Re: How do... YOU... do... "IT"?

Sudden Disruption <rod@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> As far as my approach is concerned, you get more attention by stiring
> *** than smiling sweetly. Besides, I'm *** stirer by nature. 9 x
> 60.

You get more *attention* by stirring ***; but you *catch* more flies
with honey than vinegar.

There are people whose books I won't read because I don't like them as a
person; there are also companies whose software I won't buy because I
don't like them as a company.

If someone spams my email box, I will not buy from them out of
principle; if someone spams a newsgroup I love, ditto; if someone starts
insulting people, ten times ditto and I'll tell everyone I know not to
buy either, should they be considering it.

Because, even aside from the fact that I don't want that person to get
any of my money, I can't trust that they'll give me decent customer
support if they can't even be polite to potential customers.

[I had written]
> > A tip: when doing market research, try not to insult your target customers.
>
> Ever heard of the maximum, "There's no such thing as bad press" ? My
> problem is that I have a nice side. Every now and then it slips out.

Ever heard of "The customer is always right?"

> > It sounds as if you're getting frustrated; this is normal, with research.
>
> Nah, it's not you. You guys have been great. I've been swamped with
> so much other stuff it's been hard to keep up here.

I didn't think it was us; I thought it was the research making you
frustrated.

> > I highly recommend you don't ask again here for feedback.
>
> What ? You didn't have a good time? It wasn't good for you?

The writing discussions that have come up have been good. The way you
continually push your product hasn't.

> > I mean that of those here likely to give feedback, most already will have.
>
> Barely started. Thousands are reading. A few are curious.

Of those who are likely to be curious, most will already have gone to
look. You won't get more people by harrassing the group; all you'll get
is people killfiling you so they don't have to ever read anything by you
again.

(Killfiling is something you can't do on Google, so let me explain:
it's when I tell my newsreader, "I don't want to read anything by this
person / about this topic ever again," and the newsreader obligingly
deletes all the posts by that person or about that topic so that I never
have to read them again.)

> > You're also more likely to get more, and better, feedback, by replying
> > gracefully to even those comments that aren't useful, or that you don't
> > think are feedback.
>
> If you look back, you will see I generally responded in kind. It keeps
> a good mix.

Good customer service requires responding gracefully even when the
customer's having a bad day. In my experience -- I was in a call centre
for student loans, so tensions often ran high -- if I replied calmly and
politely to an angry person, nine times out of ten they'd end up calming
down in response, and would often be happy by the end of the phone call.

> > MR: Come here and look at my product dammit!
>
> I don't think I was THAT pushy. At least I hope not.

You have been. Telling the story of how you invented this program over
and over is as annoying as someone who hangs around a party telling over
and over again the story of how he's found Jesus.

But worse was your response to Julia -- "So what did you find? I
thought so. You've made not one comment that would indicate you are
among the "some". My guess is you HAVEN'T done a download [...]" --
that was verging on the abusive; it was certainly accusatory.

> > No, she doesn't. She's describing how *she* reacts to justification.
>
> Now on this point I was actually looking for anyone who could
> meaningfully defend justification. It's honestly one of my pet peeves
> when reading newspapers with narrow columns. Instead I got, "It's how
> I like it".

So? It *is* how she likes it. This is the kind of feedback market
research gives you. You don't understand why some people like
justification; certain librarians didn't understand why (many/most) of
their teenaged patrons liked websites done in black. But the fact
remains that those teenagers did, and Catja does.

She doesn't want to defend it for everyone; she's just saying that she
personally likes it. And you can't tell her that she doesn't like it,
any more than she can tell you that you do.

Mileage varies (that's another phrasing of our #1 rule, short for "Your
Mileage May Vary" or YMMV. Different strokes for different folks.)

> > (though probably not your inaccurate caricature of it)
>
> Not inaccurate at all. I'm sure you've seen it. It's driven by a
> ratio of column width to average word length. The olny thing that
> moderates it is hyphenation which is an even greater abomination of
> readability.

a) it depends on font, and you can't control the font we're reading it
in;
b) it generally involves fairly regular stretching and squishing (though
you'd get more spacing around longer words, IIRC), while your extra
spacing was certainly irregular and nigh on random.

> > For her, justification is easier on her eyes.
>
> No it isn't. Don't be silly. Constantly changing the aspect ratio of
> any word's image does NOT improve the mind's ability to recognize it.
> She's just comfortable with that smooth right edge she's come to know
> and love. She's been trained. That doesn't make it right.
>
> Sorry.

So you should be.

Telling your customers that they're wrong about what they prefer is just
D-U-M-dumb.

Zeborah
--
Gravity is no joke.
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz/
.

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