I just picked up a copy of Seth Godin’s book Small is the New Big and it’s already sparking ideas in my head. Definitely worth picking up.
I love this quote:
Consumers have more power than ever before.
Treating them like they don’t matter doesn’t work.
What he’s essentially saying is that you’ve got to respect your customers. Don’t ever try to bullshit them. Ever.
I’m tempted to shovel a little BS almost daily with DropSend support queries. For instance, our desktop uploader used to not work with our Business Plan. When I would get an email saying “Why doesn’t the desktop tool work with the Business Plan?” it was tempting to say “We’re working on it and it’ll be ready shortly.” The truth was, however, we weren’t even close to working on it. We had a million other things to do first. A couple times I gave people that answer but I knew deep down that it wasn’t actually true.
So I started respecting people by telling them the truth: “I’m really sorry, but it’s currently not compatible with the Business Plan. Unfortunately, it’s not a priority to get that fixed. I’m really sorry for the inconvenience.”
The funny thing is that people would usually respond with something along the lines of “OK, thanks for letting me know.” They just wanted the truth. (Once we finally updated the uploader tool to work with the Business Plan, those emails stopped coming in – should’ve done that sooner!) :D
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