I saw this example of poor customer service by 37signals in a post recently over at Signal vs. Noise (37Signals blog). It just puzzles me how a company that has the (in general) poor customer service that they do can get such a cult following as they have. Honestly, the whole post reeks from their whining about having to handle what at worst could be described as “poorly worded” customer service requests.

Now, I’m willing to cut them a little slack when having to answer non-paying customers support emails. I mean, if the user is getting a free ride, they shouldn’t be complaining much unless a promised feature does not work as designed. But even there, 37Signals doesn’t say it’s going to support free accounts (and I can tell you from personal experience that as a free user I’ve never received a response to a support request even if it was regarding broken behavior in one of their products).

Here is an example of one of the support requests that evidently they weren’t impressed by:

Very long winded
When uploading a file attached to a message shouldn’t you be able to place the file into a category as you can in file management. At the moment it means you have to go into file management after posting the message and file and then edit the file into the category – very long winded.

The horror! How dare a user suggest they make their product more efficient. I don’t see how they could possibly be lumping this request in with the “bad” requests they receive. I’ve been on the receiving end of a helpdesk before and honestly if this was the worst (or even typical) I ever received, I would have been a happy man. Personally my guess is the only reason this put their panties in a bunch was because a user was suggesting that they weren’t being efficient enough, and from what I’ve seen probably generated a “pfft, they think they know how to do this better then us?” response (although luckily they were smart enough not to type that).

37Signals … you’re playing in a land of developers, get used to it. Many of us could create the exact same products you’re making, and do it just as well. What is currently setting you ahead of the pack is your ability to come up with the idea to begin with NOT your ability to build the product or even the decisions to include or exclude particular features.

Honestly, and here comes some full disclosure for you. I’m a former paying customer for their Backpack service. After a bit of a blow-up in their forums, I decided to cancel my subscription and move on mostly due to the condescending nature of their staff. It’s very evident in many of their blog and forum posts that they think they know what we need better then we do. As a developer I’ve been guilty of this before, but thank goodness someone usually slapped me until I came out of it.

Tangent: I was once accused in their forums (not by the staff, but by another user of the service) of having “read too many books on customer worshipping.” When I read that post I seriously thought I must have been kidnapped and taken off to la-la land. What business can afford NOT to worship their customers? I mean sure, if they ask you to do something that is just totally not what you do that’s one thing (like asking McDonald’s to wash your car), but otherwise, you should always treat your customers courteously, listen to all they have to say, and do your best to meet their needs.

Another tangent: Anyone watch Top Chef? 37Signals is to the web community what Stephen is to the other chef’s on that show.

Anyhow, I’ll wrap it up. I’m just disappointed by them.

UPDATE: Well, after Jason Fried decided to comment on this entry, I thought I’d just look around on technorati some and see if maybe I had been taking crazy pills and the post I referenced above by 37Signals is, in fact, not so bad. But, after a simple search on technorati, I realized that I am not the only one that thinks they went too far.

UPDATE 2: My friend Jeremy decided to weigh in a little bit regarding this post of mine, and I particularly like this comment of his:

It’s said that on the internet, nobody knows you’re an asshole, unless you build your business around being one.

If you ask me … 37Signals has been walking really close to the line for awhile now and finally made the mistake of stepping over that line.

UPDATE 3: Yeah, I admit, I’m putting in a fair amount of effort to following this (now slowly) evolving story, but I just found this post over at the Central Desktop Blog about it. I found a point of theirs particularly interesting:

It was interesting at how 37 Signal’s defense was to, essentially, argue semantically about what words were actually written and said as opposed to addressing what the content of the post implied or insinuated.

This is exactly what they were doing and there’s even a shining example down in the comments on this post (see comment from Jason Fried). I’m also glad that they took the time to dig through the 158 comments on the post by 37Signals and found this:

“We’re not ‘ridiculing’ anybody. And if you’re embarrassed at seeing your support message posted publicly than maybe that’s a sign that you should rephrase your support message.”

That comment is just … appalling to hear from a company. The post over at Central Desktop Blog finishes with:

Shame on you 37 Signals. How dare you bite the very hand that feeds you?

This is almost exactly what I was shamed out of their forums for stating (although I had used different words). I’m just so glad to hear I’m evidently not taking crazy pills and some other folks find this type of behavior by a company to be unsavory. If you’ve been following this story, I’d definitely recommend taking the time to read their post.