MyPunchblog

This post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO

As a consumer internet site, we do a lot of customer service and technical support. We have a few people on the team that spend a part of their day answering emails from customers. From a business point of view, providing excellent customer service is part of our DNA — but is also very costly.

I’m continually surprised at how poorly some of our customers communicate over email. Consider this recent (unedited) feedback:

“My 1st time to use punch bowl.Please call me asap some of my guest have not rcvd. invite, as the host I am unsure how to respond I am coming help 512-xxx-xxxx I am for 2 1/2 more hours.”

It’s worth re-iterating that I did not edit that feedback (other than removing the phone number). With that as an example, I present to you my Top 5 wishlist for customers needing support.

1. Please write in complete sentences, and use spell-check. We can’t possibly read your mind. If you spend a few more minutes writing in complete sentences, then we’ll be able to help you faster and better. Also, please use punctuation in your emails. It sounds simple, but it’s equally important in order for us to understand your customer service issue.
2. We know that your time is important, but everything can’t always be urgent. If you have an an issue that needs immediate attention, please explain why it’s urgent and we’ll do our best to get back to you as quickly as possible. (Note: writing “HELP!” or using exclamation points does not get us to pay attention faster).
3. Please search the MyPunchbowl FAQ’s before sending an email to our support team. In many cases, your question has already been answered.
4. We’re an internet company, and we don’t offer phone support — so don’t bother asking us to call you. That being said, our crazy CEO still takes inbound customer service calls once in a while. Feel free to call him (me) if you’ve exhausted all other avenues (you can find my cell phone number on the FAQ page).
5. If you have not upgraded your MyPunchbowl account to a paid membership, then there is only so much free customer support we can offer. If you want unlimited tech support, please upgrade your account. Thanks!

We love helping you — so please help us help you. Use the above list as a guide and it will go a long way to getting the help you need.

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

On Wednesday, Sean wrote about how we just unveiled new updates to our Dashboard page and that we incorporated a lot of feedback from our users. There are currently several ways that users provide us with feedback. Sometimes they email us, other times they respond to our surveys, and some post to our User Forums.

Our User Forums are relatively new so I just wanted to share the benefits of sharing your feedback via our forums.

1. Chances are you’re not the only one who has a particular comment or suggestion. If you post your feedback on the forums, we can get a dialogue going amongst our users which can only enhance our ability to look at the suggestion from several different angles.
2. Our email accounts and survey data are read by specific individuals within the company. While we do share feedback with the team, it would be great for our entire team to be able to get a pulse on customer feedback whenever they want to by viewing the forums.
3. It’s completely anonymous. All you need to do is create a username (handle) and password to be able to post to the forums. Speak freely!

So, do you have any feedback about MyPunchbowl? Post it to our User Forums. We’ll definitely read it.

This post written by Sean Conta, Founder & CXO

I do most of the testing for MyPunchbowl and it’s an increasingly complicated task. We’re always adding new features and fixes to the site and everything needs to be thoroughly tested. But the functions of the site itself is only one dimension of testing. We also have to test in multiple web browsers.

A lot of people online today don’t even really know what “web browser” means, much less if they’re running IE6, 7, 8, Firefox 3, or Chrome (OK if you’re running Chrome you probably know a thing or two). But if you are in tune with the web world you’re painfully aware of browser options and you also probably share a fundamental disgust for that “cranky-and-slightly-crazy-old-man-who-hasn’t-taken-his-medication” of web browsers: Internet Explorer version 6.

Is your website working and looking fine? Boot it up in IE6 and turn that smile upside down!

Hatred of IE6 among web programmers is well documented if you spend a few minutes asking the internet. Our newest programmer (Ryan) has shown a real genuine and promising level of spite for the ‘ole IE6. He turned me on to a site attempting to organize the war on IE6: http://www.bringdownie6.com/. Check out the home page for a concise summary of the problem at hand.

The other day I came across another clever innovation that further illustrates the desires of the web programmers of the world: http://ie6update.com/. Here’s a piece of code that you drop into your site that makes it appear (if you’re using IE6) that Microsoft is prompting you to upgrade your browser. Phenomenal.

And that’s the other problem with Internet Explorer version 6. Users can ignore the Microsoft updates and suddenly find themselves running an 8 year old browser in today’s modern internet. As Matt likes to say (often to users) “that’s like riding a bicycle on the highway”.

So do yourself (and us) a favor: if you’re using IE6 to read this post, head over to Microsoft and upgrade your browser. You can thank me later for picking you and your bicycle up on the side of the highway.

This post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO

Over the past four years, I’ve frequented a hot dog diner in Natick, MA called “Casey’s Diner.” I first discovered Casey’s about six months after I moved into Natick (after a few unsuccessful attempts to find it). Casey’s is the most non-descript, perfect place to get lunch. They serve a very limited menu — specializing in hot dogs and hamburgers. On a given day, I’d estimate more than 50% of the crowd are regulars. The tiny diner has been part of Natick’s culture since 1922. Inside the diner, there are only 11 seats at the bar-like counter. Many customers order from the simple take-out window on the side of the building:

In my opinion, there is a lot that an entrepreneur can learn from watching the lunch shift at Casey’s. They run a very tight ship — and it’s a study in operations and customer service. Over the past few years, I’ve sat at the counter countless times watching Pat Casey and his team work their lunch magic. There is much to write about what they do so well — today, I’d like to cover how Pat has taught his customers to order at the take-out window.

When a customer comes up to the window (usually to order hot dogs), Pat typically says hello and asks “What can I get you today?” Those who have ordered at Casey’s in the past know that the hot dogs come “standard” with yellow mustard, relish, and chopped onions. In Casey’s parlance, this is an “all-around.” Customers can also choose to add ketchup. With everything on the hot dog, it’s called a “Wellesley” (as the old Natick joke goes: the neighboring town of Wellesley has everything). That’s what Casey’s offers on hot dogs — nothing more and nothing less. Simple, and very delicious.

Invariably during the lunch shift, a customer will come to the window and tell Pat that he wants a hot dog “but without relish” or “without the onions.” Quick as a flash, Pat Casey responds “I don’t care what you don’t want, tell me what you do want.”

Watching this interaction, I always feel a surge of inner glee. One customer at a time, Pat teaches his customers how to order at Casey’s. I secretly love watching the befuddled customers as they stutter and try to order again. You can practically see the realization on their face as they hone in on what they do want. Once in a while (on a particularly special day) Pat has to repeat his mantra. And on very rare occasions (and when Pat is in a mood) he simply doesn’t tolerate customers who don’t tell him what they want. “Why don’t you come back when you know what you want” he’ll say, as he shifts his attention to the next customer in line. (Oh, the glee!)

This anecdote has many wonderful lessons for entrepreneurs. Allow me to pick a few:

1. Teach your customers how to order. They’ll get what they want faster, and you’ll be able to service more customers.
2. Ask customers what they do want — and don’t spend time listening to them ramble on about what they don’t want. If I had a dollar for every time a MyPunchbowl customer told me what they didn’t want…
3. Repeat your core message as many times as needed until every single one of your customers hears your message. Don’t assume that everyone has heard your message even if you have told the last five people.
4. It’s harsh to admit, but some customers are expendable. If a customer is taking too much of your time and preventing you from servicing other customers, then it’s ok to ask the customer to move on.
5. Provide a great product, but don’t feel like you need to offer all possible options. Sometimes mustard, relish, and onions are good enough.

If you ever find yourself in Natick, Massachusetts during lunch hour, ask the locals how to get to Casey’s. When you show up, tell Pat what you want. Because he doesn’t care what you don’t want.

This post written by Sean Conta, Founder & CXO

We get a lot of feedback on the site and we try to respond to each and every email. This can be a lot of work, but the benefits are clear. Communicating with our users helps us keep a pulse on things that they find confusing or difficult to use on the site. We take that knowledge and use it to improve site design.

I was just recalling a nice and clean example of this “cycle” that involved the Invitation Options page. When you create an invitation on MyPunchbowl, we offer some great options for customizing how your guests view and interact with the invitation. These options are controlled on the host’s Invitation Options page.

Here’s what the page used to look like (click to enlarge):

This design got the job done, but I fielded a lot of questions from users such as “Can I show who’s invited on my invitation?”, or “I don’t want guests to bring other people, is there a way to turn that off?”.

These things were in the interface, but people were missing it.  So we came up with a better design (click to enlarge):

The questions all but stopped. Why is this design better?

• Sections - the settings are broken into major sections (Display, Guests, Reminders, etc). This makes it easier to digest the page as you glance over it.

• Wording - as opposed to a statement with a “true/false” checkbox we phrased the items as questions. This is more natural to read and easier to understand.

• Examples - see those “More Info” links on the right side? Those open a pop-up with an example picture of the setting. It always helps to see a picture, as most people are visual learners!

• Background - Dark text on a light background is easier to read, and I think you’ll agree this page looks nicer.

Hope you enjoyed this - keep the feedback coming!

Like most people these days, I get a lot of email. Therefore, I’m careful about who I give my email address to, and I do my best to make sure I am not signed up for any lists or marketing promotions. I’m not over-zealous about it (I’ve never emailed a company demanding to be taken off of an email list) but I do my best to avoid getting surveys and marketing promotions.

Yesterday, I got an email from Marriott that was so funny that I had to share. Basically, they emailed me to ask if they could email me:

Because you are a valued customer and your opinion is important to us, we would like to periodically ask you to provide feedback regarding your experience with our hotels. The feedback we collect from our customers is used to make improvements to our hotels and processes so we can better serve you.

However, our records indicate that you have not given us permission to send customer survey invitations to you at this email address.

Yes, Marriott — that is correct. I didn’t give you permission to email me at this address! So what are you doing emailing me?!?

I know what I’ll do. I’m picking up the phone now… dialing 301.380.3000 (Marriott’s main phone number).

(Ringing)

Matt: Hi, Marriott! I’m calling to ask you if I can call you.

Operator: (laughs) I don’t understand.

Matt: Exactly.

If you’re a MyPunchbowl user and you need help, you’re likely to click on the “Help” link on the top of every page on the site. Most of the time, you’ll read our help section and get your answer. Some of the time you might click through to read our FAQ section to find the answer. And when that fails, you might want to just find someone to talk to. So you click down to the “Customer Support” FAQ where you will find the following:

Question: I need help! How do I reach customer support? 

Answer: Please contact us. We’re here to help (unless we are at a party). You can email us at support@punchbowlsoftware.com or call us at 650-814-3393.

Yes, that’s a real phone number. In fact, it’s my cell phone. The one that’s usually in my pocket. And I only carry one cell phone.

So why would I put my personal cell phone number out on the big, scary world wide web for all to see? Simply put: because I believe actual users are the lifeblood of a great business. And if you’re a customer of MyPunchbowl who takes the time to pick up the phone and (gasp) call a website, then I believe you should be able to talk to someone who can answer your question quickly and thoroughly.

I’ve had my cell phone number on MyPunchbowl for more than 2 years now. I’ve taken dozens and dozens (hundreds?) of phone calls from users all across this country (and a few foreign calls too). I’ve learned more about our market and users than any focus group, marketing survey or roundtable could have possibly provided. I’ve talked to real customers, with real needs and real problems. People who are actively using our site to plan their event.

There are countless reasons I answer the phone on a daily basis, and I thought I would share a few facts and figures about what I’ve learned over the last few years:

• First, and most importantly: You would be surprised at how *few* calls I get on an average week. If I were to average it out over the last few years, I would guess I take no more than 3 calls a week.
• The average call takes less than 3-5 minutes to resolve. Quick answers and a little explanation is all it usually takes.
• I’ve talked to users who are savvy and users who are new to the web. All kinds of users seem to pick up the phone and call — there doesn’t seem to be a pattern.
• Women call more than men — but that simply might be a reflection of our overall demographic.
• If I hear about a significant problem on our site, I can expect the wave of calls to start pretty quickly thereafter. As you can imagine, this gives me a early barometer reading if something is really wrong. Many times, by the time the calls would have started in mass we’ve addressed the issue on the site.
• People are very very (very!) appreciative of talking to a real person. Most of them are shocked that I’m real — and it’s always fun to admit at the end of the conversation that I’m the CEO of the company. The customers that call and talk to me end up being our most loyal users — and are largely to thank for our explosive growth as a company.
• I usually end the conversation by asking a few quick market questions (where are you from, what kind of event are you planning, how did you hear from us…). I don’t keep an official log of the answers, but I’ve certainly learned a lot about who is using our product and why they chose MyPunchbowl.

I could tell you many stories of people that I’ve helped — and if you ever meet someone who works at Punchbowl Software make sure to ask them about how I use the Bill Clinton technique in meetings (”I talked to Lisa in Spring Hollow, Nebraska today — and she gave me a great idea for that feature).

If you’re a CEO of an early-stage company and you’re reading this thinking “Is this really worth Matt’s time?”, let me ask you these simple questions:

1. Do you have your finger on the pulse of who used your product today and what they used it for?
2. What’s your first warning if there is something really wrong with your product?
3. Can you quickly name 10 customers that would act on your behalf as a customer reference?
4. What are you actively doing to cultivate a group of loyal, fervent users?
5. Is making customers happy a priority in your organization?

If you’re still not convinced that it’s worth your time, here’s a suggestion — start taking customer support calls and see how your answers change over two weeks. Go on — put your phone number on your site tomorrow and see what you learn in your first 10 phone calls.

Don’t be afraid to talk to your customers: as Cathy in Fremont, CA just told me a few minutes ago “I will be a loyal MyPunchbowl user forever and tell all of my friends about this site just because you took two minutes to talk to me tonight. Thank you!”

No, thank you Cathy. You’re the reason I answer the phone.

This morning (Saturday), our internet hosting provider experienced significant downtime. For about 4 hours, visitors to MyPunchbowl.com received a “We’re experiencing technical difficulties” message when trying to visit MyPunchbowl.com.

We apologize to any customers that were affected by this outage. We’re lucky that this happened on a Saturday morning (from around 2am-6am PST). Our site is back up and running smoothly now.

For the technical geeks out there, the following is an explanation of what happened from our hosting provider Engine Yard:

Early this morning on March 15th, at about 2:05 AM PST (GMT -8), we experienced a power disruption at our Sacramento data center.

At 2:05am PST, we started losing connectivity to cluster ey01.

Our engineers worked with the data center and determined that power to ey01 had been reduced or cut entirely. Keep in mind that clusters have 2 power connections, each capable of handling the load alone.

Other data center customers and infrastructure were affected - not just Engine Yard. But at least only 1 of our clusters was affected.

A full cluster reboot takes time, but not usually a long time. In this case, the problem was greatly magnified because the outage was not planned nor orderly, so we needed to do a cold reboot and make sure everything restarted in a good state, including integrity checks on all databases on ey01. Some websites were down as long as 4.5 hours, depending on which resources they needed. ey01 was fully back online by 6:35am Pacific.

Customers on other Engine Yard clusters were not affected.

We take this very seriously and are in contact with our data center to figure out exactly what happened and what measures they’re taking to prevent it from happening again.

We are very sorry to Engine Yard customers who were affected by this power outage. We will be working with you to process refunds for 10X the downtime experienced.

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