[HN Gopher] How to earn customers for life [video]
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How to earn customers for life [video]
Author : O__________O
Score : 100 points
Date : 2023-03-03 01:04 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| jwsteigerwalt wrote:
| I love seeing these guys at a slower pace focusing on customers.
| A bit different than their normal content.
| k__ wrote:
| Good points.
|
| I fondly remember people DM me on Twitter how they got a job
| after reading my book.
|
| Selling stuff is good, but people telling you that they got more
| value than they paid for is awesome.
| rozenmd wrote:
| I'm one of them - thanks again!
| k__ wrote:
| You're welcome! :)
| totetsu wrote:
| React from Zero sounds like It could as well be a martial arts
| book as a programming one.
| O__________O wrote:
| (Book being)
|
| React from Zero: Learn React Using the JavaScript You Already
| Know
|
| - https://www.newline.co/react-from-zero/
|
| - https://www.amazon.com/React-Zero-Learn-JavaScript-
| Already/d...
|
| * No affiliation; book is linked to from OP's profile.
| k__ wrote:
| "An okay book" - an Amazon customer
|
| Always makes me chuckle.
| O__________O wrote:
| To be fair, I was puzzled by rapid positive comments on HN,
| but lack of significant Amazon comments and/or easily
| finding significant prior coverage of the book. That said,
| book did receive prior coverage on HN, so sort of makes
| since:
|
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17430059
| k__ wrote:
| I'm not a famous author and newline isn't a famous
| publisher.
|
| The book is quite old now and newer React features are
| missing, so I guess the lack of reviews won't change in
| the future.
| nicbou wrote:
| Reader mail is probably the favourite part of my job. I now go
| out of my way to let people know how much I appreciate their
| work. It feels so good to know that your work had an impact on
| another person's life.
| hahamrfunnyguy wrote:
| It's weird that these days, caring about your customers is
| considered a superpower. It just shows the awful level of service
| and support that passes as "customer care" these days.
|
| I recently bought a hat from Boston Scally Company. It wasn't a
| super cheap made-in-China $10 hat like you can easily find on
| Amazon or eBay, I paid $50 for it. When I got the hat, it was
| covered in threads. Some needed to be cut off. When I emailed the
| company, their reply was "we're sorry you aren't happy with the
| quality of the hat, you can just remove the threads and it won't
| affect the integrity of the hat."
|
| That's the wrong response. The correct response is "We're
| embarrassed the hat shipped to you like that. Would you like us
| to send you a replacement or do you want to send it back for a
| refund?" I am certainly not going to buy anything from this
| company again when they can't acknowledge their screw up.
|
| Own your mistakes. In almost all cases it's the right move and
| you earn the respect of the customer.
| roflyear wrote:
| Customer service costs money and effort. Easier to focus on
| money generating things that are easier.
| dazc wrote:
| I bought a fold up bed from a company in the UK and one of the
| wooden slats broke so I emailed them to find out where I could
| buy a replacement. They replied with 'What was the model
| number?' and 'What is your address?'
|
| They sent me a free replacement and a spare in case it happens
| again (which several years later it hasn't).
|
| Such a simple gesture, with no fuss whatsoever, and here I am
| praising them https://www.jaybe.com/ whenever I get the
| opportunity.
|
| I bought it from a third party retailer so they would have been
| within their rights to give me the runaround instead.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I have a similar memorable story from O'Brien water sports.
| We had a set of kids' water skis where we'd lost one of the
| thumbscrew bolts to keep them connected while young kids are
| learning (100% our fault, 0% theirs).
|
| I wrote the company to ask where I could buy a replacement.
| The agent sent me a mail with a picture asking me to confirm
| that was the part I was talking about, mailed a replacement
| strap and two thumbscrews for free, and emailed a few days
| later to check that it arrived in time for our lake vacation.
|
| It made such an impression that O'Brien is my default/check-
| them-first brand.
| sdoering wrote:
| Reminds me of the reaction of the company we bought our
| greenhouse tunnel from.
|
| Two years after buying it I wanted to install a windows in
| the rounded roof section of the tunnel.
|
| I made a mistake and cut the wrong section of the roof
| destroying this section of the transparent plastic cover.
|
| A new cover section would have cost me about 140 Euros if I
| bought it here. I asked the company what they would charge me
| for a new sheet (4 by 6 meters btw).
|
| They just asked for my address and told me they would send
| one free of charge. And they did.
|
| I was positively blown away.
|
| Since then I have recommended about 2.5 to 4k of revenue to
| them from family and friends.
| maccard wrote:
| I bought a display bin/trash can (!) from a department store.
| When I got home I realised that one of the rails was broken
| on one of the drawers, and contacted the retailer. They took
| my details and about 6 weeks later (I had totally
| forgotten/given up at this point) I received a hand written
| letter from the manufacturer apologising with the replacement
| part. I was in absolute shock.
| causality0 wrote:
| To an MBA the ideal situation is one in which your customers
| are exploited _just enough_ not to hate you so much they go
| through the trouble of switching to someone else. Ideally they
| have nobody else they can switch to so you can make them hate
| you as much as possible without them showing up to your
| building with a gun, aka the ISP and telephone provider model.
|
| The sad part is that it works. My favorite companies are not
| the ones I've given the most money, because my favorites have
| provided tremendous value for my dollar. I might adore
| Leatherman and use their products multiple times a day but the
| fact is I spent $150 fifteen years ago and never had to again.
| harha wrote:
| At the same time everywhere I've worked they claim to focus
| on the customer. Until the customer doesn't match the
| standard process.
| ZeroSolstice wrote:
| "From the FAQ
|
| WHERE ARE YOUR PRODUCTS MADE?
|
| We design all products locally here in the US. Final assembly
| is done in PRC to maintain high level of quality at an
| affordable price."
|
| PRC is the "People's Republic of China"
|
| I think if you read between the lines their response is them
| basically telling you this. The hat was made-in-China that you
| ordered of a website from your house for 50 dollars and your
| expecting it to be tailor made quality. I don't know if you
| order many clothes online but this is how it is. I've ordered
| jackets, dress shirts, socks, pants everything and they come
| this way about a quarter to 50% of the time. If you have ever
| worked at retail clothing stores this is what the employee's
| sift through before it goes out on the floor.
|
| Responses from companies and customers are all subjective. I've
| had BHER send me replacement paint, does it mean I only buy
| from them, no, so what difference does it make to them or me.
| Its quite a bit easier to just embrace returning stuff and not
| having high expectations with stuff that from your vantage
| point is a blackbox.
| hahamrfunnyguy wrote:
| For $50, I wasn't expecting tailor made bespoke hat or
| anything like that. I was expecting them to take some modicum
| of care shipping and packing it though.
|
| Kangol hats are made in China and sell at similar price
| point. They're nice hats for the price. By contrast, the
| finish on this hat was less than I'd expect when buying a hat
| from the $10 rack at the gas station.
|
| I've ordered lots of garments online over the years and this
| was by far the poorest presentation I've ever seen.
| ZeroSolstice wrote:
| Well my dude, fair enough. Maybe I misunderstood your first
| comment as I thought maybe you didn't know the hats were
| made in China but for the price point I hate to tell you
| this but $50 is the new $20. I really don't expect quality
| clothing for under $100 - $150.
|
| My personal opinion, is that it would be worth *your time*
| to go bespoke. There is no reason to not treat yourself to
| quality clothing in your lifetime. Complaining takes no
| real effort and you are worth putting the time into.
| cleanchit wrote:
| Sell heroine.
| O__________O wrote:
| While advice is reasonable for a new startup, to me there is a
| notable gap between "how to earn customers" and "for life" --
| they even acknowledge that the common pattern is to scale to
| being a monopoly, then exploit the related leverage over
| customers. Am I missing something, or is that their advice?
| aflag wrote:
| I think you summarised it very well "love your customers until
| you get what you want"
| zomglings wrote:
| Liked the video but think that's only because it confirmed my
| biases.
|
| I have seen many companies succeed despite them clearly viewing
| their users as pawns. In fact, most YC companies that try to sell
| me things are blatantly transactional and while that has always
| ruled me out as a customer many of them are doing just fine.
|
| Would be better to have hard data rather than empathy porn.
| middleman90 wrote:
| _People like to talk to the founder of companies_
|
| It's not working for me. I own a mobile app (B2C) with paying
| users and this is the hardest part: Talking to users.
|
| I'm literally offering money to my users to talk to them but
| nobody wants to.
|
| What am I doing wrong?
| dzink wrote:
| The pain point your problem is solving is not big enough. It's
| a vitamin. If there was a problem with their painkiller or they
| didn't have alternatives they would be hammering on your door.
| (note, I have no idea what your product or company does)
| middleman90 wrote:
| I'm afraid this could be the reason... But it's quite odd
| that people are willing to pay for the service I offer, but
| not to talk to me
| aflag wrote:
| Why do you expect them to? Did they have a bad experience
| for some reason?
|
| I personally avoid talking to customer's service as much as
| I can. I'm more likely to give up on a product or switch to
| alternatives than say anything. There are a very few
| exceptions to this. I suspect many other people are like
| me.
| travoltaj wrote:
| How much money (hourly) are you offering and how much does
| your product cost?
|
| I'd be willing to accept $100/hr from someone I'm paying
| $100/month to, but I wouldn't care for $25/hr from someone
| I'm paying $25/year to.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| In these discussions, I always like to suggest my favorite
| company as a case study.
|
| https://www.fractalaudio.com/
|
| They make the highest end guitar audio processing HW and are
| constantly providing free SW updates that greatly enhance the
| unit. Their lack of a subscription model for SW flies in the face
| of current HW/SW product monetization "wisdom." Compare to their
| competition which maybe pushes out one or two firmware updates
| over the life of the product that are mostly bug fix.
|
| I have bought every main release of their flagship product and
| will keep doing so even though it is way more than a bedroom
| player needs. If you are into guitar and a hacker, I recommend
| checking it out. It is a massive evolution beyond the old school
| pedalboard and tube amp world (which of course have their old
| school charms). It has an insane level of depth and most
| parameters are controllable in real time.
| teddyh wrote:
| Since this is advice for _startups_ , the title is slightly
| inaccurate. It is not so much "for life" as it is for the
| duration of the honeymoon period; i.e. customer acquisition
| phase. When the VCs want their payout, it will inevitably change,
| and customers will notice.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Customer retention is an area companies fail at hardest and most
| often. It makes me wonder what is being taught at business
| schools.
|
| There's nothing wrong with asking exiting customers if there
| were/are problems that could be addressed. But there absolutely
| is something wrong with badgering/harassing/tricking or wasting
| the time of customers leaving, as it will cause reputational
| damage and worse cause repeat custom to almost disappear.
|
| It is just yet another example of how modern US business culture
| values the Short over Long Term. In the short you see a slightly
| lower Customer turnover, but in the long term you see a HUGE
| reduction in returning customers (who remember the exit process
| from last time).
|
| To be clear: A short survey makes it feels like a company gives a
| crap about why you're leaving, but it needs to be via the same
| mechanism you used to sign up (e.g. online sign-up? Then online
| exit), and it shouldn't feel like a way to block the exit. This
| is particularly problematic if you're forced to call and the
| person on the other end is on commission. They're more often than
| not just there to wear you down and make you hate interacting
| with the company, by its very nature if you do leave you will be
| unlikely to return since that's the last thing you remember.
|
| I've blacklisted multiple businesses for that practice and I
| often check the cancellation process during sign-up to avoid it.
| corobo wrote:
| Urgh, Adobe wound me up so much with that block the exit
| bullshit I'll go out of my way to tell anyone that needs it how
| to get out of their cancellation fee haha. Must have cost them
| a few grand by now in cancel fees never mind bypassed
| retention. They probably don't care but the person who can now
| bypass the timewasting and cancel out for free does.
|
| Posting it on HN would probably get someone to fix it.
|
| It's not a hack or anything illegal, lurking Adobe lawyer, put
| your headed paper away.
| hirako2000 wrote:
| They don't care, it won't matter, and sadly just works better
| than not employing the practice. It's particularly sad given
| for certain co such as Adobe it's kind of hard to not go with
| it. E.g their file format is part of existing bits in the
| pipeline. They know, and it's been their strategy for decades
| now.
| ncallaway wrote:
| I unsubscribed from the NYT a while ago due to the cost. I was
| planning on resubscribing in the not-too-distance future. But
| despite letting me subscribe online, they didn't let me cancel
| online.
|
| So, when I resubscribed to a few other papers again, the NYT
| wasn't on that list. It'll be a decade before I think about
| giving them another cent.
|
| I thought I heard that they ended this practice now,
| but...well, I don't trust them anymore. Once trust is burned,
| it takes a _long_ time to recover.
| TexanFeller wrote:
| I bought a large Jackery battery generator a year or two ago and
| was having trouble finding anywhere to buy a second charger for
| it including their website. I emailed customer service asking
| where to buy it and they asked for my address to send it to me
| for free. I'll be recommending their products now.
| nickpeterson wrote:
| My wife recently had some poor customer service ordering some
| earrings from mejuri.com. She selected rush shipping to try and
| get it in time for a birthday. They took two days to process the
| order and shipped it dhl which apparently doesn't work on
| saturdays. A tiny box with rush shipping was going to take 6
| days. The company has no apparent phone number and the chat
| support basically inundated her with copy pasted information from
| their faq when she asked for a refund on the rush shipping. Talk
| about disappointing your customers.
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