How To Lose Business And Influence People

Disclaimer: First I would like to say this entry is not discounting Tatango.  It is simply about my bad experience with their leadership.

Last week I went on a search to find a web application that would allow me to send a group text message to all of my residents at one time.  A great way to remind them of a function, rent due or pest control will be coming by today.  I also wanted to be able to receive text messages from my residents.  Well I found a site called Tatango.  I first was excited but soon found that it only supported out going and no incoming text messages.  I sent an email to their support email address asking for my account to be deleted.  The next day I got a response from Derek Johnson, Tatango's Founder & CEO asking why I would like my account deleted.  I stated that it did not fit my needs and then listed my needs.  I also added if I was wrong please let me know.  Well throughout the day I wanted to learn more about Tatango.  I found out that Derek was a 23 year old college drop out and that Tatango was the largest business of it's type.  I was really impressed with Derek that day. To start a company at such a young age and be successful at it was very impressive.  The more I read I learned about how they strive for the best customer service and how they utilize every kind of social media out there.  While reading Derek's blog I saw a contest to win and Ipod Nano.  All you had to do was comment with a great business tip.  I figured I would give it a shot.  Originally the contest was to end on or around 12/26 and Derek was going to pick a winner.  Well instead he changed it and wanted his readers to vote on the best comment.  He set up a poll on his blog and Fri-Sun people were to vote and in his words "Make Your Vote Heard."  I alerted my friend on Myspace, Facebook,  Twitter, Carolina Shooters Forum and EverythingQ.  I also entered a blog entry here on my personal blog and asked them all to vote and vote often.  I set up an account with TweetLater so that my status on Twitter and Facebook would be updated every two hours reminding people to vote.  I am very competitive and so I pushed the crap out of this.  Well on day two I noticed that another contestants votes were exploding.  I pushed my friends at EverythingQ to start voting more.  We found that you were only able to vote once per IP address.  After reading the rules, which simply were to vote, some of us started using an anonymizer.  There was no automation.  Each vote was individually entered by hand making each vote unique.  As we voted the only other contestant that was close his votes went up.  We assumed (and later confirmed) that he was using an anonymizer as well.  After an all day push on Sunday voting ended with the other contestant having 1149 votes and me over 3000.  Clearly I was the winner.  Soon after I get a message from Derek saying that according to the host of the poll we were using an automatic anonymizer.  I corrected him and said that we were not.  Each vote was entered by hand.  I chatted with the other contestant and he said he had used and anonymizer as well.  Me and my friends waited all night Sunday and all day Monday for the announcement.  Many people displaying their disgust with the way the contest had been handled.

Finally on 12/02 Derek posted a video on his blog announcing the winner.  And honestly congrats to her.  Not only was I shocked that I lost but was more shocked over a statement in his video.   He said that the contest proved that it is not always the best idea that wins in this Web 2.0 world but it is who can utilize Web 2.0 and social media.  Well let me remind you how I achieved all the votes I did.  I alerted my friend on Myspace, Facebook,  Twitter, Carolina Shooters Forum, EverythingQ and my blog.  I asked them all to vote and vote often.  I set up an account with TweetLater so that my status on Twitter and Facebook would be updated every two hours reminding people to vote.  I think that is the definition of utilizing social media.  

Well what really sucks for Tatango is now I am not going to use their product.  No I am not being a sore loser.  In business terms I am simply firing a vendor that I feel does not live up to their word.  Nothing against their product.  I am sure it is great.  But what they did was bad business.  You might say "Well no big deal.  You are just one person."  Keep reading.  What has hurt them now is I was going to utilize their product among 194 residents.  Many of which could of used Tatango with their business or groups.  Wow that's a hit.  Now again utilizing social media this blog will be posted on Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, Carolina Shooters Forum and EverythingQ.  On Twitter I have 41 followers, Myspace I have 94 friends, on Facebook I have 135 friends, Carolina Shooters Forum has 2300 members and on EverythingQ there are over 97,000 members.  And then there is that great advertising tool called word of mouth.  There are countless people I have talked with about my experience.  Also there are the readers of my blog.  This blog entry is also going to be sent over to Consumerist and we will have to wait and see if they will post it there but according to www.quantcast.com, "Consumerist.com is a top 5,000 site that reaches over 1.3 million monthly people "  Ouch.  So all told that is over 1.4 million perspective customers that now have that little seed of doubt planted.  Again I would like to say that I have had not an issue with Tatango but with their leadership. 

Thanks for reading.