Comments on: DreamHost Fiasco

By: Service Untitled » 37signals understands downtime. - customer service and customer service experience blog

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:01:00 +0000

[...] 37signals is a smart company. Not only have they seen incredible success with their product line, but they run an extremely successful blog, have gotten more press coverage than most companies 50 times their size, and have a very good reputation. They also read other blogs and knew not to make the same mistake that DreamHost made when they had some issues with their service. [...]

By: Service Untitled

Service Untitled — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 21:45:46 +0000

Livia,

Thanks for your comment.

Definitely. Their tone is consistent, but many people (myself included) did not think their usual, joking around informal style was appropriate in the particular situation.

By: Livia Labate

Livia Labate — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 20:34:57 +0000

If you are a DreamHost customer you’ll know that their newsletters and periodic updates have the same exact tone as that blog posting had. Though I agree that the seriousness of the issue shouldn’t be taken lightly (I was charged several hundred dollars unexpectedly), I think they responded appropriately. They are a service provider and therefore should treat their customers appropriately – at the same time, they have long maintained an informal if not approachable communication style with their customers, which is one of the reasons why I like them.

By: Service Untitled

Service Untitled — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 04:14:21 +0000

Paul,

Thanks for your comment! When you have 10,000 customers that are upset, it’s hard for a small company to get in touch with all of them on a personal level. Blogs and emails work because they can be used to reach out to all customers fairly quickly.

By: aka Chief Sales Servant » Seriously?!?!

aka Chief Sales Servant » Seriously?!?! — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 23:52:07 +0000

[...] Plenty has been said about the major mistake made by webhost DreamHost overbilled it’s customers in the amount of $7.5 million dollars. There has been a wide range of responses from customers, competitors and customer service experts. There is a great analysis of the goods and bads of this experience by Service Untitled’s blog. I’d like to put on my Adultitis diagnosis hat and put my two cents in. [...]

By: PaulSweeney

PaulSweeney — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 18:28:04 +0000

So, what business continuity messaging strategy have web companies put in place? email? blog post? Probably not good enough because the customers did not know “right now” that their was a problem. Our Enterprise customers know this (Financial services in particular), and have such plans in place. But “web based companies” seem to think that the old blog post and email will do. Not. Phone/ email the customer and personally deal with it. And remember its not a total disaster. If you have a service failure and deal with it effectively customer loyalty actually increases! VoiceSage provides automated messaging for situations just like this…..