Comments on: How An Angry Email Pushed Us To Start Publishing More Product Updates

By: Anton

Anton — Sun, 28 May 2017 20:50:29 +0000

Alex, you have an awesome blog. And this article is superb. But what result you get after this information of updates? Do you improve your churn? How much?

By: Bill Dettering

Bill Dettering — Fri, 12 May 2017 19:54:02 +0000

We actually do something similar with Zingtree. We started with Intercom based upon your advice, and we try to make a product updates blog post every week, but sometimes this only occurs monthly, even though we update more often than that.

If your team can push updates often without breaking anything, then absolutely you should let customers know. I think 2 weeks sounds about right.

Great stuff..

By: T.S.

T.S. — Fri, 12 May 2017 13:14:01 +0000

How many years until the starter plan is “implemented on the backend”?

By: Alex López

Alex López — Fri, 12 May 2017 09:19:52 +0000

Alex this is very, very interesting.
Thanks for taking the time to share it.

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 11 May 2017 18:41:46 +0000

I’ve already raised this with Groove, you’ve got some major browser issues with your support widget. It doesn’t work on IE.

If you go to https://help.groovehq.com/help_center and click on “Contact Us” in IE 11, it’s broken.

I got told you were working on it and then your bug fix email came out… no fix.

There’s some nice things about Groove (especially how simple it is to use), but as a new client, I do wonder how long the issue has been there. I have found giving people rough ETA’s definitely helps to manage expectations.
PS. I’m glad I can now reorder KB articles.

By: Josh

Josh — Thu, 11 May 2017 18:09:34 +0000

Hey Alex – great post – we started doing this (without the email, just blog post + in-app) about two months ago, and similarly the response has been great!

We’ve also found that it makes us much more accountable to deliver user facing updates, and that we’re doing a lot better and shipping better things faster as a result!

By: Laszlo Alt

Laszlo Alt — Thu, 11 May 2017 17:27:59 +0000

I like the transparency. I agree with the visuals and experience where users will never know they are “upgraded” unless its obvious to them or you actually announce the changes. Many people are looking for that “Wow” factor in updates of hardware/software. I find this new mentality to break old traditions of building stable products that are tested through time with very minor updates. Thank you for sharing!

By: Geilt

Geilt — Thu, 11 May 2017 17:26:13 +0000

We switched to a competitor due to HIPPA compliance and BAA agreements they signed. Needless to say, they had an app, which I loves. Using Groove on mobile was horrible even the web interface wasn’t mobile friendly. Right as we made the switch, my support guy told me, oh yea Groove finally had an app…right as we switched. Ah well. It was one of the worst parts not being able to use Groove mobile, besides through email. But yea it would have been nice to know! Maybe I missed an email, or a link in the interface that showed it off.

By: Taylor Overton

Taylor Overton — Thu, 11 May 2017 16:47:19 +0000

I always love these blog posts — so encouraging and inspiring. I love to share them with our support team, so that we can brainstorm how to market our products and connect with our customers more authentically. Thanks Alex!

By: eagle123456

eagle123456 — Thu, 11 May 2017 16:39:29 +0000

What an amazing article. A successful CEO just went out of his way to give some of the best and genuine business advice I have ever heard, every word true to the core. If this is the kind of care and philosophy he applies to his business, his customers and employees are very lucky 🙂

By: Danielle Burrow

Danielle Burrow — Thu, 11 May 2017 14:56:45 +0000

This mindset can also be applied to how an internal Dev Team informs company employees in other departments about the recent changes that have been going on behind the scenes. Everybody always knows about the big changes, but it’s so important to push out small internal system changes (and then communicate those changes) frequently and consistently to keep customers (or in our case, employees) happy with the product and/or service you’re providing. If your employees don’t see the small changes being made on a daily basis, they might as well not be happening. Also, I especially loved when you said “In customer relationships, perception is everything.” Ideas, decisions, and actions are only as good/bad as they are perceived by those affected by them, be they clients or employees. Thanks again for the timely read.