The truth is. Some customers require 10x the support that others do and you only get paid the same amount. When you're a growing startup, those 10x'ers can suck up all your time and distract you from building a better product. Unfortunately it sounds like you were going to be a 10x'er for them and they were a bit blunt about suggesting you don't use the service.
There are certain assumptions people make when trying to help out others. I'm probably not going out too far on a limb to guess that Allan read OP's emails and one of his first thoughts were, "this guy didn't spend more than 2 minutes reading the documentation."
Given the ease of locating that information, I'd have to agree.
I have a B2B app too, and get email from people who are downright rude. I wouldn't bundle the OP in with this bunch: he just seemed frustrated.
But as the service provider it's your responsibility to maintain a professional tone. When I get what, at best, are difficult customers, my approach is to be tersely polite. Then half tend to back down and be apologetic, the other half I never hear from again.
I think both parties are at fault here. Ryan's first query was fine. It was a total mistake to 1) Send another message (please wait for more than a "few minutes" before getting frustrated and sending another message), and 2) Be completely rude.
At the same time, Allan (CEO) should have maintained, like drsim said, a professional, objective tone. Sure, he probably got a kick out of sarcastically tearing down Ryan, but ultimately it did nothing for either party and only burned a bridge that otherwise could have been salvaged.
I don't think it's too late for Ryan to apologize for the misunderstanding.
@brianchu: I agree. I'm largely at fault. And I'm probably going to take down the post. I was just pissed off at Allan's attitude (especially the condescension), and thought I'd try to get a little revenge. But that's no way to behave. I do apologize. Also, I'm going to stop using the word "So" as often. Also, I'm going to start proofreading my blog posts before I put them live. It's just that it's never really mattered, because nobody has ever read it!
Right. Apologizing is not strictly necessary. But relationships matter; in the long run someone who is able to apologize and keep calm despite others' rude statements is going to be better off.
My personal opinion and standard for customer service (to my customers) is that no matter how rude the customer is (in this case, I personally wouldn't classify Ryan as rude), its my responsibility to be as polite and helpful as humanly possible. Perhaps I just have extra high standards, but for me, the email from Allan reflects pretty bad on Curebit's leadership team.
Integration/onboarding/first time setup pages work much better in my experience when the user can't really do anything until they do the minimum setup.
For curebit, they should focus on making sure to only show that page when the person is ready (probably the case 99% of the time... if someone signs up and puts in CC).
For FaithStreet they wanted you on this page for a reason and put in a bit of effort keeping you there.
I really hate when companies act like they're doing you a favor by letting you pay them for services.. The fact that they exude this attitude at such an early stage, and from so high up, marks a bad sign.. If you can't empathize with the pain points of your customers (ESP ones who have already paid you money), then perhaps you should give up the business
