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Comment by contingencies | Hacker News Reader

Maybe go the objective route. "Product is used daily by 10,000 users for the X use case, we are also really excited to hear from users such as yourself interested in Y and Z use cases and will be actively considering those features in future!". Disassociate, describe the thing without getting emotionally involved, offer a ray of hope without making promises, but tell them indirectly they're not a priority.

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I’m interested by this response as this is exactly the sort of CS response that makes me seethe - it doesn’t resolve the issue and holds out false hope. Have you seen it used effectively? Are you using shorthand here and there is more to the interaction? It’s a genuine question, not intending to provoke. There’s a particular tool I use where the support team’s typical response to anything non-standard is along the lines of “hey, great that you’d be interested in this feature! It’s not something we are planning to build! why not add it to our suggestions board though - the more people who vote on it the more chance we might consider this in the future!” and of course nothing on the suggestions board is ever implemented.

I’d much rather a company says “sorry, your use case is an edge case and not something we support; you could try doing X or Y but what you’re attempting is outside our typical use and not on our roadmap. While we’d love to keep you as a customer I’m not going to make false promises. You might be better off with a tool that specifically enables what you are attempting - or continue using us in the knowledge that this is not possible. Sorry we can’t be more help.”

I feel like making the suggestion to go to someplace else with your grievance is a moment in a conversation after the participants understand the immediate blockers to an issue. These CS responses always resembled a stonewall to me. It is not how I would make that suggestion.

I leverage that response by trying to make the client feel like I am bringing them closer into the loop. Make getting involved in the suggestion board feel more like an invitation. Let them know of the team that wants to hear from them. If on-boarding is not considered a part of a client's problem-pain calculus, white-glove the sign-up process. Since people have gotten comfortable with video calling, clients have enjoyed getting personal attention from executives in 30-minute qualitative meetings with the product team.

There's a reason these CS responses get used. Most managers or executive teams will scold or eventually fire you for pointing a customer anywhere else or admitting that your software doesn't do something.

As a customer I’m much more likely to cancel a service if I get Vague! Happy! Pointless! customer service interactions rather than honest responses.

But yes - I imagine too many MBAs is the problem most of the time…

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