How to Make an Angry User Happy

I received this comment on MacTips today:

I hate to say it, but thats not a tip. Everyone knows that. You havent been posting REALLY intresting tips lately and you dont post at least one tip a day. Mactips and the Mactips Widget are getting very boring. I used to look forward to getting a new tip for my Mac everyday after school, but now I dont. Instead, I'd rather go to Macworld.com for tips and news about Apple and Macs.

Ouch. He has point, but he was angry so his tone reflected that.

I replied with the following e-mail:

XXX,
Thanks for taking the time to post a comment on MacTips.

I welcome all criticism along with suggestions--and I definitely deserve yours.

I would disagree on your first assessment that the entry I posted is not a tip. Many users never use the right-click menu and even fewer know that holding Option changes certain preferences.

While you may think this is fairly obvious--this is brand new to other users.
Your second piece of criticism is valid, however--and I tried to acknowledge this in the post.

Some big changes are happening behind the scenes--and I promise regular (quality) content is coming soon.

May I suggest taking a look through our archives or popular posts to hold you over for the next week or so?

http://www.mactips.org/popular/

http://www.mactips.org/archives/

Thanks,Brad

Easy and to the point. This was his response:

Oh, please excuse me if I was rude. I mean that in the most sincere way posible, now that I really read what I said, it didnt sound all that nice :-/

Definitely a lot better response.

The point is I care what he thinks. I've written about this before in Building Your Website One User at a Time.

This is something I feel will not only help the site improve, but also help establish a sense of community.

The bottom line, listen to your users.

This entry was published on June 6, 2008 in Building Traffic