Well, maybe.
Over on a mailing list I participate in, the following was mentioned:
“Ning co-founder Marc Andreessen recently said...
Ideally we’ll never meet any of our customers. We actually had to take the sign down from our front door because one of our customers actually stopped in, uninvited, and said, "Hi, I love your service." And we’re like, "why are you here?" And so down came the sign.
Drop-bys like that should only happen in sitcoms as far as I’m concerned… The consumer internet businesses in a sense are ideal businesses from the standpoint of never meeting your customers.”
So, Adam is organizing a drop in by a mass group of customers. This all being done with the help of an inside Ning ‘spy.’
Under the assumption that is was actually said, I’m sure there is another meaning or some additional context that should be wrapped around this. Wonder-kid or not, I’m pretty sure Marc is not implying he doesn’t want to meet his customers, listen face to face what they have to say (good and bad) about the company, etc.
Or maybe when you make big bags of cash, you get to say stuff like this which, I guess, points to other issues that, I’m sure are obvious to all of you.
The lesson for your “customer internet business” is really simple:
If somebody drops by, unannounced, to tell you they love your service, have a T-shirt, free coffee, and serious gratitude served up immediately. If they come by to complain, add extra gratitude.
[UPDATE: He said it. Watch it here. CNET busted him on it as well.]
Wow. That is just detached. The mass drop in will be interesting to hear about.
Posted by: Jevon MacDonald | February 09, 2006 at 13:24
Rick, Don't be surprised if Marc Andreeson was serious about not wanting to see customers. This would be crazy for a company selling a real product, but for consumer web services...maybe not.
When I was at Napster we had NO signs, no published telephone number, and no ones email address was public. When we moved to better offices in Redwood City the office manager put up a Napster sign on the building. The CEO saw it and had it removed immediately.
Even without signs some people found us. Lars from Metallica found us and brought news and TV cameras with him.
Strange as it sounds, some consumer web service companies don't want to be distracted by face to face customer interactions.
Not a good practice for regular companies...but Andreeson may actually be serious.
Posted by: Don Dodge | February 09, 2006 at 14:37
Don's point is valid. So is Rick's.
Cherryh's Law ("No rule should be followed off a cliff") proves prescient once again.
One of the major virtues of mass web service operations is that most customers will never require one-on-one contact. That means that services can be provided at an almost infinitely lower cost, because having staff hanging around to deal with customers in significant numbers on a regular basis is prohibitively expensive.
But if a customer is so happy (or hell, even just so geeky) that they want to come by my office and say "hi" _in spite of_ the fact that there's probably no benefit to them from doing so, that's probably also going to be a customer who's talking about my business to his friends. And if he's talking about me, I want the things he's saying to be good. In other words, someone who cares enough to show up at the door is almost always going to be someone who cares enough to be worth bending the rules for.
Until you're so huge or so famous that the average TV viewer, if asked what your business does, would give a passable paraphrase of your elevator pitch, you almost certainly don't have enough spontaneous walk-in traffic that erecting a policy against it isn't a net loss. (Napster arguably _does_ qualify under this criterion. "Ning" most definitely does not. Hell, I've been an internet geek since before there _was_ a web, and _I_ haven't a clue what Ning does.)
Posted by: Matt | February 10, 2006 at 06:57
I would guess being detached from the customer is a result of having too much money backing you. Yes customers can be pesky, putting pressure on you to deliver new product and features but, they should be embraced as the ultimate validation of your product.
I wonder how much money has been lost/wasted because nobody talked to the customer.
Posted by: Chris | February 16, 2006 at 09:04