Punchbowl Blog

When I started this company, one of the things I wanted to do was offer true excellence in customer service. I’ve seen great customer service during my days at Adobe, and I’ve suffered my share of bad customer service as a user of various products. We want MyPunchbowl.com to be the best possible event-planning site, so I figure if we want to truly be the best, we have to embody that in everything we do — including customer service.

Customer service in the very early days of MyPunchbowl.com was challenging. We received lots of emails and calls about things we already knew about and were feverishly trying to fix. However, rather than ignoring the emails or calls, we took the time to talk to our early users; to make a personal connection between Punchbowl Software and users. I answered many calls on weekends and evenings (often to the dismay of my very patient wife) and Sean (my co-founder) responded to every email that we received. This is a practice that continues to this day– every single person that contacts us gets a personal response from someone at Punchbowl. Of all of the things that we do on a daily basis, I think I’m most proud of that accomplishment.

As a result of this kind of customer service, we made a very personal connection with our users, and ended up apologizing about the product alot. Eventually, MyPunchbowl caught up with customer issues, and the product began exceeding customer expectations. Yet as with most software products, we still heard from far more people with complaints than those with compliments.

In the past few weeks an amazing thing has started happening: a whole lot of users have written to us just to express how much they love MyPunchbowl. There’s been quite a MyPunchbowl lovefest going on, and I thought I would share a few examples from just the last week:

“I plan about 20 events a year and I am very excited to have your new service. I sent out our St. patty’s day invite this week and already 2 friends sent out invites using mypunchbowl.”

“You guys rock. Thanks for writing a site that doesn’t suck!”

“Just read about your site in the Orlando Sentinel. I love it!! What a great site!”

“A gracious “thank you” to MyPunchbowl for helping make our adoption group’s Chinese New Year Celebration a wonderful success. I cannot express how much it simplified the planning and helped me stay organized! MyPunchbowl was completely user friendly for myself and the guests. I will absolutely use MyPunchbowl again in the future!”

Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to write to us– I can’t tell you how much it lifts the entire team to hear such nice things from our users (the entire team reads all of the user feedback).

If you have something to tell us, we want to hear from you. Simply click on the “Feedback/Support” link that’s located at the bottom of every page. We can’t promise you the answer you’ll want to hear, but we can promise that you’ll hear from us.

Party Planning and Online Invitations with MyPunchbowl

This past Saturday evening, my cell phone rang around 5pm. We had just spent the day with my over-energetic niece and nephew, so I was relaxing for a few quiet minutes poking around online. When my phone rang, I didn’t recognize the number — so I assumed it might be a user calling for customer support. With slight hesitation, I answered the call.

On the phone was a woman named Ruby. Although she started the phone call with pleasantries, it was clear within a minute or so that she was not happy at all. Ruby was hosting a big event in the upcoming week, and MyPunchbowl was giving her troubles.

As soon as Ruby began to explain her problem, I knew it was related to some changes we had made to the website on Thursday and Friday. You see, Ruby’s guest list was almost 600 people and she was describing problems with speed and performance of the site. I quickly knew that I wasn’t going to be able to help her right away, and that I would need to get one or more of our programmers involved. Keep in mind that it was 5pm on Saturday. Not the best time to bug your employees who have been putting in more than their share of hours during the week.

I tried to explain to Ruby that I didn’t have a solution for her — and that it was going to take some time. Understandably, she was not satisfied. She got short with me pretty quickly (Edit: Ruby says “obnoxious” not “short”), and I frankly wasn’t in the mood to take it. I tried to explain to her what I was going to do to fix her problem, but she kept interrupting me… and my patience was wearing thin. From her perspective, she thought that by calling customer service that she would get a instant solution to her problem. The reality was that the issue was going to take some time to fix. I put Ruby on hold, composed myself, and told her that I would do whatever it takes to fix the problem.

I took all of her contact info, got off of the phone, and immediately called Blake, one of our programmers. Blake was more than willing to dive in and fix the problem. A few hours later, he had a fix to the problem. I emailed Ruby with the information she needed, and provided her with relavent details. At the end of my note, I told her that my new goal was to make her one of the most ardent supporters of MyPunchbowl.com. I had no idea what to expect — was she lost as a customer forever?

On Monday, I received a response from Ruby: “hi matt, thanks so much! i couldn’t have asked for better customer service!”

Yesterday, I received this unsolicited follow-up from her: “just want to tell you that the excel spreadsheet is an awesome perk of using your site. We have someone coordinating the party for us on wed and she wanted the names of people coming so she could make a spreadsheet, but I told her that we already had one!”

So what’s the moral of the story:

1) Don’t answer the phone on Saturday at 5pm unless you are prepared to handle any type of customer service call. I thought it would be an easy call, and I would help a customer with a simple problem. It turned into a 3 hour affair that involved one of our engineers and our web hosting provider.

2) Try to be as empathetic with your customers as possible. Ruby was frustrated and wanted a solution fast. Even though I couldn’t provide a quick solution, the faster I became empathetic to her needs, the more I was able to see eye to eye with her.

3) Don’t act like a customer service robot when you answer the phone. I like customers to realize that I’m a person too — by being more personal, Ruby was less likely to stay angry with me. I tried to take the tone of “we’re having a beer together” rather than some idiot reading a script (note to self: this deserves a blog post in itself).

4) No reasonable customer is ever lost. The most angry, annoyed, fed-up customer can be turned around if you listen to what they need and do your best to respond (note: this does not mean that you should put up with abuse or people who try to take advantage of you).

Ruby contacted me again last night. She’s more than happy — “Matt, I’m definitely a punchbowl client for good!”

To Ruby: I’m really glad that we were able to help you. In a small way, I hope that we enabled your celebration. We’re building this software for people just like you. I’m glad to call you a customer.

Oh, and check the mail. We sent you a little something to say thanks for putting up with the website problem

———

Party Planning and Online Invitations with MyPunchbowl

I’m a sucker for great customer service stories. This morning Seth Godin writes about a memorable experience that a woman had with Zappos.com.

Here’s what I take away from the story:

1) Ask your customer service people to act like real human beings: there’s nothing more frustrating that listening to a customer service person tell you the policies. When I’ve been in this situation in the past, I stop and ask the person on the phone to “imagine that we’re out having a beer together.” Talk to me like a real person — don’t call me Mr. Douglas and use “sir” at the end of every sentence. Call me Matt and talk to me like you want to help me on a personal level.

2) If you have employees, empower them to do the right thing. Provide them with the ability to go above and beyond the policies. In this story, the Zappos employee had budget authority beyond the typical solution. Find a way to help your customer service employees make a lasting impression.

Zappos is an interesting company. I’ve never used the site, but I hear great things. I love the name too (Necessitas zappos por los pies). Go ahead and read the story, it’s worth a minute. And if you’re in the market for new shoes, let me know your experience with Zappos.

(Note to shoe-loving wife: please do not visit Zappos.com or any other site that makes it really easy to buy shoes. I fear what you might do. Love, Matt).

Yesterday, I sent out a personal email to everyone who mistakenly received a reminder email. As I wrote yesterday, we had a server problem that caused certain users to receive incorrect reminders. Not a big deal, but it did confuse some people.

I decided to be proactive and write a personal email to the people who were affected. I carefully crafted the email, and made sure that we took full responsibility for the mistake. I wrote “…This is completely unacceptable and we’re very sorry that this happened. We take the sending of emails very seriously– we don’t like getting extra emails and know that you don’t either (hopefully this one is ok!). I hope you will accept our apologies for this mistake.”

I have to admit that I was a bit nervous sending it– afterall, here I was sending another email apologizing for sending email! Oh, the hypocrisy..

With some trepidation, I opened my email this morning. And here is a sampling of what I found:

“Hi Matt,  I’m not sure if this will actually get through to you, but if it does, I just wanted to thank you for even sending this email. There are so many mistakes made or extra emails sent out, that go unspoken for. Your level of customer service is exactly what makes MyPunchbowl so great.  Thank you, Michelle”

“Wow. Really great email . . . i was one of the people who received the reminder and I really appreciate this email. It makes such a difference when a company takes the time to apologize. Makes all the difference between your company and all the others that offer similar services.  Keep up the great work. Best, Patricia”

“Apology accepted. - Sree”

To all of the people that wrote to me. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You are the reason that we wake up everyday and develop this software. 

We turned a potentially bad impression into a good one. To me, this is what it is all about.

It’s a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and I’m taking a break from being in the hot sun. The neighborhood is quiet, the birds are chirping– and we’re having a nice afternoon.

That is, until the local Comcast sales person showed up. This has become an every weekend-day phenomenon. Comcast reps show up with their offers to switch us from Verizon. Hey Comcast, guess what? I switched away from cable modem to FIOS service from Verizon. You don’t even offer those kind of speeds. And no, I don’t want your overpriced Comcast cable service. I have DirectTV, and it allows me to watch my beloved Jets on the NFL Sunday Ticket. Hey Comcast, guess what? You don’t have that either.

That’s not really the issue, however. Sunday’s are my day to relax and gear up for the week. I really don’t want annoying sales people showing up at my door. I told the woman that someone had been by the last few weekends. Her response, “yeah, we’re all over the area.”

Hey Comcast, go away.

I can’t believe that we actually switched to Blockbuster. Netflix, I’m very, very sorry. Please allow me to tell my story.

I became a Netflix customer sometime in 1999 (maybe even earlier…). We were living in Palo Alto at the time, and a friend of mine from Adobe told me about the service. We signed up when Netflix only had one warehouse, and we enjoyed the new convenience of DVD’s through the mail.

Fast forward to 2001. We moved to Chapel Hill, NC (where I went to business school). We still had Netflix, but they didn’t have any warehouses close by so the shipping took almost a week each time. I called Netflix, and they told me that they were working on expanding. We decided to cancel Netflix for the time being.

A few years later (now living in Waltham, MA) we heard that Netflix had opened up a new warehouse in MA. So we signed up again. I called Netflix, and they offered me the plan I used to have back in the day (4 movies for $18). It felt good to be grandfathered into the old plan. Five years later we were still Netflix customers. Until this past weekend.

I had heard about the Blockbuster program, and then I read about it again on TechCrunch. I was intrigued– you mean I could return movies to the store and get instant gratification? Interesting…. but I didn’t think about it again much until I happened to be near a Blockbuster store last week.

Here’s the deal: Blockbuster has created a truly unique service, and I’m excited to give it a shot. Blockbuster gives me the choice of how to return movies. I can simply put them in the mail, or I can drop them off at the store. If I drop them at the store, I get a rental on the spot AND they send me the next movie on our queue. It’s not that we watch a lot of movies: but with Netflix all too often we had things at home that didn’t suit our mood. Now we can get what we want, when we want it. It’s the perfect meld of the online and offline world.

Netflix is no longer the “underdog.” With sales over $1B (yes, billion) and rumors of an acquisition by Amazon, I don’t feel any loyalty to the company anymore. I want the best product and most flexible program. Without brick & mortar store, Netflix simply cannot compete.

Goodbye Netflix. Maybe we’ll see each other again someday. Frankly, I’m surprised you didn’t work harder to keep me as a customer. You must have known I would consider Blockbuster, didn’t you?

I’m sitting in Logan airport (Boston) on my way to Washington D.C. I have an early flight, and was up late so I’m a little slow this morning.  And even though I’m very familiar with all of the ridiculous TSA rules, I forgot to take out my 1 quart plastic bag to display my 3 oz liquids and gels (geez, it sounds even stupider as I write about the “rules.”) Anyway, as my bags are going through the x-ray, I realize that I forgot to take out the plastic bag. Doh! So I’m expecting them to pull me aside and ask me to take out the plastic bag.

But what happens? Nothing. My bag sails through. That’s what you call “shoddy quality assurance.” It reminds me of the time my wife and I were late for a flight. We had a choice to make: go through security, lose all of her cosmetics (over $75) and try to make the flight or spend the night at a hotel. We chose to go through. They threw away all of her cosmetics but *completely* missed my toothpaste, deodorant etc etc. Oh, and if you’re wondering– we didn’t make the flight. That was not a happy day.

So what’s my point? I thinking about all of this as the Punchbowl team is racing against the clock to make sure that our new release is up to our high quality standards. We’re professional software developers, and it’s really important to us that we find the issues (rather than our users). But just like the TSA, we can’t be perfect. There are too many issues, too many permutations, too many scenarios. In my 15 years in software development, I’ve learned a few things. And here is one: No matter how much you test, you just can’t catch everything.

At the end of the day, we rely on our users to help us find anything we missed. We’ll  respond quickly, and tackle the most pressing issues first. Like the TSA, we can only do so much to find the issues. The rest is up to all of us.

Start your next event or party at http://www.punchbowl.com

And with those words, I watched a woman walk out of the Bank of America today. It got me thinking– what would it have taken to keep her as a customer?

The scene I witnessed minutes earlier was something out of a bad movie. She was an older woman, who clearly didn’t trust big business. Apparently she had been charged some extra bank fees, and she wasn’t satisfied with the assurance that the fees would be removed. She wanted proof, and she wanted to talk to the bank’s president.

I’d like to think that regardless of how big MyPunchbowl gets, our customers will still be able to call me or email me. I have to admit I love getting calls from real customers. I’ve had the opportunity over the last few months to talk to users from around the country and hear about how they are using Punchbowl.com. And it’s always mutually rewarding– users get to talk to one of the people who helped create the application, and I get to hear how they are really using the site.

For those of you who don’t know, my cell phone is listed on our FAQ page (at the bottom of the page, under “Customer Support.” You can call me anytime day or night. If I’m around, I’ll answer the phone and try to help you with MyPunchbowl. And don’t hesitate to call if you have feature suggestions or just want to tell us what you think of the site.

As that old commercial said: “I’m not only a customer, I’m also the President.” MyPunchbowl.com is a place where you can speak to the President. And I intend to keep it that way.

We’ve been hard at work on a significant new release of MyPunchbowl.com for some time now. Normally, we like to “go live” on a Sunday to minimize the impact on our users. However, we had a few last things to tighten up this morning, so we’re going live very soon (approx 10:30 EST). If you experience any problems using the site, come back in a few minutes. Thanks for your patience.

I’ll post later about all of the new features and functionality– we’re really proud of this version, and hope you are excited too.

It’s opening day today, and it’s always a great time for baseball fans. Regardless of who you root for, your team’s record is 0-0 and everyone gets to start anew. By the end of the season we all expect the familiar teams to be on top: the Yankees, the Red Sox, and my beloved Mets (don’t blame me, I grew up in Long Island).

For some teams (read: Washington Nationals), there is no chance that they’ll end up in the playoffs in October. They don’t have the pitching staff, their infield is made up of guys who wouldn’t even start on most teams, and they don’t have the big hitters to score enough runs. Yet on my recent trip to Washington D.C., my brother explained to me that the management just isn’t spending money right now. “Our fans expect this to be a rebuilding year, and they’ll be patient for the team to develop.”

I was thinking about this today after I got a few emails from users who were a bit exasperated that we don’t have a particular feature. They wanted to know why we didn’t have the feature and what we were going to do about it. Of course I let them know that the feature is on the way (because it is!) but I have to admit that I paused a moment. I wanted to ask them for patience– to stick with our team as we build. But I didn’t write that. Why should our users be patient when there are other alternatives out there? I guess that’s the crux of the issue: like it or not, the Washington Nationals are the only team in town. Their fans will stick by them as they build.

Maybe some of our users are baseball fans. For those of you who are, happy opening day. Be patient with your team and you never know what might happen (well, unless you are from Kansas City).

(written and posted from the NJ Turnpike, this time going north).