I was in the private beta for Ting GSM, and I loved every minute of it. I'm still on GSM with my main line, and we'll be moving my wife to Ting GSM once her CDMA phone finally kicks the bucket. I had tried Ting CDMA a few times since they first launched, and came back for good once I found out about the coming GSM service. Ting's customer support is simply unmatched, an anomaly among not just cellular companies but all tech companies I've ever dealt with.
Justen went above and beyond to help us beta testers resolve issues, and I feel like a part of the Ting family now even though I don't work there (though I'd love to if I lived further north!).
Been with you guys since 2012 - please don't ever change the way you do customer service. If you had fiber in the Mid-Atlantic region I'd have already signed up. Keep kicking ass!
P.S. I converted my family and I've got some converts at work now too. The customer service is key, plus whoever came up with that calculator to compare costs between Ting and the users' current provider needs a big fat bonus.
It all depends on the details and the market, but yes - like I said in another comment, we're really open and flexible about how we deliver our service and I could see a few different types of arrangements where we might end up doing exactly that.
Everything we're working on now runs on our own infrastructure or muni-infrastructure. Nothing white-label in the works, although I wouldn't count it out (we're an ISP, we like to provide service, we're pretty open about how we get it to your house).
Yeah, I expect we'll have a few more openings there. Right now we're hiring a City Manager for Westminster - details are here: http://www.tucows.com/careers/
Please, for the love of all that is good and holy, explore the idea of deploying in Boston proper.
The state refused to give Verizon tax breaks years ago, so they abandoned their plans to ever deploy FiOS within Boston city limits. Surrounding communities have it, but we don't -- only Comcast. Now, to be fair to Comcast, I've never had a service problem save for 1-2 days in the past 6 years. They were also very quick on IPv6 and 6-to-4, and they actually deliver the bandwidth I pay for. Yet I would gladly pay for yet more bandwidth.
Cambridge is all but stuck with Comcast and their ever rising rates for degrading service...meanwhile Arlington just north of the city/Cambridge is still serviced by Fios fiber.
I'm aware that they are going through an overhaul of their customer service systems, process and probably the people. Its tough to grow as fast as they are, especially in this area. It is exceptionally hard to find great people, maintain culture and values while still providing great support. I'm not making excuses for them, except to say that I am certain they are aware of the issues they have had had in this area and are working on getting better.
I'm simply sharing my experience, which involved their head of customer service yelling at me, and their vp of revenue flat out lying to me.
If I'm truly an outlier, I'd welcome outreach from them (in the form of the refund they promised me long ago). But I don't expect it.
Running a startup is crazy hard... but establishing cultural norms like 'don't yell at customers' and 'don't lie to customers' isn't hard. That's easy. And either I had a wicked outlier experience, or they failed to do that.
This wasn't a transfer game. There were bidirectional emails and phone calls. (e.g. vp of revenue calling me in response to an email sent directly to his email.)
The whole situation made me wonder how much revenue would Shopify lose if they stopped charging expired credit cards. It must be material if they're willing to engage in a billing practice that essentially no upstanding SaaS company engages in. Or at least it must've been material at the time.
Yes you are. If the OP story is true, you just don't yell at your customer. It doesn't make me want to try Shopify if they really use these kind of practices. Only shady pornsites do that stuff.
Have you ever actually worked as a customer service agent? Getting low-paid employees to consistently be courteous to angry customers is actually really hard to get right.
You probably aren't; but lots of customers are assholes. Lots of people become utilitarians when they're dealing with customer support: when they want an outcome all means to that end become justified. I can't tell you how many insults I've had hurled at me during my few years as a support rep.
And as far as this customer is concerned; my guess is that he never got the chance to speak to the 'head of customer support.' He got pissed off at one employee; asked for the supervisor and was transferred to the support rep sitting next to him.
That shit happens all the time; heck I've been the 'supervisor' several times and had it work. Call it a 'social hack' support reps often use.
Now the guy should never have yelled and the VP should've followed up on his promise but downvoting someone who politely advocates cutting Spotify some slack based on a single report isn't fair either.
I like to think of price as a reflection of positioning & strategy. If your strategy is to aim at the high end of the market, then your price should reflect that. If you are looking to target the mass market, then you might want to consider value pricing. This sounds fairly niche, so if it were me, I'd thoroughly consider a premium price backed with lots of value in the product.
I aligned the price with what I gain from selling modules, and the platinum one is still a bit too high for my monthly income, that's why I consider it as premium.
But maybe you are talking to a bigger plan ? something more around 250+$ ?
I try to also take into consideration the sellers from Themeforest that starts and doesn't earn a lot.
Thanks for the kind words about our customer service. Our team thrives on great feedback like this :)