Tumblr support – includes receipt confirmation email; initial response within two hours; problem solved two hours. [Based on five requests/problems]
Twitterfeed - [GetSatisfaction]; initial reply after 20 mins and problem solved. Earlier problem initial reply one hour, problem solved after a day with constant company interaction. [Based on two problems]
I want Sandy – [GetSatisfaction]; initial reply two hours; problem solved after six hours. [Based on one problem]
WordPress.com – no confirmation email; initial response on average six hours [strangely it's longer now that they're operating a 24h support]; problem solved on average after fifteen hours total. [Based on 18 requests/problems]
Twitter - [GetSatisfaction]; initial reply whenever they feel like it; problem whenever and if they feel like it. [Based on at least eight problems..]
Five free to use companies, five different ways of dealing with their customers.. Obviously this is only my own observation based on my experiences.
4 Comments
Both Matt and Mark went on record a number of times that a confirmation email was unnecessary. Neither could see the point of sending them.
Well, it’s just nice, although it depends a lot on the phrasing of the email.
This is the one from tumblr:
It’s just curtesy really..
As it has been noted in Dilbert many times, the customer support department is a black hole for money. Executives see it as a negative as it’s not a profit center directly. Granted it makes money for them in the long run with improved customer loyalty but that’s long term. Even in the terms of wp.com, it would. Happy bloggers mean more posts and more usage. Therefore more Adsense displayed.
I’ve worked with a lot of support platforms. All of them send an auto response as a default. For a company not to send one (And I’m not pointing any figures. Just saying this in general) someone has had to go in and turn off that feature. That’s an deliberate action as it someone had to think about doing so and act upon that thought.
On the other hand, it’s an automated email. A lot of mail services look at such as spam and either block them or send them to the spam inbox.
I agree with you on all your points.
I have to say the response time on wordpress.com support has improved for me. It used to take at least a day to receive a reply, but with my last several support questions it’s been fairly quick. So at least some changes have been made for the positive!