Adobe had a bad run recently. Lightroom, their flagship photography software, was updated and immediately crashed on opening for many users – including me. Those who could actually open the new version became vocal about Adobe dumbing down the photo import feature.
So if you were Adobe how would you respond to this?
- “Well it works for me“
- “It must be you, nobody else has a problem“
- “I’m sorry about that, let me look into it. I’ll get back to you ASAP”
Adobe chose the last one. They listened. They acknowledged the problem. They apologised. And they fixed it.
No, I’m not an Adobe fanboy. I simply appreciate a good product and good customer service. I written before about Adobe being an engineer driven company. Real people, talented people, and sometimes when humans are involved stuff happens.
More important to me is how a company responds to a problem. Adobe were able to wipe the egg off their face and move on. Sometimes as creatives we may forget about customer service.
If a client contacts you and says there is a problem, are you defensive or proactive? How do you reply?
- “Well it works for me“
- “It must be you, nobody else has a problem“
- “I’m sorry about that, let me look into it. I’ll get back to you ASAP”
The customer is always right.