Category: Entrepreneurship

Save your F'ing Users

Warning: this article is 1/2 business and 1/2 pleasure. Recently, I was fortunate enough to receive an email from a reader named Briana who said my posts were all “business” focused and not the “fun” focused they used to be. Here is a picture of something fun to change all that.


link to photo

Happy now:) Anyways, Briana emailed me this (posted with her permission):

I just unsubscribed from your blog. The reason is I feel the blog is turning into a business startup email blast. I used to receive my okdork email and be excited to see something interesting or learn something new. For instance, I learned from okdork that the gas tank indicator has an arrow pointing to what side of the car I need to pull over on to pump my gas. That tip saved me many costless minutes reversing and backing up to go to another pump, lol. Seriously, I loved to see the emails in my inbox because it was interesting stuff. Now I feel the blogs have changed and are geared towards the technological at heart…

If in the future you steer back towards the okdork I loved to read, then I will resubscribe. Otherwise, thanks for the good reads and I wish you all the best…

I was a bit disappointed to lose a reader but appreciative of the fact that she emailed this to me. Think about your own site.

Advertise to 100,000 people * 1% click through * 10% register for your site = 100 users on your site.

Of those 100 people maybe 25-30 will continually use your site. So now that one wants to leave, they are really freaking valuable. Is it worth your time to reach out and make sure they are happy? Yes!

So I emailed Briana back:

This is a great email and made my weekend. Do you mind if I post it? I have some more posts like you are talking about coming soon. I don’t want to lose you. I’m trying to balance writing cool, fun things as well as business stuff. I will try my best to win you back:)

And she responded with:

Sure you can post it. Thanks for responding :o )

For some reason Noah, I like okdork and your style, which is why I had to tell you I was peacing* out. I know its probably tough trying to balance and please different audiences.

Your sincerity in retention has been rewarded…lock me back in. I will let you know if I decide to slip away again. By the way, since you are doing some business stuff, throw in some real estate bits if you have any. I am a real estate broker in So. Cal and have a family owned business with my mom and sisters.

Okay, one reader saved. At Facebook I added the why are you leaving box for people that wanted to deactivate there accounts. You’d be amazed at the # of people who quit a day and if you can help them with the reason they are quitting, you’ll save a lot of customers.

And if you want housing in Southern California, please check out Frazier Realty :)

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10 Responses to “Save your F'ing Users”

  • Sean Tierney
    November 25th, 2008
    4:51 pm

    Noah,

    I met Gary Vaynerchuk last week at the Arizona Entrepreneurship Conference. Apparently every time someone unsubscribes from his newsletter that person receives a phone call to find out why he/she left. Totally agree that if you have the ability to devote attention to unsubscribes there’s huge value in it. And I’ve heard the idea of escalating the contact level advocated by others (ie. if they email, you call back. if they call, you visit in person).

    FYI there’s an automated way to get some insight on this for Twitter. this app lets you see when people unfollow you and what the offending message was that drove them away: http://useqwitter.com

    sean

  • Noah Kagan
    November 25th, 2008
    5:47 pm

    sean,

    i use qwitter and it hurts but its also nice at the same time. i generally reach out to everyone on that as well. getting a user back makes them like you generally even more.

  • kadavy
    November 25th, 2008
    6:35 pm

    That’s awesome that Briana took the time to write you about your blog. I wish my readers (if there are any) would do that :) I can relate though, that it’s tough to remember how much fun blogging is supposed to be.

    Also, thanks for the Qwitter rec’d. I’m excited to see who unfollows me :)

  • Noah Kagan
    November 25th, 2008
    6:40 pm

    kadavy,

    it’s very disappointing to get the qwitter emails but nice that you can message them now.

  • Julie
    November 26th, 2008
    9:36 am

    I recently had to uninstall Google Chrome because my 5-year-old computer doesn’t have enough memory to support 3 browsers. When I went to uninstall it, this box popped up:

    “Was it something we said?”

    That’s priceless.

  • Games-boy
    December 1st, 2008
    7:07 am

    I believe that every grain may eventually grow into a big money tree. This is a correct idea, I stick to it constantly. -)))

  • Nicole Price
    December 1st, 2008
    8:57 am

    I think that I have to second Briana there; I wouldnt mind some more fun posts either:)

  • Small Business Marketing
    December 23rd, 2008
    9:45 pm

    The moral of this story is that a customer if the hand is worth more than ten prospects in the bush. Nice of you to care about customer satisfaction. The user/customer is the most important element in business.

  • Games-boy
    January 5th, 2009
    3:17 am

    Sure The customer is one of two participants of the market,and everything offered for him must be a great satisfaction.

  • Yagnaroopaya Upendraya
    February 13th, 2009
    6:49 pm

    Knowledge is power and also a cost saving tool for the future. Read my sig for more info on getting faster more efficient and targetted search results with one simple step.

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