Andy Wibbels said on October 26, 2005 at 03:01 PM

That’s the frustration. It isn’t like they haven’t had big screw-ups before (like the MT 3.0 licensing debacle) and handled them well. And as a former techie I know the pain of outages but also am flummoxed that the problem isn’t fixed ‘once and for all’. It is a shame that they are all so smart and talented and something so basic as ‘uptime’ trips up that reputation.

I just got a comment from a Six Apart techie on my post that they hope to have things ironed out soon.

Meryl said on October 27, 2005 at 09:12 AM

I’ve been with 6A before it became 6A—gosh four years, maybe? The company has great customer service even back in the days when it was just two people. I believe they’re reacting the right way—being upfront about it and handling it.

This is why a crisis management plan is so important. So when things like this happen—and they will—you know what to do since it’s tough to keep a clear head during such times.

Jay Allen said on October 29, 2005 at 03:22 PM

Debbie, I want to thank you for your comments and to let you know that we ARE listening very, very carefully.  We’re always listening, reading and responding, because blogs are what we do and they are often our best connection with our customers.

I can tell you that fixing TypePad’s recent woes is a company-wide focus right now.  I’m Product Manager of Movable Type and manage our Professional Network, neither of which have anything to do with TypePad.  However, I’m focused on scouring the blogosphere to talk to people about the recent problems, freeing up several people to help with tech support and actually fixing the problems.

We take our service and its good name VERY seriously.  We are absolutely focused on giving our customers the absolute best experience and for every blogger that is affected by problems, you can bet that the effect on us is compounded.

We hate that we are in this position now and you can bet that we are bringing all of the resources of our company and all of the highly driven and smart people who work for us to bear on fixing them.

These problems will soon be a thing of the past and, what’s more, we’ve learned a number of hard and significant lessons which will help us avoid ever being in this situation again.

Anyway, we really appreciate your comments, support and patience.  We’re really sorry that you (and many many others) are affected by our recent problems.  I look forward to making sure that we delight you all in the very near future.

For more from Barak Berkowitz, our CEO, on exactly what we’re doing to not only solve the short-term problems but also set us up for long-term success, see here: http://www.sixapart.com/typepad/news/2005/10/to_our_customers.html

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