Saturday, January 29, 2011

Screw Meetup - Doesn't Say Quite Enough

 Meetup has a huge flaw in the way they perceive their customer's role in their success...

 

Below is a second message I wrote to meetup.com based on my frustrations in regards to unannounced changes they made to not only the functionality of their site, but also in their corporate attitude towards to people who have chosen to pay them to use it as a tool for managing groups.

I am so glad that my first message was answered. So what are the developers doing to restore my meetup group's page to the old format? 

I may not own the site or the features, but contrary to what you believe the members of my group do own the group they belong to, not your company. We subscribed to a service, with an expectation that the service would remain stable and consistent. Stable it has been, consistent it has not been, especially in the last week. 

Your company has stated that it has to make a profit, but based on what I have read in the forums, you are about to lose a substantial portion of your revenue stream due in part to the changes recently made, due in part to your refusal to accept the fact that the new format is making customers unhappy and due in large part to your lack of understanding of how these groups form, grow and remain strong. YOU DO NOT OWN THE GROUPS! You simply provide a tool to help manage these groups. Many of these groups are LLC corporations and your attempt to claim ownership of these LLC corps is opening yourselves to lawsuits.

Until recently, I have been very happy to pay my fees to use the tool, but now that I see what a totalitarian-based company you are and how the company views it's customers as unimportant servants to further a personal corporate agenda, I feel that there are other solutions available. While these solutions may not have all of the "features" that meetup.com has, these solutions to have ample features with the option to have the freedom to create a unique sites that highlight what is important to our group. 

If I do not get a response by the end of business on Monday, I will be proposing to my group that we move to an alternative solution.

Best regards,

Steven S (Organizer of my Meetup)

I support boycotting a business that fails to meet customer satisfaction issues. If you think I am alone, feel free to take a look at the threads in their forums from angry customers... http://www.meetup.com/boards/forum/203829/0/?&forum=203829&forum=203829&forum=203829&forum=203829&pager.offset=0

I am looking at a couple of other solutions for our particular group. Meetup has lost my respect, but more importantly for their bottom line (which should be important for a company who just posted their first profits in 8 years of business). I will be voting with my wallet. Show you support for fair business practices... boycott Meetup.com.