, until the day they turn on us, forget we’re a business, and it turns into a scene from Stephen King’s novel Misery. We don’t own EACH OTHER. We trade products and money, services and money, and this is a great argument in favor of anti-trust laws and better enforcement – so that the threat of “I’ll take my business elsewhere” is a real thing, with real consequences, and not just an angry, impotent threat.
I don’t know if the possessed toaster ever featured in one of my short stories or not, but this post was on my older blog, too. 🙂 I just thought of it again after that recent mobile outage. It bears repeating, I think, from time to time.
Hmm, I will want to compare notes with you — your One to my Ever. Right now, I’m just giddy with OneNote’s FUNCTIONING web clipper. I will miss the tagging of notes, but there is way too much wrong with Evernote for me to stick around.
The futility is pre-ordained. Those rabid fans? They’re the one feeling the burn of abandonment. I’m just reading the tea leaves and getting out of the way of the pending crash.
Cheers,
Mitch
I prefer direct communications with the organisation concerned and, inevitably find that they respond well and usually solve problems. If something ridiculous does happen, I may write about it my blog but that is for limited readership and the organisation concerned may never even come to know about the post. For instance this – http://rummuser.com/customer-service-2/
More and more companies are trying to provide the bulk of their support through social media. For simple issues, it can cost a lot less than phone support, and it’s faster than snail mail. So this may BE a direct route.
And you’re absolutely right – in most cases, problems are resolved quickly, and best, by taking the direct route and being very clear about what the problem IS in the first place. But see my story about the airline. I tried the “direct route” numerous times. When customer complaints turn from irritation to frustration to righteous anger, you’ve not only lost a customer, they’re going to help you lose a few more, on purpose.
I read your post just now. I’m not sure – is this an Indian company or a US-based company? If sounds like their support is contracted to a third party, either way, and that either they are having to spend more on materials, time, and labor than a new chair is worth, or that perhaps the contractor is charging a, um, premium that the parent company knows nothing about? In any case, if it’s US-based, they’ll want to know how their “support partners” are treating their customers, so if that is the case, try contacting their main offices here. Email me if I can help you to find contact info. (If that’s a photo of your chair, it looks very similar to mine – same color, even, though the style’s slightly different!)
This does happen – there often comes a point where a thing simply costs more to repair than it does to replace. It think that’s unfortunate, when the original is very reparable and you would prefer just to fix and keep it.
It is an Indian company. I don’t think that they have a clue about after sales service. There was also the problem of the chair being an obsolete model. I found a local upholsterer who did it for me at a quarter of the estimate given by the manufacturer and in the bargain, also threw in servicing the movement mechanism. I got a brand new recliner back when it was returned.
Good! Seems like one thing you can find in abundance, there, is competition! Glad you found someone with skills and integrity, too!
First, it’s easier in 280 characters. lol
Second, I’ve gone this route most of the time and it’s worked effectively for me. I try not to be too vitriolic initially, but there are times when a company’s gotten on my last nerve. I’m glad most of them are responsive; the last thing I want to do it get madder while waiting for someone to find my gripe (or ignore me) and make me escalate… which I’ve also done.
AT&T has gotten on my last nerve, lately. I’m down to “You suck” at this point.
Yeah, i have to say – there comes a point where you just go past ‘reasonable discussion’ time. Usually happens with big companies with those phone systems designed to never put you through to an actual human being, and even if you are privileged enough to talk to someone, they usually have no power to do anything and only there to attempt to pacify you.
Exactly. Also, God forbid anyone should publish those “recorded for training purposes” phone logs – I feel NO obligation to be pleasant or polite to an IVR system (or people who program them badly and without humanity) ; I also know some of them are programmed to respond to words and tone indicating frustration by getting you to a person FASTER. These two things turn me into a bit of a monster. 😉