Comment by mechanical_fish | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mechanical_fish | Hacker News Reader

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mechanical_fish

I think it's quite bad form to publicly attack another company like this without discussing it in private first.

Whereas I think a public statement of outrage is entirely justified. Take a look at the screenshot. GetSatisfaction has been collecting feedback under the 37signals name for at least a month. Those people who typed messages into GetSatisfaction expecting a response have been disappointed for a while. Anyone who randomly came across that page and saw lots of months-old issues -- but no post from 37signals itself -- has been subliminally convinced that 37signals never gets around to answering their mail.

This is not a theoretical issue. I believe this group of confused visitors includes me. I think I remember clicking through to this page, being puzzled by the lack of back-and-forth, and then surfing away -- not consciously angry, but feeling lost and a bit let down. This incident, and others like it, is not a trivial matter. This sort of thing is costing the company money.

How is 37signals to solve this PR problem, which GetSatisfaction has intentionally inflicted on their company, except by making a big, immediate, loud public fuss? Ideally, this message needs to reach every single person who has ever visited that page on GetSatisfaction.

If GetSatisfaction doesn't want to get into confrontational disagreements, perhaps they should have avoided designing a system that automatically trashes the public image of other companies.

Loud public fuss is usually a reasonable backup plan if asking them to change doesn't work, but starting off by asking people to resolve something lends you credibility because you've tried to resolve things amicably. If you want to put a squeeze on them, you can add, "Or we're going to lambaste you in our popular blog."

But starting off that way is just obnoxious. Granted, as noted, being obnoxious drives page views.

Loud public fuss is usually a reasonable backup plan if asking them to change doesn't work.

You still haven't grasped the problem. I'm sure that 37signals could easily have used quiet channels to remove the offending pages, messages, and marketing copy on GetSatisfaction.

But that would not have reached me. Up until three hours ago I was wandering through the world, with a faint memory of the time that I followed a Google link to a 37signals support page and found nothing but a ghost town. To counteract that bad impression, they need me to hear that it wasn't their fault, and they want me -- a potential future customer -- to know that they take their reputation very seriously.

I suppose they didn't have to put up a blog post. They could have filed a lawsuit, or obtained an injunction, and then publicized that instead. Would that have been more polite?

Not every wrong in the world needs to be righted. Sometimes righting an old wrong creates a new wrong. Personally, I find new wrongs to be more costly than old ones.

Not to mention that this way of addressing it has no doubt created some new enemies. Sure, it looks like some of the stuff from GetSatisfaction is a bit shadey, but do you really want them as an enemy over it? If you loudly called my startup extortionist and mafia like, I'd be more than a little pissed off, even if I had screwed up.

The startup world seems too small to want to create that kind of karma.

But again, if the post had said, "Hi folks, just to let you know, the GetSatisfaction page for 37s is not official and we've worked something out with them where they'll now offer an option to all companies to redirect to their real support page and will ask permission to use logos in the future and tone down the language." it wouldn't have been the top story on HN.

Would those down-voting comments please take the time to reply explaining why?

You knowing that that support page solves the problem for you but not for 37 Signals, or for GetSatisfaction. And that's the problem with airing dirty laundry in public. It would have been much better for Jason to reach out to Lane and talk to them about this first, as this approach makes creates adversity.

It is called etiquette-- it is also called allowing your opponent a way out. A cornered opponent always fights harder. Fortunately for Jason, the GetSatisfaction folks are obsessed with listening and responding. They drink their own kool-aid. But had it been anybody else, this could have ended really poorly.

"And that's the problem with airing dirty laundry in public."

That's GS's mission, of course.

"Fortunately for Jason, the GetSatisfaction folks are obsessed with listening and responding."

No. Fortunately for GS, 37S started off with a public complaint and GS chose to respond quickly. "Cornered" or not, GS really had nothing to stand on if they'd opted to leave things untouched and 37S had taken the legal route.

They're not scrambling to make "customers" happy, they're scrambling to avoid a company with deep pockets and a bored legal team from noticing this little story, going to GS, and seeing "My Litigious Company's Customer Support Page".

It's a nice way to profit from a bad situation. Added would be a pack of lawyers with rows of razor-sharp teeth and large dorsal fins.

GetSatisfaction's opening line in the "conversation" was: "We will be using your trademarks and collateral to imply that you are not interested in supporting your customers." GetSatisfaction had already lambasted 37 Signals.

How did GetSatisfaction, and you, reasonably expect the conversation to proceed from there? Gentle pleading on 37 Signals part? What???

Remember getsatisfaction provides a public front for YOUR company. Why shouldn't they discuss it in the public. They are discussing YOUR business in public, without your permission, and trying to come off as legit.

People have disagreements and confrontation all the time.

Mature people resolve those potential conflicts through calm discussion.

Immature people resort to attacking the people they disagree with.

When the harm caused is largely that of public image, I think a public explanation is a reasonable response.

On the flip side, a company like Get Satisfaction that is pushing for open dialog on support issues should be perfectly comfortable eating their own dog food here. 37Signals made what I believe to be a legitimate public complaint, Get Satisfaction made what I believe to be a quick and acceptable public response. I suppose the only loss here is that this wasn't handled on Get Satisfaction's own support site.

Why should it have to be handled on Get Satisfaction's support site?

It would improve PR for them.

Why does anyone owe GS good PR out of this?

I was surprised this 37s post didn't end with "and this is why on March 31, 2009 we filed suit against Get Satisfaction for trademark infringement and unjust enrichment". That they don't seem to have done that hurts your argument that they're being immature.

Also, calling 37signals out for going straight to the public seems like an exceptionally weak criticism in this case. GS is trading on inserting themselves into the public conversation about companies they have nothing to do with. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Amen.

Totally OT, but aren't posts like this and other similar "I agree" posts redundant? I thought that's what the little up-mod button was for? This feels like clutter to me.

Isn't "this feels like clutter to me" what the down-mod button is for?

I don't think so unless it's pointlessly clutter (e.g. "amen"). In general I reserve voting something below 1 for things that are offensive or contain zero content.

I did down-mod it, but I see it often enough that I wanted to bring it up and see if I was misunderstanding something.

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