We say “thank you” automatically, but shouldn’t we apologize too when we don’t meet reasonable expectations?
I posted last week about my weather.com app fail. Basically, I set-up a “pro subscription” and paid, but the app was still serving up ads and I didn’t have access to the pro version’s frequent updates. I sent an email outlining the challenge. I then received an auto response stating they’d get back to me within 90 days.
90 days to respond was the first failure.
If you can’t respond to a paying customer’s complaint within 24-hours, you suck. 90-days is unacceptable for any business. There’s not a company on earth that will give you an additional 90-days to pay them what you owe. They shouldn’t expect to give less than they receive.
So I cancelled. They are not getting my money when I can’t access their product.
Today I got an answer to my email request — it took them 6 days to respond.
Their email was long and involved. It said, “I believe you were impacted by a problem we were encountering with receipts for the subscription system.” Ok… you BELIEVE my challenge with your product was YOUR fault. Next was a list of 4 things I needed to do to fix their issue — followed by 3 more line items I needed to complete to again fix their issue.
Not one time did they say, “We’re sorry you’re experiencing a challenge while using our product.” Not once did they say, “We are so sorry for the inconvenience we’ve caused.” They didn’t even say, “We understand your frustration and are here to help.” Nope. Just a list of steps I had to complete to get what I paid for.
And it wouldn’t have cost them anything. Saying you’re sorry is free. Apologizing doesn’t cost a dime. Having empathy for your customers when you screw up should be automatic.
Just like weather.com, Mother Nature is unapologetic.
Mother Nature doesn’t understand or share our feelings regarding the product she delivers. Matter of fact, from what I understand from “My Radar,” the app I paid for and actually got (Mac version / Windows version), she’s going to be delivering even more product in the days to come that we also won’t be happy with. 🙂
TIL (Today I Learned): Dogs use their sense of smell to perceive events and substances across intervals of time. Each day, even in the same place, smells help dogs understand the passage of time.