How to Make an Angry User Happy

I received this comment on MacTips today:

I hate to say it, but thats not a tip. Everyone knows that. You havent been posting REALLY intresting tips lately and you dont post at least one tip a day. Mactips and the Mactips Widget are getting very boring. I used to look forward to getting a new tip for my Mac everyday after school, but now I dont. Instead, I’d rather go to Macworld.com for tips and news about Apple and Macs.

Ouch. He has point, but he was angry so his tone reflected that.

I replied with the following e-mail:

XXX,
Thanks for taking the time to post a comment on MacTips.

I welcome all criticism along with suggestions–and I definitely deserve yours.

I would disagree on your first assessment that the entry I posted is not a tip. Many users never use the right-click menu and even fewer know that holding Option changes certain preferences.

While you may think this is fairly obvious–this is brand new to other users.
Your second piece of criticism is valid, however–and I tried to acknowledge this in the post.

Some big changes are happening behind the scenes–and I promise regular (quality) content is coming soon.

May I suggest taking a look through our archives or popular posts to hold you over for the next week or so?

http://www.mactips.org/popular/

http://www.mactips.org/archives/

Thanks,Brad

Easy and to the point. This was his response:

Oh, please excuse me if I was rude. I mean that in the most sincere way posible, now that I really read what I said, it didnt sound all that nice :-/

Definitely a lot better response.

The point is I care what he thinks. I’ve written about this before in Building Your Website One User at a Time.

This is something I feel will not only help the site improve, but also help establish a sense of community.

The bottom line, listen to your users.