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Comment by dmor | Hacker News Reader

I think you might want to consider why the customer said fuck you here. You're "can't replicate it" response is terrible customer service, and it seems commons sense to expect that they'd be frustrated. Your response of "can't replicate it" feels like a fuck you, if not in so many words.

Also, giving advice based on a single experience rather than several repeated successful outcomes seems like a bad practice for helping other entrepreneurs, and they might not read all the way to the bottom to discover that data point.

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Yes, that was my reaction to this story to. "Can't replicate it" (a.k.a. It Works Fine On My Machine) is a classic move to dismiss complaints from users about problems with software by shifting the blame from the software to the user -- if it works for me and not for you, you must be the one who did something wrong, not me.

After long experience, the users understand this, and don't like being dismissed.

Fair point - should have added more context there: the exchange referenced as a small part of a longer multi-part conversation during which we'd been really responsive (conversations lasting hours sometimes). We eventually fixed the problem - my contention is merely that a "f*ck you" was neither necessary nor productive towards solving Jon's problem (which we eventually did despite the comment).

So, to sum up your comment: "Yes, we were indeed in the wrong, I just thought this was a great reason to make a blog post"

That was my thought. "can't replicate it" is an excuse rather than an apology, "fuck you" is still uncalled for, but making a blog post doesn't fix anything for anyone and just looks like whining.

It might have looked better a few months later as a humorous addition to a "things people have said to our customer support" list

Even if there was a long conversation leading up to this, the sudden, curt tone of "can't replicate it" would all but guarantee aggravation and insult to the customer (I'd most certainly feel insulted). A more appropriate response would have been "I'm sorry, but we just can't replicate it on our end. We'll keep trying, though."

> A more appropriate response would have been "I'm sorry, but we just can't replicate it on our end.

You're totally right. No excuse for the casual tone there.

Frankly, you deserved what you got.

As it turns out, "can't" was also the wrong word to use in the first place.

Agreed.

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