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How do I talk to negative people?
Hey all, I've recently discovered GetSatifaction.com (from PMOG) and I think it's a great concept. I tried to promote this to some other services & products I use but was immediately beset by negativity.
The first thing people seem to say is that "It will never work", followed by "What we have is good enough". I've tried to argue the point but it seems like a waste of effort and I'm afraid it's rapidly spiraling to a flamewar.
I wanted to ask if any of you has had similar experiences and what is the best way to deal with this. Should I engage in discussion with people who are certain that "this if of no benefit" and attempt to convince them or just ignore them?
How do I then reach out to the people that might be interested and/or the developers and the company itself?
The first thing people seem to say is that "It will never work", followed by "What we have is good enough". I've tried to argue the point but it seems like a waste of effort and I'm afraid it's rapidly spiraling to a flamewar.
I wanted to ask if any of you has had similar experiences and what is the best way to deal with this. Should I engage in discussion with people who are certain that "this if of no benefit" and attempt to convince them or just ignore them?
How do I then reach out to the people that might be interested and/or the developers and the company itself?
I’m frustrated
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Inappropriate?In my own personal experience, it's actually best not to try to convince, but to share a great experience you've had thanks to Get Satisfaction, and let people discover it themselves later, most likely by chance.
I've heard a lot of the same "oh, that'll never work" from some of our best contributors to Get Satisfaction. Generally, maintaining a respectful tone and actually listening, while not being smarmy or ingratiating is the best way to have productive discussions with people. You may not be able to convince them that your point of view is the right one, but they will probably at least hear what you have to say.
Another good place to start when engaging someone in discussion about adopting an open customer support model is the Company Customer Pact: http://www.ccpact.com/
I’m pleased that you like us enough to bring in more companies
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this answers the question
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Inappropriate?Thanks Cameron, that's a nice comment. If anyone else has a take on this however, I'd love to hear it.
I’m always glad to support things I find interesting
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Inappropriate?I know that some long-time members of forums are hesitant to move away from their forums. To my mind, there are a number of differences between us and traditional forums, and perhaps pointing these out can help.
I think that one key thing that you might be able to point to as a difference is that we are a place where the conversation is specifically geared toward productive outcomes and not just conversation. For example, on Get Satisfaction people can "vote" on ideas. I think this ends up making the conversation less centered on the small cadre of users who often dominate a forum.
Another positive is that we don't censor customers. Companies usually have the ability to remove content that they don't approve of when it pops up on their support forum. If it is something they don't want their users to bring up or talk about, they'll simply delete it. Here, you can freely disagree and discuss what you want, provided you don't violate any of our very lightweight community guidelines (spam, hate, etc.).
Also, we're not asking companies to switch to our site. We're just another possible component of their customer-facing plan. Companies who want to increase their conversation with customers -- rather than avoid it -- can use our site as a way to connect. But, it doesn't have to be a decision that is made in one fell swoop.
But, before I go on and on, I have to be honest and say that, after reviewing the threads you point to, that you're probably not going to convince them. When I see the mods on those links you provided say things like "people will use what you tell them to use" and one of the others moderators saying "directors and execs... have the final call on what goes" what I am hearing is that they don't want to consider any alternatives and that they're happy with the status quo.
But, that doesn't mean customers feel that way, does it?
Perhaps these folks will change their mind over time, or maybe they won't. But, thanks very much to you for showing customers an alternative. Every customer likes more choices, right?
Finally, I see a moderator on the Last.fm forum you link to saying this: "Requiring users to go to another site in order to post support and feedback is in general a bad and horrible idea." My hope is that the seven Last.fm employees who are already on Get Satisfaction might disagree with that statement: http://getsatisfaction.com/lastfm
I’m getting a bit long-winded, methinks
1 person says
this answers the question
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Inappropriate?Another benefit companies get from Get Satisfaction is the network effect. Not only are their customers here but thousands of potential customers are here as well. By participating in their GS community, companies increase their chances of discoverability by people outside their current customer community and winning them over by their involvement here.
I’m grateful for your GS "evangelism"
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this answers the question
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Inappropriate?I think your last comment on Audiosurf is great, just extending an invitation to others who would like to try Get Satisfaction. If these forums are so quick to quash any discussion of a new tool imagine being a new user and trying to get help from these people. Yikes!
The best way to win people over may just be to start helping other lastfm/audiosurf users on Get Satisfaction. If the system is better (which I think it is) the good content, good organization, and helpful people will beat out the meanies.
It's also informative and entertaining to check out the search results for "lastfm customer service."
http://www.google.com/search?q=lastfm...
I’m happy
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this answers the question
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Inappropriate?Thanks for all the replies people. The tips have already been useful in how I responded to further comments (as jonathangrubb noted) without escalating into a flamewar.
I'm already in the process of introducing more people and projects to GF and hopefully we'll see people willing to participate in a place where they are much more free and also gives more control to the companies.
It is unfortunate that change is difficult for most people, which is why I'm usually in such positions when I discover something new and exciting. However this is the first time I got so many helpful tips :)
I hope more people find this thread useful.
I’m sad that so many people over there are negative. However this thread is very helpful.
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This answers the question
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Isn't direct/open customer support great?! -
definitely useful! thanks for bringing this up.
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Inappropriate?I have to agree with Cameron. If you spend too much time addressing the negatives, it will eventually swallow your initiaitve to go on.
I’m Best of luck!
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As usual, you are right! I tend to get pulled into the debate, but it's really about doing and showing, and not all that much about debating. Thanks!
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Inappropriate?One thing I found is that a good way to convince a company to use getsatisfaction is to populate their pages. Flock joined solely because their GSFN was being used. It might not work for some companies, like Facebook, but it might soon convince Plurk to join as well.
And for some companies, like Intuit, all you have to do is find out that their employees are actually twittering, and let them know about GSFN/overheard. Intuit was actually using their own twitter forum to 'extend' the conversation, and now, they're looking into switching over to GSFN!
So, in short: screw negative companies. Let their customers realize that the negative company doesn't care about the customer-company pact, and let them know as well that the 'problems' users have that aren't being resolved are quite public, and are convincing potential customers to look elsewhere.
Public shaming sadly works best. Comcast uses get satisfaction because they have had such a negative reputation, and while I informed the Consumerist that their GSFN is a good way to get in touch with Comcast, the consumerist makes their money by making companies look bad (not good) so they refuse to let the 'consumers' know. But that's a rant for another thread, I suppose.
I’m mad at Consumerist, and sad shaming is the best method
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this answers the question
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This answers the question
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I actually clicked your last.fm link this time (earlier it was just blind rage, which I can produce at will) and noticed that it seems to be users who don't see a benefit to joining another site (GSFN supports oauth now...). I noticed that the last.fm section here is actually used, and again, I'm going to say that just getting people to use it, even rogue style, goes a long way towards getting MORE people to use it.
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Inappropriate?When this is working better than other folks customer service operations, you could allow folks who already interact here to bring up problems they are having with other companies that you don't support.
Those companies will eventually discover you and might well complain, but they could also happen to see the benefit and join officially to get even more benefit from the process.
It's a weird way to show off your service but it could work and it sure doesn't cost a lot to try out. Disk space and server cycles are so cheap that their cost is negligible. But of course your lawyers will tell you not to even try. Kill them.4 Comments Add a comment
This answers the question
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I can see you're an old coot, and missed out on this very damning post which is relevant to your second paragraph: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/16...
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Thomas,
The tone of the post at 37 signals is so different from that under your name above that it confuses me. Please write me at my gmail account called DickKarpinski to continue this conversation.
I was so unhappy with them that I called them Get Frustration. But recently I said it felt like they were lying to me and got an instant complaint. I did not say or even imply that they had lied, but now it rather looks as though I should have had I but known of these other practices. Aren't they open for a class action suit that would be devastating and successful? -
I'm not really following the conversation here. Besides resolving the issue they brought up immediately we explained the context of our oversight here: http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2009/.... We're about as candid and transparent as a company can be, and we encourage others to do the same whether they're a customer or a company. Nitpicker, your original suggestion is a good one, and it has worked to bring many Fortune 500 companies to Get Satisfaction where they're now helping support their users outside of their lock-down support processes. We are committed to providing this communications channel for just this purpose. More here: http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2009/...
Oh and Thomas, why are you trying to make trouble? :) -
I really have no idea what he's talking about, does he think I work for you or something? Why would that be? You need to set up some special flag for my account, so when people see a reply from me it says "NOT AN EMPLOYEE OF GET SATISFACTION" in red bold words or something
EMPLOYEE
EMPLOYEE
CHAMP
