User complained publicly and got what they wanted
Apple Inc. vs Epic Games Store
Modern-day users complaining about service/product providers publicly to get what they deserve: Apple has approved the Epic Games Store in the EU after Epic publicly complained that the tech giant had repeatedly rejected their application.
Epic has been positioning itself as Robinhood, and Apple Inc. is the rich that abuse its dominance against IOS app publishers.
While I cheer for Epic because the fight reminds me of many stories about emerging startups challenging their market leaders, Apple’s retaliation makes logical sense. Business is business.
-
Taking this chance to talk about why users complain about things publicly nowadays.
User publishing (often negative) feedback public is something that company hates.
Customer support team has an internal playbook to follow, including how to ‘handle complaints’ and what resources are allowed to be mobilized to settle the case.
When the remedy seems unfair to users, the CS team often just hits you with the “That’s written in our terms & conditions”.
The power is in the provider’s hands.
Until the user starts making an issue public and viral.
It’s a power play because this makes the issue ‘not only a customer support problem’.
Suddenly the team gets more resources to disperse, suddenly the company will review an issue that their team claims: “There’s no way we will be able to do that”.
It’s not because anybody likes to post about bad experiences, but many bad experiences encountered are by design. Companies got away with it 30 years ago because most individual circles of influence are limited. Not today though.
If you strive to serve your users, most will feel it. Users feel the need to make a power play mostly because they feel they are being treated unfairly.
