TThis blog is created on and hosted by a service called Typepad, which is provided by a company called Six Apart. Over the past month or so the service has had some serious problems, particularly for some of the more popular bloggers that use it like MicroPersuasion.  It hasn’t been as much of a problem for me because, well, about four people read this thing.

Bloggers being bloggers the Typepad customers have not suffered in silence.  They’ve posted quite a bit about their problems with the service and Six Apart has done a good job of responding to their complaints.  I figured Six Apart would work out their problems (mostly upgrading their hardware and software) and then the service would improve and that would be that.

That was until I received this email today from the CEO of Six Apart:

Dear Jon,
 

Two weeks ago I wrote you to explain the problems that some of our users experienced last month and what we were doing
to fix them.  Today I want to tell you about the work we’ve done and our plans to compensate you for the inconvenience
and frustration we may have caused you.<!–
D(["mb","

\r\n\r\n

The progress we\’ve made

\r\n\r\n

\r\nOver the last two weeks we have made great strides. As we recently posted on Mena\’s Corner, we have made a number of significant technical changes. \r\n\r\nWe have upgraded hardware throughout the service, we are about to finish installation of a new enterprise-grade data \r\n\r\nstorage device and the move to our new data center is nearly complete. All of this has led to improved performance.

\r\n\r\n

\r\nWe are not yet perfect. One incident on Tuesday November 8th between approximately 9:00 am and noon Pacific Time caused \r\n\r\nlimited access to the TypePad application. Even with that problem the performance of TypePad, as reported by our \r\n\r\ncustomers, our internal systems and the independent Keynote monitoring service, has improved greatly over the last 12 \r\n\r\ndays.

\r\n\r\n

\r\nWhile we are not done with our work, and there is always the chance of outages on any web service, we believe that the \r\n\r\nworst performance is behind us, and it is now time to focus on how we can make these problems up to you.

\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Compensation for this less than stellar performance

\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\nWe are all aware that you pay for TypePad and expect to receive superior service and performance in return. At times \r\n\r\nlast month, we did not provide that type of experience to all our customers and apologies are not good enough.

\r\n\r\n

\r\nWe also know that some customers have been more heavily impacted than others. If you often use the service on weekdays \r\n\r\nbetween 7:00 am and 1:00 pm Pacific Time you may have experienced one or even many periods when you had problems with \r\n\r\nTypePad\’s speed and responsiveness. If you use the service at other times, you may not have experienced any problems at \r\n\r\nall. After wrestling with these facts and wanting to be fair to all our users we have decided that the only option is \r\n\r\nto “,1]
);
//–>

The progress we’ve made

Over the last two weeks we have made great strides. As we recently posted on Mena’s Corner, we have made a number of significant technical changes. 
We have upgraded hardware throughout the service, we are about to finish installation of a new enterprise-grade data
storage device and the move to our new data center is nearly complete.  All of this has led to improved performance.

We are not yet perfect.  One incident on Tuesday November 8th between approximately 9:00 am and noon Pacific Time caused
limited access to the TypePad application.  Even with that problem the performance of TypePad, as reported by our
customers, our internal systems and the independent Keynote monitoring service, has improved greatly over the last 12
days.

While we are not done with our work, and there is always the chance of outages on any web service, we believe that the
worst performance is behind us, and it is now time to focus on how we can make these problems up to you.

Compensation for this less than stellar performance

We are all aware that you pay for TypePad and expect to receive superior service and performance in return. At times
last month, we did not provide that type of experience to all our customers and apologies are not good enough.

We also know that some customers have been more heavily impacted than others.  If you often use the service on weekdays
between 7:00 am and 1:00 pm Pacific Time you may have experienced one or even many periods when you had problems with
TypePad’s speed and responsiveness.  If you use the service at other times, you may not have experienced any problems at
all.  After wrestling with these facts and wanting to be fair to all our users we have decided that the only option is
to <!–
D(["mb","allow you to choose how Six Apart should compensate you.

\r\n\r\n

\r\nBy default, you will receive a credit for 15 free days of TypePad service. To get this credit you don\’t have to \r\n\r\ndo anything; we will just credit your account.

\r\n\r\n

\r\nThat said, we recognize that customers have had different experiences with the service, so we want to give you the \r\n\r\nopportunity to choose more, or even less compensation. If you click the link below, you\’ll get a screen that offers you \r\n\r\nthe following choices:

\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n\r\n

• \r\nWhile the performance issues caused me some inconvenience I mainly found the service acceptable last month.
  \r\nGive me 15 free days of TypePad. \r\n

\r\n\r\n

• \r\nThe performance issues made it very difficult for me to use the service on multiple occasions during the month.
  \r\nGive me 30 free days of TypePad.\r\n

\r\n\r\n

• \r\nThe performance issues affected me greatly, making my experience unacceptable for most of the month.
  \r\nGive me 45 free days of TypePad.\r\n

\r\n\r\n\r\n

• \r\nI really wasn\’t affected and feel I got the great service I paid for last month.
  \r\nThank you for the offer, but please don\’t credit my account.\r\n

\r\n\r\n

\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n

Make your choice now.

\r\n

\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\nIf you want to elect for more or less compensation you have until Sunday, November 27th to go to the web address \r\n\r\nabove. By Monday December 5th we will apply either 15 free days or your stated compensation preference to your \r\n\r\naccount. If you are billed monthly, you will notice a gap in charges to your credit card for the number of days you \r\n\r\nselect. If you are billed annually, we will extend your billing cycle by the number of days you select.

\r\n\r\n\r\n

The future

\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\nI must say that one of the most rewarding aspects of these last three frustrating weeks have been the emails I have \r\n\r\nreceived from many of you. A large number of the messages I received were very kind and supportive, and some of you \r\n\r\nwere understandably angry, but you all expressed that you just wanted the service you loved back. Rest assured that we \r\n\r\nare working night and day to do just that and more. “,1]
);
//–>allow you to choose how Six Apart should compensate you.

By default, you will receive a credit for 15 free days of TypePad service. To get this credit you don’t have to
do anything; we will just credit your account.

That said, we recognize that customers have had different experiences with the service, so we want to give you the
opportunity to choose more, or even less compensation.  If you click the link below, you’ll get a screen that offers you
the following choices:

• While the performance issues caused me some inconvenience I mainly found the service acceptable last month.
  Give me 15 free days of TypePad.
  

• The performance issues made it very difficult for me to use the service on multiple occasions during the month.
  Give me 30 free days of TypePad.
  

• The performance issues affected me greatly, making my experience unacceptable for most of the month.
  Give me 45 free days of TypePad.
  

• I really wasn’t affected and feel I got the great service I paid for last month.
  Thank you for the offer, but please don’t credit my account.
  

 

 Make Your Choice Now.

If you want to elect for more or less compensation you have until Sunday, November 27th to go to the web address
above.  By Monday December 5th we will apply either 15 free days or your stated compensation preference to your
account.  If you are billed monthly, you will notice a gap in charges to your credit card for the number of days you
select.  If you are billed annually, we will extend your billing cycle by the number of days you select.

The future

I must say that one of the most rewarding aspects of these last three frustrating weeks have been the emails I have
received from many of you.  A large number of the messages I received were very kind and supportive, and some of you
were understandably angry, but you all expressed that you just wanted the service you loved back.  Rest assured that we
are working night and day to do just that and more.  <!–
D(["mb","

\r\n\r\n

\r\nWe are committed to making the service faster and more reliable than it has ever been. With our new data center we now \r\n\r\nhave room to add the capacity we will need to continue our growth while improving performance and adding often requested \r\n\r\nfeatures.

\r\n\r\n

\r\nWe will soon roll out a new release of TypePad that will include more controls for comment and TrackBack spam as well \r\n\r\nmore performance improvements. By year end we will do even more to improve TypePad and add the features you have asked \r\n\r\nfor. We are excited to get back to building a great product for you.

\r\n\r\n

\r\nThank you for your patience over the past several weeks and I hope you accept our sincere apologies for the \r\n\r\ninconvenience we may have caused you.

\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\nSincerely,

\r\n\r\n

\r\nBarak Berkowitz
\r\nChairman and CEO
\r\nSix Apart, Ltd.
\r\nbarakb@sixapart.com\r\n

\r\n\r\n

\r\nThe makers of of TypePad, LiveJournal and Movable Type.

\r\n\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n

\r\nPS: As always, we appreciate and value your feedback. Feel free to reply to this message, file a support ticket in TypePad, or email me at \r\n\r\nBarakB@sixapart.com. We will continue to update status.sixapart.com to keep \r\n\r\ninformed of the status of the service and to provide advance notice of scheduled maintenance.

\r\n\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n

\r\n

\r\n

\r\n

\r\n

\r\n

“,1]
);
//–>

We are committed to making the service faster and more reliable than it has ever been.  With our new data center we now
have room to add the capacity we will need to continue our growth while improving performance and adding often requested
features.

We will soon roll out a new release of TypePad that will include more controls for comment and TrackBack spam as well
more performance improvements.  By year end we will do even more to improve TypePad and add the features you have asked
for.  We are excited to get back to building a great product for you.

Thank you for your patience over the past several weeks and I hope you accept our sincere apologies for the
inconvenience we may have caused you. 

Sincerely,

Barak Berkowitz
Chairman and CEO
Six Apart, Ltd.
barakb@sixapart.com

I don’t know that I’ve ever received a customer service message quite like it.  Basically they’re saying that they know their service has been sub-par, they regret it and they also understand that some people have been affected more than others.  Then they put it in the customers’ hands to decide how much they’ve been impacted and how much compensation they will take.  Essentially it’s customer service with an honor code.

Well my vote is that it’s genius.  Not only is it a good faith gesture to their customers it’s also a weird kind of customer survey.  They’ll be able to gauge their customers’ satisfaction by how they react to the offer.  It really is smart and it also feels genuine.

I’m impressed.