I think it puts the impetus on companies to either really flush out their support processes, or to find a vendor that will do it for them.
That said, I think the 'Unofficial' notification does need to be more obvious.
We found out because a very, very angry customer posted in a comment on our blog about our lack of reply to his inquiries. Now, we know as a company that years ago, we didn’t offer the same support we offer now. But I also know that I reply to EVERY email for support we receive, and I’ve done so for 2 years now. Two months ago, we hired Michael as our second support person, so we can reply with even more timely and more informative emails.
We scoured our records and found no trace of his email. I had our system administrator manually search our incoming mail logs and found nothing. Finally, the customer himself pointed me to the GS page he had created to ask 37signals a question. I was dumbfounded. Angry. Extremely, beyond belief, upset by this.
Customer support is my job, and I take it very seriously, and I am very, very good at it. To have another website undermine that job which leads to a customer with 1) a bad experience, 2) a bad impression of our company, 3) a bad impression of my work…well, it’s infuriating. Not only was I angry on the customer’s behalf, I was angry on behalf of our company to see our name and logo plastered all over a site we had never known about until then. (After that, there were two identical incidents over the past year.)
So that’s how we found out. Our frustration isn’t new, and it’s not unfounded. It’s based purely on the bad experiences GS has caused for our customers, and the harm it’s caused our brand. I’ve been friends with GS’s co-founder Lane Becker for years, and I don’t think he has sour intentions at all. But I do think perhaps as a company, GS is blinded to the harm their site can cause other companies.
People are not idiots, but they are generally frustrated about support options. If there are tons of people using GS's unofficial support forums instead of your own, that tells you that your system is broken, and needs to be repaired.
SNAP!
Certainly I don't feel 37signals customer support is broken, but there is a point in that quote: Would it have really been that difficult for Jason to have his people monitor a customer-created Get Satisfaction page too?
Honestly, he's probably wasted at least two full work days writing these posts — which could have been direct-from-the-founder responses to a lot of customers while he picked up the phone and had a talk with GS team. After all, all the link-backs from GS to 37signals is only going to boost their SEO overtime. There are a lot of benefits to GS that 37signals ignores in favor of an ego-driven tantrum that has turned me off yet again.
For the record, I am both a 37signals and GS customer.
I'm sure there are plenty of people (me included) who google first, and navigate the site to a support page as a last resort.
Furthermore, many companies offer "unofficial support" pages on their own websites, which are meant to allow people to help each other resolve problems in the case that they are waiting for an official response. GS should not allow themselves to be confused by that type of forum.
They need to remove company logos, remove excessive mentioning of the company's name, and put a big description at the top of the page that explains that GS is in no way related to the company being discussed.
It sounds to me like you have not worked in tech support.
Considering that GS is a hosting site for tech support forums, my opinion is that they should be as close to idiot-proof as possible. For some reason, in my estimation a financial one, they are not.
Or it means that they have good placement on google results. When I search for "37signals help", the third result is the getsatisfaction page.
Now, in this case the actual 37signals page came up first, but 37signals receives a fair amount of incoming links due to the popularity of their blog. In the case of a company that doesn't play quite as well with PageRank, might getsatisfaction be the number one result? It doesn't seem that unreasonable that some people might end up there instead of the actual support avenues.
Accountability good, deception bad. It's a tough balance to strike for GS. Obviously they want to appear as the authority thus attracting customers and companies, but they risk alienating companies that have their own methods of triaging support issues.
I have to say, I think you're missing the complaint. It's not against them providing support FOR COMPANIES THAT DON'T ALREADY DO IT. It's another for them to make MY company have to go to their site and look for customers who are expecting answers. Imagine if there were five companies just like GS competing... I would now be competing with them for PageRank on google searches and having to visit EVERY one of their sites to make sure I don't have any confused customers thinking they're going to get answers from us on those sites.
It's unmanageable. 37Signals HAS a support process in place and GS is putting the burden on them to go to their site and fill out their free doohicky that points people there. That's just ridiculous. It's automatically opting you in to a system that you didn't ask to be part of.
Jason pointed out that depending on what you search for GS is the 3rd hit on google. It's not fair that I should have to compete with other people for my own product on Google. It would be just as slimy if a competitor was using my product name to generate business for them (which is exactly what is happening)
GS has every right to create a forum where customers can air grievances. They should add links to the official support forum, and throw in a couple more "unofficial"s in there as well. But beyond that, they don't have an obligation to take down the whole forum. That's extreme.
The really sad part is: GS is easy to confuse with 37 signals, because they are both minimalist and elegant web sites. It's the high polish that adds to confusion.
GS should go the extra-mile to avoid confusion, but let's not lose our heads here.
Edit: It's been pointed out that I was using "DMCA request" incorrectly. I replaced it with "cease and desist."
Yes. They have no right to make it look like they represent the company in question, though. GS's defense is that they mostly do represent such companies...and yet they use the same setup for companies that may not even know their site exists.
Consumer-grievance forums have been around for years. They don't impersonate companies.
No, don't confuse the issue. Copyright and trademark are not the same. (And are distinct from patents and trade secrets, for that matter.)
The DMCA is about copyright. None of the posts on GS violate copyright. [1] And, if one does, a DMCA notice can be used to take it down, but not to take the whole site down.
This GS incident is (or would be, if and when lawyers enter the picture) a trademark dispute. GS stands accused of misusing other companies' trademarks in a way that creates customer confusion: Customers see a trademarked logo and a trademarked name on the GS pages, and are misled into thinking they are visiting a site that is officially associated with the trademark holder.
You can say any damn thing about Comcast you want. [2] And I believe you can even use Comcast's trademarks in the process, so long as you do so for the purpose of commentary (and not, say, to compete with Comcast in the cable business), and so long as there isn't evidence that you're misleading people into thinking that your site is officially associated with Comcast.
P.S. I am not a lawyer. Though sometimes I wish I were. I certainly spend enough time talking about IP law.
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[1] Well, very few, anyway. Obviously anyone could put up posts on GS that violated copyright.
[2] Well, okay, anything that you honestly believe is true. You're not allowed to defame them.