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Marketing 101: How to Drive Away Customers -- An Example

I just ran into a classic example of how to drive away customers -- and you'll never even know that you did it.  Here's what happened:

• I have tons of digital pictures.
• I want to make them available on my blog
• I've had a few digital cameras so I can't just resize everything by 40 % -- the resolutions are all different -- I need a smart tool for this.
• I've been a PaintShop Pro 5 user since 98 so I wanted to patronize my current vendor, Jasc.
• I go to www.jasc.com and download Image Robot.  It looks pretty good but I can't find a conditional facility.
• I email support@jasc.com and send this message:

From: J. Scott Johnson [scott@fuzzygroup.com]
Sent: Monday, June 17, 2002 6:47 AM
To: support@jasc.com
Subject: Looking to Purchase Image Robot but ....

Hi,

I like the idea of Image Robot but I'd like to know if it can do this:

take a given image of specified pixel dimensions and then apply a different
resizing factor

rename it to basefilename_medium.extension.

My problem is most of my images come from one of 2 digital cameras but are
thematically grouped so my photoscats directory has high res and low res
images but I don't want them all different sizes.  So for some I need a 20%
scaling and others a 33% scaling.  And I'm trying to avoid N subdirectories
to make file management easier.

Thoughts?  I can always go the GD on *nix option but I'd prefer a User
Interface that doesn't require deep thought / coding.

Thanks
Scott

Virtual:
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Email: sjohnson@fuzzygroup.com
Site: http://www.fuzzygroup.com/
Blog: http://scott.blogs.at/
Yahoo IM: fuzzygroup
AOL IM: fuzzygroup
Emergency: mobile@fuzzygroup.com
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

That's a pretty reasonable request I think for a product that claims to be a "robot".  Here's how they just drove me away:

1. The email bounced back.  Now I can understand an auto responder, the sort available with any $9.95 / month hosting provider, that said: "Please go here: LINK.  Sorry -- we get too much email to answer every message.".  But bouncing it back?  Not capturing any knowledge from your customers?  That's just plain clue free and proud of it.
2. So I go to the site and find the random support page.  They have an option titled: "U.S. Email Support" which links to this page: http://www.jasc.com/askus.asp.  This page just made me laugh.  Here's a small version of the form they want me to fill out: 

That's 22 discrete fields.  I don't know about you but that feels like a lot.  Maybe they all aren't required.  Maybe they are.  My response was this:

1. Close browser.
2. *Think*
3. Start --> Settings --> Control Panel --> Add/Remove Programs.  Care to guess my next choice?

Now don't get me wrong.  I don't want to sound like an asshole here.  Jasc has the right to run their support operations anyway they choose.  And they are still in business so something is right for them.  I just don't care to interact with a company where I will need support (I am known as "Graphically Challenged" and that's the nice version) and have to fill out 22 fields every time.  I am sure that there are other options but first impressions matter -- a lot.  My first impression of their support was "Sigh.  While the UI in The Gimp or GD is nowhere as good as Image Robot, they are free and the support is an easy post to a mailing list. 

Conclusion

Customer relationships are very, very fragile these days.  The slightest little blip can cause even existing customers to go *Poof*.  I was an ideal candidate for this particular upsell (that's the word for selling an existing customer another product) but I never even bothered to finish the evaluation.  Every single product and service has an option.  Often those options, at least in software, are free.  It's pretty hard to compete with free but it is very possible.  Why shoot yourself in the foot like Jasc did right here?

Obligatory Plug for My Own Services

Feel Free to Ignore: Not only are there lots and lots of tools for automating email but I've been known to cobble together fairly intelligent mail response systems.  I am available for this type of work.  More on that in some future essay.