Why Typepad Still Doesn’t Get it

Yesterday I announced the launch of the Career Intensity Blog and I asked for patience from my readers as I learned to use WordPress. I also mentioned that I intended to use TypePad until their customer service department let me down a couple of weeks ago.  I received the following comment from Anil Dash at SixApart:

“Just curious, given how we've responded to the TypePad community with our technical support and our response from management (see links below), do you think we've still shown poor customer service? How does this compare to your current blog environment, and do you have a dedicated channel for communicating with your current tool provider and/or blogging host? I'd like to understand how we could improve our TypePad service in the future.”

I appreciate the fact that Anil is seeking out feedback on his company’s service.  I also appreciate TypePad’s service recovery attempt at winning back their customers’ goodwill.  I know many other blogs have celebrated this as some type of breakthrough in customer service. I have a different opinion.

The TypePad customer service agent’s refusal to let me speak with a manager as detailed in this post was the deal-breaker for me. The Internet has become a major part of my overall marketing plan.  When a critical component of a business system breaks down, the business suffers.  Understanding the duration of the service outage and the cause is critical.  That’s where TypePad failed.

My reply to Anil:

“Thanks for seeking me out and asking how you can improve your service. I would start with the individuals you have in customer support.  Their response time is unacceptable and their answers to me were ridiculous.  As for your offer of a couple of free months of service – I think that’s great but it does not provide me with the confidence I need to place a valuable business marketing system – The Career Intensity Blog – in your hands.

By offering the free service you have earned enough goodwill to keep the David V. Lorenzo blog for a few more months.  I will need to see improved customer service to keep it there beyond the “free time period”.  I’m a customer and I vote with my wallet. 

In the end, great PR (in this case responses from the blogging community) will not help you keep customers if your service is sub-par.”

My current host – midPhase – provides twenty-four hour telephone support. I receive intelligent answers in real time. This allows me to respond to my customers (the readers of the blog) if there is an issue.  I’m not left wondering what is happening.

Comments

[Bren]

Agreed on all counts. I'm losing faith in Typepad too, but I'm more freaked out about migrating all my posts and not breaking the links than I am about Typepad's customer service and response time. Sigh.

I am also a WordPress lover and run a few blogs with it. Do yourself a favor and check out the Tiger administrative interface. I dig it, you might too. It's just a plugin, so it's easy to turn on and off. Here's the link:

http://orderedlist.com/articles/wordpress-administration-design-tiger/