About a month ago, I had a problem with an internal application, a widget, on LinkedIn.com. After trying several times to get the widget running correctly, without success, I deleted it, figuring I’d just move on. But before I did, I thought I’d give them some feedback. Here’s the exchange that ensued.
12/04/2008 04:10 PM
I’ve found your Word Press application buggy.
I’ve tried several times today to get it to interface correctly with my blog.
After several attempts, it worked and displayed the post correctly on my LI home page and LI profile. But then it stopped working. I reset the application, twice, in your interface, but both times it told me it could not find my blog. This is after it had already found it earlier in the day.
So right now, I’m deleting the application from my profile.
Richard Telofski
Here’s their response:
RESPONSE (LINKEDIN – TROY (TL)) 12/05/2008 10:36 AM
Dear Richard,
Thank you for contacting LinkedIn Customer Support. I am sorry you are having issues on this item. If you are getting errors with this finding your blog, please contact WordPress using the below web form and they will be happy to help you on this item.
http://wordpress.com/contact-support/ (http://wordpress.com/contact-support/)
If you have further questions, please feel free to reply to this message.
Thank you for being a valued member of our LinkedIn community!
Troy L.
I felt this response was just a dust-off, one like so many non-social media companies offer up. Being that LinkedIn.com is a social media company, I thought this response particularly “unsocial.” I never intended to get really involved in this issue. I wasn’t intensely interested in their application; I was really just trying it out. But the manner of their response irked me. So I wrote back.
It seems like you didn’t actually read my complaint.
I said that at first the application was working correctly, then it stopped working correctly later.
If there was a problem with the application interfacing with Word Press, it wouldn’t have worked at all. So referring me to Word Press for resolution is just blowing off the problem, making it easy for LI customer support.
I wonder how this issue would play in a LinkedIn discussion group? Shall I pose a question and see?
Richard Telofski
Here’s their second response:
I do apologize, but if the blog is not being found, you will need to contact WordPress on that issue. That is what you stated below as the last issue regarding this item, you said it found it earlier in the day and then could not find this later. This would be a WordPress issue, I do apologize, but we do have to refer to the partner on some of these issues.
Thanks,
Troy L.
Their lack of concern, with their product, irritated me. Again, when I wrote my first email to them, I had not intended to become involved in an issue. I wrote to them originally thinking that I’d just give them a bit of customer feedback which might help them out. So I replied again.
Now, I won’t give you the full text of my response because 1) I became a bit testy, and 2) I’m a bit embarrassed by the assemblage of the words used in that response. So I’ll just give you the gist of what I said.
I told them that the kind of customer support I received from them is the type people expect from the phone company or the post office, not from a “cool” social media company. I also stated that instead of immediately blowing off my problem, which again I didn’t care very much about in the first place, and pointing me toward Word Press, they would have been better served by asking a few questions to try to determine the exact problem. After all, I told them, the application was theirs, not mine, and not Word Press’ either. So why should I have to do the work to solve their problem?
I tried using this Word Press/LinkedIn.com application again this afternoon, with a different blog address, BTW. It doesn’t work any better. In fact this time I encountered different problems.
But I didn’t send them any feedback. I mean, why bother?
And that’s not what social media is about, is it?
