TypePad Update & Lessons Learned

During the last month, we’ve been very open about TypePad’s performance problems and the solutions we're implementing to bring the service up to a high standard. We’re happy to say that, since things have stabilized, we’ve been able to offer compensation to our customers for the inconvenience caused by slow service and downtime.

As Barak said in his email and post, we offer our sincere apologies for any inconvenience and hope that customers of TypePad view the compensation as fair.

Not only did the people here at Six Apart feel the pain of poor performance (as employees and users), but we also spent a great deal of time reading customer emails, comments and posts which helped us understand that every customer is different. Some customers didn’t want any compensation, they just wanted us to spend resources fixing the problems; others felt that the performance of TypePad hindered their businesses and personal communications; and some didn’t notice any service degradation at all.

So, what are the lessons?

• Read what your customers have to say
  This is the most obvious piece of advice, but the most important. Customers who are invested in a service usually want the company that's supporting them to succeed. The best advice comes from your customers, and they aren't afraid to tell it like it is. That said...
• Ignore the tone of nasty complaints, but pay attention to the underlying messages
  When people are disappointed, their frustrations are often expressed in the form of anger. But at the same time, the fact that they took the time to write what they feel rather than shrugging it off indicates a deep desire for a solution, not just blame. We're all human and the nasty stuff hurts, but we love passionate users, so that involves taking the good and the bad comments in stride.
• Understand that the people giving feedback represent many who remain silent
  For every person who complains, realize that there are probably ten people conscious of the problem but not interested in speaking out publicly. Problems viewed through customer email are often larger than they may appear.
• Don’t spend too much energy on distractions
  The noisiest people during our problems are often not TypePad or Six Apart customers. And while we are trying to make good to our own customers, it's difficult to focus when we know that competitors are actively marketing toward our base of users (and with pretty negative tactics). That's the way some companies operate, and it's a fact of life. Just don't let it take cycles out of real problem solving.

• Don't be afraid to communicate
  We decided to err on the side of offering a lot of information. Take the post about the technical solutions we were putting in place. I read on a few weblogs people questioning whether it was good for our company to reveal so much about our architecture (for proprietary reasons). We felt the good outweighed the bad since it helped our community feel fully informed.
• Trust your customers
  I take back what I said about reading what your customers have to say being the most important piece advice. Trusting your customers is key to keeping them happy, and from our experiences, is always the right decision. Our customers are amazing and have responded in a way that keeps us motivated to provide the best experiences possible.

Based on the feedback sent along in the survey and from customer weblogs, we feel incredibly rewarded to have people in the community recognize our attempts to make things right. While we’d rather avoid incidents like poor service, downtime, and customer compensation, we are constantly trying to learn how to be the best company possible. Believe us, when we read negative posts, they hurt, but every positive post goes a long way to lessening the sting.

Thank You.