That was hard, huh? Keep listening.

We pushed it overnight. I checked the forums this morning, and before we even posted anything about it this message came in:

Oh, WOW!

You guys are AMAZING! Logged in this morning, totally crabby about needing to work and watching SNOW fall, and I see that you’ve completely pimped the dashboard in fabulous ways! I can now batch-tag, procrastinate, batch complete and a whole lot more.

Thanks for turning my gloom into today!

-Robin

Never before have I worked anywhere that I had direct contact with users like this. It is, by far, the best part of the job. I love it!

This year, BatchBlue has submitted a panel. Through the SXSW Panel Picker, they are gauging interest in the panels from the public. The results will go into the final decision process.

I’d love it if you would vote for us! Our panel:

Customer Service is the New R&D

With forums, Get Satisfaction, good old email support and more, let your early adopters help build your product and create the solution they’ve been searching for. See how boot strapping start-ups (and some past the start-up days) build an online R&D lab to turn 1000+ voices into real features.

Pamela is going to be moderating and we’ve got some really cool people saying they’re interested in taking part. With all of my blogging about how Our Users Are So Smart, I’m really excited about this one!

Vote Here!

Also, BatchBlue’s very own Michelle Riggen-Ransom has submitted a panel as well. A few months ago, she debuted a new blog of the same name. Here’s the panel:

Social Media for Social Change

Exploring ways non-profits and businesses are using social media to drive social change. From forums sharing life-changing information to online communities loaning money to entrepreneurs in Africa: social media tools and applications are powerful and growing. Find out what folks just like you are doing to change the world.

Again, I know some great panelists are lined up for this one. Make sure to keep up with news about the panel at the blog.

Vote Here!

I’ve noticed a lot of friends have awesome panel ideas, too. I’ll make sure to write up which ones I’m excited about as soon as I get through them (and as soon as Panel Picker stops dying from the traffic!). Thanks for voting!

Yesterday, Apple had a special event in which they unveiled all new iPods, including the rather sick iPod Touch. It is an iPhone without the … er … phone.¬† If I hadn’t gotten an iPhone for work, this would have been the product I was waiting for. Since, besides SMS, the phone portion of the iPhone is what I use the least.

Apple also made another annoucement. The iPhone’s price was being chopped by $200. While price drops are usually welcomed with open arms, current iPhone owners absolutely went ballistic. I’ll admit, I was far less bent because it was a company device so it really didn’t come out of pocket. Plus, I’d say I’ve done at least $200 worth of testing on it, so it’s no big deal to me.

But others freaked. Hey, it’s the price of being an early adopter, right? Well, Steve got it right. In yet another open letter from Steve, he addressed the issue.

I have received hundreds of emails from iPhone customers who are upset about Apple dropping the price of iPhone by $200 two months after it went on sale. After reading every one of these emails, I have some observations and conclusions.

Emphasis is mine. I like that he starts right off by saying he read every single one. While it may or may not be exactly true, it still conveys they “man, I really didn’t expect this shitstorm, but you have my attention” angle.

The three observations boil down to:

1. This is their chance to add as many users for the holiday season as possible. So, lowering the price will get many, many more users at this important time of year.
2. Things change in tech quickly. If you’re always waiting for a price drop, you’ll be disappointed soon after every time.
3. They need to do a better job of taking care of their early customers.

Whoa, what? Yeah, he said:

Third, even though we are making the right decision to lower the price of iPhone, and even though the technology road is bumpy, we need to do a better job taking care of our early iPhone customers as we aggressively go after new ones with a lower price. Our early customers trusted us, and we must live up to that trust with our actions in moments like these.

So, the best part:

Therefore, we have decided to offer every iPhone customer who purchased an iPhone from either Apple or AT&T, and who is not receiving a rebate or any other consideration, a $100 store credit towards the purchase of any product at an Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store. Details are still being worked out and will be posted on Apple’s website next week. Stay tuned.

Well damn, that was well played by Mr. Jobs. You just picked up a new iWork customer (and will reap the benefits of the upgrade path).

And I still love my iPhone.

But I still friggin’ hate AT&T. My second bill was more effed up than the first one.

In just this week, Erin and I have experienced some insanely terrible episodes of customer “service”. I just have to rant about them.

AT&T: You’re No Cingular.

So, when word came out that the iPhone would only be provided by AT&T, I thought, “that’s fine… I’m already a Cingular customer and I’m happy with them.” I’ve been with Cingular for years and never had an issue. Never. In like, six years. Enter AT&T. I finally got my first iPhone bill and it was all effed up. It was about twice as much as it should have been. I called.

After waiting on “hold” for 20 minutes with no music at all, I finally figured… hey wait… I’m not on hold. I’ve been hung up on. Apparently, there was no way for the rep to get back to me to apologize for this. Especially since the only piece of information I gave them before being hung up on was my effing phone number.

So, I finally get someone (I’m convinced it is the same woman that hung up on me) and it gets even worse. Why do I have roaming charges when I’m on a national plan? Well, sir… you called from Maine. Yes, I did. But, sir, you don’t have international roaming on your plan.

I was silent for a full ten seconds.

OMGWTF? Maine is in our freakin’ country. I tell her “that’s two hours from my house. It’s in our country.” She fixes that for about a half hour, telling me “it’ll just be a minute” once every five minutes.
She tells me I am charged for my wife’s line because, well, I had two lines on the plan. But, I tell her, the reason I called them three weeks ago was to cancel that line so I could use this plan just for work. But you had the second line still, that’s why you were charged for it. But I didn’t use it, so I’m not going to pay for it. But you did use it. Look at you’re freakin’ paperwork. I called myself last week for one minute because I couldn’t believe it when we happened to turn on my wife’s phone and it still worked.

She passed me off to another person finally. The really nice person that it’s hard to get mad at. The nice grandma that they give all pissed off customers to. You can’t get mad at her. Well, she tried to make it better… she was gonna send me a Razr for my wife’s line (turns out it really makes sense to keep the second line, but I ain’t payin’ for that last month that I didn’t know I had it). Turns out that the Razr she was “giving” me is $19.95 (well, $69.95 with a rebate). Oh, and an $18 activation charge. I freak again. She finally says that she’ll waive the activation charge and it’ll only cost me $19.95 for this far superior phone. Fine, I say.

I was on the phone with AT&T for 93 minutes. Good thing I didn’t call from the iPhone. My minutes would be toast.

My wife’s new phone arrived a couple days ago. No rebate inside, but there is a bill for $70. Eff you, AT&T. I get to call you again.

Fisher Price + Toys ‘R Us = Sunnuva…

Last year, we got Ella the Little People Garage from Fisher Price. It was supposed to be for Christmas, but she got so much that we saved it. When we opened it up, it was missing the biggest piece. The freakin’ elevator. Like, when you look at the picture on the box, this is the piece that takes up a third of the picture.

We take it back to Toys ‘R Us. Oh, we don’t take returns anymore.

WTF?

Sir, you have to call Fisher Price and deal with them. Are you kidding me? So I call. The woman was very nice and helpful. BUT, the toy is no longer made and they don’t have the part. So, they’ll send me a voucher to send it back for a refund. But, elevator or not, Ella loves the thing. So, we’ll keep it anyway… just have half a toy.

Oh, and later that day Fisher Price announces that a million toys are being recalled because of lead paint. Good thing I called that morning. I would have been on the phone 94 minutes this time.

Um, that’s not my insurance company

The hospital sends us a bill for $1300 because Blue Cross refused to cover Nolan’s birth.

Of course they didn’t. That’s not our insurance company. Yaaaay, more hold time dealing with this mess.

Oh please, let me pay the interest first

So, the mortgage company takes the extra money that we send them and applies it to interest instead of principal. WhyTF do you think we’re sending extra money? So we can speed up the process of being screwed? No, we want you to take it off the principal so we are screwed less, thank you.

How do you like hockey pucks

We’re tired. Cooking sucks. So, we ordered from the local 99s. Erin got a burger (since she is not consuming milk products right now, that’s pretty much the only thing on the menu she can get). When she asks for medium well, the send her a bloody mess. So, she ordered well done this time. I’m serious—it was a hockey puck. I think it even had the NHL logo on it. I’m not sure, because they burned it off.

If the gave this to someone in the restaurant, the person would freak. They save this “service” for take out customers who can only swear and yell from the comfort of their own homes.

Just stir the damn thing

So, just tonight was literally the last straw. Erin wanted a Strawberry Coolatta from Dunkin’ Donuts. So, I go. While I’m there, I grab one of those new iced teas. I decide to get it sweetened. While I’m there, I’m actually reading the sign to employees that says “stir them with a spoon, don’t shake them”… I’m impressed.

Then I take a big ol’ swig of mine. I think I got diabetes on the spot. Apparently, you squirt in the “sweetener” (whatever it actually is) and pour the tea on top. No stirring happened. After these first two godawful sips, I had an unsweetened iced tea. I literally got all the sweetener in a sip. It nearly killed me.

So, this all happened in the last week. What’s going on? Is it me?

Update: How could I forget? Just the other night when I went to get Erin her Coolatta, they told me they needed to freeze them. They asked me to wait out front. Fifteen minutes later, I went back through the drive through line.

Yeap, they forgot about me.

Satisfaction‚Ñ¢ is a new way for customers and organizations to work together to get answers, solve problems, and create new and better products & services.

For both customers and companies, customer service has never been easier (or more fun).

Take a look at this thread (via Brian) and try to think of why I may be excited about it. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

(Hint: It has nothing to do with Twitter.)

1. It’s open.
   No longer do customer service requests have to go to vague email addresses (do you know who actually reads support@ubercorp.com?). Now, your request can be out in the open. People know it has been asked. They can echo their thoughts if they have the same issue. They can offer help if the original poster was simply missing something. But it is out there. You’re not alone. Lots of people need customer support.
2. It’s on a third party playing field.
   If you posted a question on Ubercorp’s site, they maintain it. They monitor it. They can make your question go away. They can ban your account if they don’t like the question. Here, if you ask a tough question, you won’t just go away. You have a community behind you.
3. It works both ways.
   The user “goldtoe” is from Twitter. Satisfaction allows him to officially be listed as a Twitter representative. So, if this was done on a blog, the ranter could simply remove comments from the company defending itself. In this case—and this is a testament to goldtoe—there is not ranting here. This is a great dialogue. Which brings me to…
4. Conversation is stressed—not rants.
   A user is suggesting a feature. The company says they’ve been thinking about that feature, but aren’t sure which is the best way to implement it. So, get this. He asks the community. Really, who knows what users want more than… users?

Obviously, that’s not it. But I’m loving checking the site out so far. I’ve used it to peruse some iPhone conversations. Haven’t contributed yet, but I’m always slow to do that.

I hope to one day have a Satisfaction page that I need to monitor…

Update: MUCH better assessment of Satisfaction by Jeremiah.

I’ve heard the Goog take some lumps for not engaging in social media that much. Well, they just got pretty damn social with me. And I’m impressed.

While at SXSW, I tried out the new Google Transit service. I was far away from the hotel and wanted to find an efficient way to get back. Well, Google got me close, then expected me to cross an eight-lane highway on foot. Um, no. I had to explore for a long time to find a way to get across the damn thing and back to my hotel. I bitched at my blog.

Today, I got a package from Google at my workplace. At first, I saw the hand-written “Google” return address and thought “anthrax”, but figured, what the hell. I ripped it open. I was treated to the single greatest customer service experience I had ever had. Enclosed was a hand-written note from Joe Hughes at Google. The note said:

Dear Superman,

Reading your blog post about Google Transit at SXSW made us wonder if you were losing your powers—I mean, how hard could it be to leap over a simple 8-lane highway intersection, man of steel? We’ve enclosed a new cape—hopefully it will help you find your powers again.

…seriously, though, Adam, we’re sorry that Google Transit sent you on such an expedition, and we wanted to let you know that we’ve since improved our routing, so that it returns more plausible walking sections at the start & end of transit routes.

Cheers,
Joe Hughes
Google Transit

Wow. Just, wow. Google is listening. The read a blog by little old me. They addressed my problem. They found a way to make me smile about it. And the best part… Ella now has a Superman cape.

Cheers to you, Joe.

One thing I’ve been thinking about is which features I’m implementing should be open to all users, which should be limited to registered users, and then which should be limited to (future hopeful) “premium” paying customers.

But you know what? Why bother thinking about that now? Just develop the tools. Make the best tools you can. It would be immensely stupid to then take away features users have been enjoying and label them with a “premium” tag. One rule you don’t want to break is taking away something that people have been getting for free. (Gabe Rivera of TechMeme sort of indirectly referred to this on the latest episode of the wonderful Marking Voices podcast).

So, how much could it possibly cost you to label these early adopters “Premium Members” for life? These are the folks that got you off the ground. They were chatting it up in the big empty room before you had enough users to justify charging. Instead of charging them and pissing them off (and risk losing your best advocates), essentially bring ‘em on. Premium for life. Don’t do premium for a year. Don’t do premium for the first three months. Premium for life. They helped you get to where you are.