One of the technology vendors I use, I actually detest.
I have tolerated this particular vendor’s absolute lack of good customer support for far too long.
It’s been a thorn in my side that I’ve put up with only because it was too much of an ordeal to move to another platform.
But at my first opportunity (which is now finally arriving) I will be ditching them so fast anyone standing in the way will have their heads spun around like a top.
One of the reasons our relationship has deteriorated so much is poor/lack of communication.
Tech companies (which is what this one is) are often the ones that fail miserably in this department.
As in this case, they tend to think everyone’s world revolves around their product. As if the first thing everyone does in the morning is open up their program to check for messages and notifications from them.
I hate to break it to them, but almost no one does this. Ever.
Most people’s business lives still revolve around and rely on email communication.
So when a new version upgrade is out or there are bug patches to be fixed, for example, we’re expecting to be notified by email… to get some kind of message alerting us to go to their website or open up their product to place the order or download the upgrade or what-have-you.
Without that prompt, you never, ever know.
And what ends up happening is you completely miss any inkling of new developments and only find out by accident, sometimes months later, of something you would have liked to have known or really needed to know at the time.
Yet that’s what this company and thousands of others do–they never send any kind of email and instead expect customers to go open the product and find out that way.
And so those customers don’t ever find out.
I’ll learn about some important security release in some completely random accidental way months after the fact and call up only to be told, “Well, we posted a notice inside the admin panel.”
I am almost never in the admin panel and the place and the way they post this information, you’d never see it unless you were specifically looking for it.
It’s completely maddening—and an absolute trust and relationship killer.
So next time you worry about whether your emailing is too much, don’t.
Chances are it is completely helpful. Even expected.
Better to over-deliver than under-communicate.