Linden - come take your pound of flesh!

Typical LL

Ashe

I am beyond angry and just sad. I'm sad that I will likely have to give up my home. Very sad that my partner is devasted like so many others on the work that he has put in on his sim and mine. Additionally, he just got his sim 3 months ago.

I am sad that we have and likely will continue to loose so many wonderful places that I have yet to see.

So for me, sadness.

Has LL failed to realise that a percentage of their users, I expect a significant percentage, are not American citizens and therefore have already experienced an effective increase in costs due to drops in currency rates. Since I got my sim the Aussie dollar has dropped around 30%. I realise LL isn't responsible for this change, but I'm already wearing a $40 a month effective price increase as a result of this.

Hi Natasha

Yes same for me. I was just looking at my credit card statements and saw that I paid $80 dollars more in October tier money than the month before because of the exchange rate.

Although I do believe this whole episode has been mastered by Linden to deceive and gain from it - by knowingly continuing to sell Open Space sims right until the day of announcement; by not warning existing users that they might be abusing the conditions of usage; and by announcing the increase publically without informing the sim owners first (so that they could put a damage limitations strategy in place) - I don't think they looked at the overall picture with wide enough vision.

If, as we have been warned, we are heading into a deep world recession, people will stop spending money on luxuries - and SL is indeed a luxury. The change in the exchange rate will stop trade with the USA and generally their income will fall. The true effect of this will be in around three months time in Second Life as people abandon ship and also as new and cheaper viewers come onto the market. Then SL will have no option to raise its prices yet again to counteract that.

I don't think that they anticipated this level of anger amongst residents either. The bad publicity generated is going to accelerate across the globe and it will certainly effect the way that residents use SL.

I'm joining one of the 'non spenders'!

Cheers

linden labs only cares about the bottom line, they lost touch with their users some time ago. this is just more proof that profit is more important then service.

I disagree, quite strongly in fact.

The only way to ensure profit is to provide good customer service. Any company that doesn't believe that is in for a rude awakening. What LL is demonstrating is that not even profit is enough of a motive to keep them in business for the long-term.

Or, they could be demonstrating that we are not the type of customers they want for the long-term.

Firelight

I disagree. The only way to make a profit is to sell for more than it costs to produce. To hell with customer service.

I would agree with you were we discussing cars or blenders, but we are not.

Nothing is being sold here. Everything in regards to SL boils down to leasing. You are leasing memory and run-time on a virtual machine on a server at a colocation facility. Leases are profitable when you can maintain an ongoing customer base, recruiting new customers ahead of your attrition rate, and create value-added services that entice the customer to spend more with you.

Even in the matter of cars customer service is important. I will never buy a new Toyota because of how I was treated (unprofessionally) by sales reps on 2 different occassions in 2 completely different places over a decade apart. But even more than that, I will never again buy a Ford because of how they treated me when the car wasn't working. On the other hand, I would consider a Cheverlet even tho I bought a lemon model (consumer report had so many bad things to say 5 years later) because they treated me professionally (and that's even tho I spent money on the car and never got a refund or anything).

Yes, you have to sell for more than it costs you (although there are loss leaders and such), but you still have to treat your customers right (even if the answer is no).

Firelight

You might, just might, get away with that philosophy if you're selling widgets to people who buy once and take it home. But that is not what LL is selling at all. They are selling a service to "repeat" customers, as in every month. This s a service contract, it's what we sell at the company in which I work. We keep the customers happy and every month they give us money; we make the customers unhappy and they stop giving us money.

Customer Service Comes First is our company mantra. It infuses EVERY aspect of what we do, including performance reviews for employees and creditation for our company within the industry (customer recommendations are necessary for keeping it).

If any customer is unhappy for any length of time, our CEO is unhappy. And believe me, you do NOT want that man in your office asking what the hell is going on. "To hell with customer service" is synomous with "To hell with this job."

Absolutely, when I was with BT for my internet they upped the speed to 2mb, only my phone line couldn't support it, the one they supplied me. So I queried why I was paying for 2mb and they told me it was an "upto" limit. So I pointed out I could get 1mb cheaper elsewhere and the girl basically told me to change service then.

So I phoned to cancel and change provider and then they cut me a deal. If the first girl had cut me a deal I'd have had a better opinion of BT, but she didn't, she wasn't interested in me as a customer so when I moved home I switched to Telewest (now Virgin). Much better service than BT on so many levels including when I have had a faulty phoneline they fix it within 2 working days generally whereas BT used to take five.

Of course there is currently no real rival for Second Life yet, but eventually there will be and the bad experiences will stick with people when they look at shiny new products. Linden Lab have a serious customer relations issue, exemplified by this Openspace fiasco.

In the short term maybe. But after you piss off your customer base and get a bad reputation long term profits aren't likely to be seen.

There is no equivalent rival for Second Life, but there are many rivals for our entertainment time. Heck, if SL were to cost more than I can afford for the fun I expect to have, I could go back to reading (which I've effectively given up since my join date). Modern life is rife with entertainment opportunities and some of them are a lot cheaper than monthly tier.

I think one of the root issues of conflict between LL and residents is that they don't want to sell the product they have - a marvelous creative tool for entertainment - to the people who are currently their customers - wildly creative eccentrics, nerds and geeks - as anything more than a sideline.

It's become rather obvious reading so many recent comments from LL management that they are vaguely embarassed by the residents of Second Life. LL evidently dreams of a cool new communication technology paradigm that brings them prestige in the high tech industry, and instead they got a bunch of fetishists, furries and horny noobs buying scripted genitalia. So instead of valuing and fostering the product that will sell, to the market that will buy it, LL are desperately trying to reach the socially respectable business sector at the expense of their current customer base.

Maybe I've got it wrong, but that's what it feels like to me.

I think you are right Beebo and that is rather sad. In 2003, before animations came out, I remember Phoenix Linden coming to me and Taessa and asking us to show her the various animations we were doing in private. We did so happily because we knew LL was doing something to give us greater control over animations. She as well as LL seemed intrigued at what we were doing in sky boxes at 2am and when we showed them they promised us a better way to do 'things'.

Now that is all gone. And i had not considered it in the manner in which you framed it before, but you are exactly right. LL has higher goals than appeasing the current user base. They want an entirely different base actually and they are fools for that. Socially respectable businesses will never use SL to its max. potential like so many residents do in their creative endeavors to make something never seen before.

Sorry LL, Second Life is not going to be the Fax Machine of the 90's - used by everyone, everywhere, for communication and business. You are stuck with us: Elves, Vampyres, Furries, Kids, Goreans, Gangstas, Demons and all that is in-between or on the fringe. And if you point that scatter shotgun at us and fire a few more OpenSpace like policy changes at us, i can see you having a very financially poor life once the other grids reach where you were 2 years ago, and I for one, an SL loyalist, will leave. And once us Loyalist are gone, all you will have are the people who complain about not being able to get into SL because their account is busy being logged out and they are too flustered to read your little pop-up window that tells them that.

I hope you never get the user base you want because you guys are so blind, so unaware, so oblivious to the future that you obviously cannot not smell the poo that is smeared on your knee's.

For what it's worth, to the OP... Americans are definitely feeling the crunch too. While gas prices took a recent plunge, food, utilities, and other basics have continued to climb while many of us have been cut back at work to reduced hours. We're all in this together.

I tend to agree, hiking prices/reducing prims right at this time, when the whole world is going into an economic downspin has to be one of the worst bits of timing I have seen a long while....

Yes you are right on the money. The only problem is that their efforts are failing. IBM is in there yes, mainly because they are into everything that has the potential to sell their hardware. Not sales to you and me but to Linden Labs. If the opportunity to sell servers to LL dissappeared the so would IBM's presence here.

The truth is that the only companies in SL that have any sustained presence or appearance of mutual success are those looking to sell something to LL. Many other corporations who have tried to make something in SL are now scattered in the virtual graveyards of lessons learned.

What LL doesn't understand is that the companies that they are flirting with for new business opportunities are run by decision makers who have active SL accounts for themselves, their kids, and their families. They see LL as we do too. LL will never be successful with the corporate world until they learn how to be successful with the rest of us.

The investors, customers, and partners of LL need to take a hard look at this and demand a firm corrective response from executive management. Almost every good management practice followed in the corporate world has been tromped on by LL's management team and they can't possibly achieve success as a result. If Google or Microsoft, or even IBM, were in charge of this ship virtual worlds would be an out of control success.

The best thing all of us can do is to cut back on what we spend here until things get corrected. The pressure of decliniing revenues and increasing competition in this space will no doubt put things in order. At that point I would be happy to jump back in and invest in the future of VR.

By the way, I have reduced my expenses paid to LL by roughly 67% (interesting number huh?) in the last few days. I have scaled down from two full sims and seven open sims to just one full sim. That amounts to a savings for me of $820 US Dollars a month, not including exchange rates. This price increase has worked out great for me.

Yes, it's rather ironic that LL refuse to take pride in what SL does best, which is allow people to play. Play, in a world of overworked, underpaid people in a economy that is spiraling downward, is an amazing accomplishment. LL delivers a way for people isolated by anything from work schedules to physical disabilities to reconnect and become social, which for our species is to become human. The possibilities are seductive and even addictive.

SL is like crack cocaine being sold by a company that wants to sell organic health food instead.

GM and Ford are dying, they're requesting federal funds.

I don´t think Second Life qualifies for a bail out.

This may be the center of the questionable decision making that is happening. LL appears to see SL as a land investment opportunity, for themselves and for others. If they realised that the appeal of SL is entertainment then they'd probably be working with a different strategy.

How many movie making companies focus most of their attention on the theatres that show the movies? They don't, it's a necessary component for the industry, but the focus is on the end user, the person who is being entertained, the one who will decide what their expendable income should be spent on.

Beebo you are on a roll in this thread.. very insightful.

Yes, and to borrow that analogy a little longer, they make their real money from popcorn and candy sales, not from tickets at the door.

I have never understood the motive behind making people buy land and be subject to the ups and down of the land market. Beyond the initial auction of the sim, LL do not receive profit from future inflated sales, only the land holder does. The entire system appears to revolve around the RP adrenaline rush that a handful of land dealers get from this transaction business. What's in it for LL or for the average resident looking for a place to build a home?

If someone can justify this approach, I'd be very interested to hear why buying land has to be a speculative risk for every resident.

Please tell me you believe in "The customer is always right" mantra as well. If the customer is always right, then why do you have policies in place? The customer can do as they wish. Your "job" isn't anything more than being a yes-man or woman, as the case may be.

Meh! I hate that mantra. It's not true. And neither is, "If we don't take care of our customers, it's going to hurt us". Second Life™ is a turnover business. Period. Linden Labs® doesn't really care if you stay here. They make more by the new people coming here and getting just as excited as you or I when we first started. Going to the Linden Exchange and "buying" currency to spend. Buying land. And then telling all there friends this is the best thing since sliced bread.

Meh! It is what it is. A real good 3d chat room, nothing more. If customer service was any bit important, they wouldn't do half the things they do.



I agree, but what value can you add to a virtual world? Oh and what attrition rate is that? So you lose some squaters that don't really do anything, big deal. Bring on the Noobs! They spend because they don't yet have the preconceived notions that we have.


Hells no! And neither do GM or Ford. We shouldn't have given out any money. You got yourself into this, you can get yourself out. We are creating a whole new generation of whiners that have no responsibility, fiscally or otherwise. It's like the Little League where everyone gets a trophy just because they played. Meh! You only get the spoils of victory when YOU ACTUALLY WIN! The financial sector has done sooooo much good with the 125 billion given to them. Good for their bottom lines. LOL. They are going to pay all their holiday bonuses this year, will you get one? My bonus is to be working at all.

Good customer service is not synonomous with being a pushover and giving away the store. You've set up a false dichotomy of extreme behaviors: ignore the customer vs, be a slave to a customer. There is a great deal of ground in-between those two points and the company that suceeds finds that middle ground.

Our project managers are paid good money because they have the people skills to set the client's expectations in line the with maintenance contract they have signed. This is what we will do for you, this is what we can't do for you without a change order, this is what we can't do for you at all, but we'll help you find someone who will.

We have found, over time, that the longer our customers stay with us, the more they trust that we really are doing our best to support them and their goals. That's what we sell: a way for them to succeed using our software products. We want to make money, and management makes sure we do with some very prudent financial practices, but I'd say there isn't a single person at this company who doesn't genuinely enjoy helping customers. We take pride in our work, and we have a refreshingly consistent pattern of quickly ousting any new hire who does not have the skills they claimed or the attitude we demand.

This is the example that I hold up against LL and I see one of two things:

1) They are being horribly mismanaged or
2) We are not their perceived customer base (which still does not exclude #1)