Don’t screw your customers, grandfather them
How can you get a customer so annoyed that he’ll take time to write a blog post? How can you totally lose trust of your customers (i.e., someone giving you money)?
Ask SendGrid, they know how. Or maybe they don’t even know that’s what they just did?
I’ll tell you, and hopefully you will avoid doing the same mistakes as they did.
It’s pretty simple. Remove a feature. Or in fact, change how it’s called and improve it. That sounds good so far, right? Yeah, that part is great! The bad part is: remove it from a customer that used to have access to it, without telling him.
Do you want an example? Here’s a real life example that just happened to me.
I use SendGrid for my product to send email reports and alerts to my customers. I use SMTP for that. I created different set of credentials for the various environments. I have one set for prod, one set for dev, etc. This used to be called “Credentials”. In fact, according to their doc, it’s still called that way and exists.
Today, I needed to add a new set of credentials for a new app I am working for my company. I go on SendGrid, but can’t find the “Credentials” section. Weird, maybe they changed the name? I poke around. Nope, it’s not there. Let’s look in the doc. Oh, it should be there apparently. But it’s not. I even have a screenshot of the doc for you. (UPDATE: for my use case, apparently I can use API keys to access SMTP…weird, but it works. That said, the point is still there, as I can’t invite anyone else to the management UI as I used to be able to do.)
Weird, right? I get in touch with their live chat support.
SendGrid: “We actually no longer have credentials, but rather a new feature called teammates! You can access this in your account under Settings > Teammates. This will allow you to give account access to others.”
Me: “I saw that feature…it is replacing credentials? Then why did I lost the ability to create more? It’s telling me I can’t create more. I am paying user (a small plan, but still) and was never told that I lost features on my plan…? Am I understanding things correctly?”
There was a long answer that basically confirmed what I thought…I lost the ability to create more credentials. They changed the deal of my plan, and never told me. I discovered it when I needed the feature.
Oh, good job! 👏
How do you think your user feels?
Yes, you have a business to run. You can change pricing models and all, and in fact, you should when it makes sense. But you know what? You should grandfather your existing customers, at least for a certain amount of time. You should also communicate changes like this as soon as possible.
None of this was done.
We were planning to use a bunch of their APIs to build features like click tracking and email unsubscribes in my app. I am so glad we didn’t do it yet!
What happens now you think?
I lost trust. I mean, why upgrading to a plan that’s $70 more expensive per month, for the same features that I was already paying for would make any sense? What prevents them from doing something similar again in 6 months and get me to upgrade to a $500 plan for some other features I am using and need? Oh, and that I was paying for! I have no reason to believe they would not do this.
Just to be clear, if I had to pay that money before, I could have taken the decision to do it. It’s not about the money. It’s about trust.
Building trust takes time, efforts and money. Don’t screw it. Grandfather your customers when you make changes.
I guess you get the point right? I hope you won’t do that to your customers.
I gotta go now; I need to find a replacement for SendGrid and move off of it now.
PS: any good replacement to SendGrid you suggest me?
