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July 19, 2007
When large companies buy innovative startups - a case study: HP buying LogoWorks
(Posted by francois to: worst practices )[warning: rant coming] I have used LogoWorks for 4 projects now. The first two experiences were so delightful that I could not stop talking about them - resulting in more than one referral customer. The third experience had a little problem, but they addressed it by giving me a change, which I would have had to pay for, for free - so I was still a champion.
Then came my last experience. I ordered a logo last Wednesday, which was supposed to be ready this past Monday at 4:37pm Mountain time. When that time came and went and nothing happened I emailed support - getting a machine generated response. The next day came and went and nothing happened again, so I emailed support and got that same machine generated response. On Wednesday I took a closer look at that email only to find out that it listed the email for my project manager and that I should contact that person (for some obscure reason the system could not do that I guess...). So I did - sent an irate email to my project manager.
She simply responded: "Sir, you must complete your billing informatin for us to continue." After a quick check, I found that not only had I received a receipt, my credit card had been charged. So I sent back all the supporting information with a closing saying: "Now what? This is RIDICULOUS..."
Now at some point in time I did create another account by accident, but that one had no projects in it - all four of my projects were in the same account that kept showing me:
My project manager sent me another saying: "Ok Sir I am so sorry about this I was looking up your project under your gmail address...I can see that the problem with your logo is that we do not have enough information about the company to get started." Now, just like any other time I created a project with them, I followed the instructions and filled out the whole creative brief. But I never received an email asking me for more info...not at my main account nor at the other account, which had an email that I also use. In addition, I could not even access the brief to add more info...it was closed and telling me that designers were working on my project. I complained to my project manager about the fact that no one ever contacted me and that there was no way for me to add info to the profile.
My project manager responded by explaining that they never contacted me because they were looking at the other account - the one that has no active projects in it! And that I could email her the additional information about my company.
What are they thinking? That their customers are stupid or something?
So I responded: "That makes no sense (and note that in my experience as a marketer it is never a good idea to BS a customer – especially not an irate one)...But even if your system would have gotten confused, as you are, then I should have received a email there and that did not happen either...I am still not sure what info you require to continue….when you say you can email, what do you need? Address, telephone number, number of employees, color of my eyes? I am pretty sure that I said that this was a marketing services company – providing marketing consulting services. What else do you need???? When you are the one that is screwing up and aggravating the customer beyond belief, don’t you think you should be a little more helpful in trying to get the customer somewhat satisfied again?"
That was yesterday afternoon....I have not heard from them since - and my dashboard still says "Designers are working on design concepts....Check back Jul 16, 2007 4:37 PM Mountain Standard Time to view design concepts."
Is this a case of a large company screwing up a gem by integrating it with their customer prevention processes? Or is this just a case of a team that made money on the acquisition and lost their passion around the business? Obviously I cannot tell, but having done 4 projects now, I could clearly see the downhill trend in this case.
[Tags: customer support logoworks customer+service ]
Posted by francois at July 19, 2007 10:31 AM | Bookmark This
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