Ambient Weather closed down their forum too a while back. I think I remember reading that their lawyers advised them to shut it down. Not only that but Ed from Ambient Weather stopped posting in this forum. I think they advised him to do that too.
I don't think it is about not wanting to help the customers. I think from a company perspective it is best to deal with the individual customer one on one in private. You don't want to air your dirty laundry of problems for the world to see.
But when things are already very bad like what happened with Weather Underground then the opposite is true. The company then needs to open up and share more and be more interactive with what they are doing to improve things and to ask for feedback. Slowly Weather Underground is getting back on track after having completely derailed. WU is slowly winning back our trust in them. But if in a year or so things aren't much much better then the backlash will start again. And at that point the company should evaluate their position and messaging.
When a company is well regarded then their customers are their best advocates. A strong company like Apple can if they wanted have an open forum for their customers. But a company that is doing poorly, slow sales, great customer dissatisfaction, delayed product launches, well then it isn't in their best interest to be so open.
An open company forum needs to draw in happy customers with ideas to share on how they use the product. If it is just a tool for those that have problems and complaints then it is a disservice to the company.
Just my two cents.
I don't think it is about not wanting to help the customers. I think from a company perspective it is best to deal with the individual customer one on one in private. You don't want to air your dirty laundry of problems for the world to see.
But when things are already very bad like what happened with Weather Underground then the opposite is true. The company then needs to open up and share more and be more interactive with what they are doing to improve things and to ask for feedback. Slowly Weather Underground is getting back on track after having completely derailed. WU is slowly winning back our trust in them. But if in a year or so things aren't much much better then the backlash will start again. And at that point the company should evaluate their position and messaging.
When a company is well regarded then their customers are their best advocates. A strong company like Apple can if they wanted have an open forum for their customers. But a company that is doing poorly, slow sales, great customer dissatisfaction, delayed product launches, well then it isn't in their best interest to be so open.
An open company forum needs to draw in happy customers with ideas to share on how they use the product. If it is just a tool for those that have problems and complaints then it is a disservice to the company.
Just my two cents.
