Customer Service Lessons From Infusionsoft

I checked my inbox, and the email I was expecting wasn’t there.  I clicked refresh – still nothing.  I checked the junk folder to make sure it wasn’t there, back to the inbox – still nothing.  The preview copy of my ezine hadn’t arrived.  In keeping with email best practices, I always send a preview copy to myself before sending it to all of my subscribers.  This practice has served me well and I wasn’t about to just schedule the mailing simply because I couldn’t see the preview.  I don’t give up that easy.  As the day unfolded I learned about the night of disaster at Infusionsoft.

Email Disaster at Infusionsoft

Next I sent a preview copy of the ezine to my second email account and then to my wife’s email, but when I checked both accounts, the much anticipated message was missing.  Just to make sure I wasn’t experiencing a technical issue with my email, I sent the preview copy of my ezine to a friend in the computer business.  He confirmed my suspicion, the preview never reached his mail server.  That could mean only one thing – Infusionsoft was having problems.

Customer Service Lesson #1

Infusionsoft could have saved their clients a great deal of time and reduced the number of support calls and tickets they received if they had posted a system wide message alerting customers of the situation.

Opening the online chat window with Infusionsoft’s customer service department showed that there were 43 people in queue ahead of me.  That’s not a good sign early in the morning.

Customer Service Lesson #2

Letting people know how many people are ahead of them in line is a great idea because it sets the expectation of wait time.  Ideally you want the line to be as short as possible, and it usually is at Infusionsoft.

A call to their customer service number was answered surprisingly quickly.  It was here that I was informed of the exact nature of the problem that Infusionsoft was experiencing.  It turns out that a software update on several mail servers didn’t go as expected overnight.  The result was that outgoing mail was stuck in queue and wasn’t actually being sent.

Customer Service Lesson #3

Honesty is always the best policy.  Although I didn’t like the news that I was hearing, their honesty and transparency impressed me a great deal.  My respect for their company increased as a result of this phone call.

Later in the day I received a phone call from Infusionsoft, letting me know that they had finally resolved their outgoing mail server problems.  Their phone call surprised me because I hadn’t asked for them to call me when they got things working.  I expected to be notified by email when they got things fixed.  Instead, they called and sent an email to let me know they had things working again.

Customer Service Lesson #4

Sending an email and following up with a quick phone call is the fastest way to notify someone of important information.

The phone call that I received from Infusionsoft provided a great opportunity for me to relay a suggestion (described above as Customer Service Lesson #1).  The suggestion was enthusiastically greeted with, “That’s a great idea.  That would save everyone a lot of time.  I’ll pass this on to our development team.”

Customer Service Lesson #5

When suggestions are received graciously rather than defensively, customer loyalty increases.  Not every suggestion will be practical, but those that are will help you further improve your product or service.

Sometimes things don’t go as planned.  What could have been a real public relations nightmare was turned into an overall positive experience with the company.  When handled properly, disasters represent an opportunity for improvement in systems and procedures to reduce the likelihood of a repeat situation and can further strengthen your relationship with your customers.

  • Ramon Ray August 1, 2012, 10:48 pm

    Charles, thanks so much for your comments and essay on the Infusionsoft email issue. Very nice read. Of course we’re terribly sorry about the hiccup. I think the lessons you gleaned (and that we surely gleaned) and shared with your audience are nice. THANK YOU!!!!

  • Charles August 2, 2012, 10:05 am

    Thanks Ramon. I was very impressed with how well Infusionsoft handled this issue. Keep up the great work!

  • Kathleen Mundy August 2, 2012, 10:38 am

    Charles,
    I’m so glad you shared your experience with us. In so far that we are in the beginning stag with Infusionsoft I’m delighted to learn how expertly they handled what could have been a disaster and more to your point… they took your feed back with respect and action.
    Great e-zine piece!
    Cheers and well wishes,
    Kathleen

    • Charles August 2, 2012, 11:29 am

      Thanks Kathleen. They’ve been great to work with.

  • Glenda Clerc August 2, 2012, 11:20 am

    Charles,

    Thanks for the great newsletter! I really enjoyed reading it. And I especially liked the Infusionsoft story. This is a prime example how you can take a negative experience & turn it into something positive for yourself. The learning you got from this experience & shared with us was so awesome!

    Thank you & I will refer my customers that need websites to you.

    Glenda Clerc
    Clerc Computer Consulting
    1403 Lehman St.
    Houston, TX 77018
    713-861-4183
    http://www.clerc.com
    We help you enjoy your technology

    • Charles August 2, 2012, 11:34 am

      Thanks Glenda. I love it when a technology company really works hard to make the user experience enjoyable. Thanks also for the website design, seo, and Internet marketing referrals. 🙂

  • Kirk Masters August 2, 2012, 1:53 pm

    Charles,

    Wow….what a great example of how we can improve when things go sideways. We appreciate you taking your time to outline your experience. We have a company motto of ‘We check our egos at the door’. It’s because of great clients like you that we innovate and constantly improve (another one of our company mottos).

    Thank you again!

    • Charles August 2, 2012, 2:51 pm

      Thanks Kirk. What a great motto for a technology company (or any company for that matter) “We check our egos at the door.” Thanks for sharing it. Keep up the great work!

  • Joseph Manna, Infusionsoft August 2, 2012, 8:13 pm

    Charles,

    Thank you for sharing this experience because it could have ended up much worse than how it was for you.

    We made some swift, but informed decisions around how we best serve our customers’ needs. I can tell you that our commitment to customer satisfaction is unlike many other companies out there. Our support team was confident, empathetic and genuinely helpful to every person who was affected.

    However, we know the reality that customers faced that day and have taken action to prevent it from happening again. It’s painful, especially after the many years of solid email performance and uptime. What was supposed to be a simple update to our MTAs, was actually causing it to jam up email for the entire user-base and we didn’t have proper monitors on that specific component. We’ve placed additional monitors on the email queues and have redundancies in place to prevent this from happening again.

    I think the best part of your blog post is how it lays out the experience you had and how it ended up positive. As always, I’m impressed by our team and glad to hear that you had a chance to experience their kindness. Thanks for sharing this and allowing us to continually improve. 🙂

    –Joseph
    Community Manager, Infusionsoft

    • Charles August 3, 2012, 10:30 am

      Thanks Joseph. I’ve been in this field since the mid 90’s and in that time I’ve worked with lots of technology companies and have seen my fair share of hiccups along the way. I must say that your company’s handling of the situation is par excellence and sets a high standard for others to live up to. Keep up the great work!

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