May
LinkedIn Forgot It’s About the People
I have been a member of LinkedIn for a quite a long time. Presently, I have 2,228 connections in my LinkedIn network. I have always been an evangelist for LinkedIn and have referred numerous people to the network. Though recently, I have to say that LinkedIn is really starting to annoy me and I am getting to the point that the hassle of LinkedIn is just not worth the value I am getting out of it.
If you are not familiar with LinkedIn, it is a business network where people can connect with others through companies, positions and schools they have worked or attended. For example, when I put in that I worked for Dell, LinkedIn shows me every person who also did or still works for Dell whom I can send an email to and connect with.
From the beginning, LinkedIn asked users to only send an invite to people they actually know, but if you worked for a company, LinkedIn showed all of people who also worked there and myself like a great many other people would at times send invites out to more people than just the people we knew. If I saw a person’s profile who I thought might be an interesting contact, but I did not know them, I would send them an invite to connect.
Recently, LinkedIn has begun cracking down on this tactic and if someone receives an invite from someone they do not know, they can click on a button that says I do not know them (I also think we should have this button say, “I am so anal that if you would stick a lump of coal up my butt, in a month it would turn into a diamond”. Maybe a bit too much, but I digress.) If a specific user gets several of these I don’t know clicks from invites they send out, LinkedIn is now restricting their account.
Now I do not have a real big problem with any of this. If LinkedIn has decided to finally start enforcing a rule that they let slip for several years to build up their membership, fine. What I do have a problem with is how they are going about doing this. When LinkedIn restricts your account they ask you to send an email to their customer service which then you have to wait anywhere between 3-10 days to actually get a reply.
If you look at any discussion boards about LinkedIn, the number one complaint about the company is the poor customer service and long response times. My question is why would you force more users to contact a customer service department which is already doing a poor job? LinkedIn, all your success is 100% because of the users who joined your network and then recommended your network to others growing it to over 11 million users. So now that you have gone big time are you forgetting about the people who got you there in the first place? What would happen if half of your users stopped using your service? Your traffic would drop by half, your advertisers would start seeing a dramatic drop in impressions and click-through’s and you would have a serious problem.
You are not bigger than the game and it is time that you start remembering who is most important to your long term success – THE PEOPLE – your users. Start treating us the way we deserve to be treated or you will suffer the long term consequences.
Technorati Tags: LinkedIn, Dell
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May 29th, 2007 at 11:44 am
I’m giving you props on this post just because you used one of my all-time favorite quotes from Ferris Beuller’s Day Off ““I am so anal that if you would stick a lump of coal up my butt, in a month it would turn into a diamond”
May 29th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
LOL, thanks Krista…
May 29th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
Cord
I will let Mario Sundar know, he is the customer evangelist for Linkedin.
May 29th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
Cord,
Huzzah!
“You are not bigger than the game and it is time that you start remembering who is most important to your long term success – THE PEOPLE – your users.”
Couldn’t agree more. I’ve been a big fan of LinkedIn from the beginning and I haven’t used enough lately to get cranky with them.
I use to give companies three chances to mess up. Lately, I’m off to the competitor after the first mistake. Thank god, I’m more patient when dating.
-Steven
May 30th, 2007 at 9:05 am
Mukund – Ok, I am sure he will get right on that.
Steven – Thanks!
May 30th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
[...] Silverstein, the Marketing Hipster, has already given LinkedIn a rap on the knuckles. Philippe at Bad Idea, Indeed did the same to HP and competitor Dell came to his rescue. And [...]
May 31st, 2007 at 10:04 pm
Hey Mukund,
Thanks for letting me know.
Cord,
I’m the community evangelist at LinkedIn. I can understand your frustrations. The restrictions were put in place to prevent other users from spammers and promiscuous linkers. If you’ve inadvertently triggered the restriction we’ll work on restoring that.
Could you clarify if you’re referring to the restrictions triggered by the recent reconnect feature or otherwise. Thanks!
Also, we’ve recently started a full-fledged customer service center at Omaha and look forward to expediting the responses. In the meanwhile, feel free to email me directly at msundar@linkedin.com.
Mario from LinkedIn
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:52 pm
[...] a previous post, I discussed my unhappiness with LinkedIn and their lack of customer support. Very soon after I [...]
November 17th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
I see that this post is several months old; however, I have just started exploring the topic of linkedIn restrictions, because I have recently been restricted.
I am not spamming nor trying to build a network so large that it has no value; however, I am trying to connect with people from former employers – not just to benefit myself, but to benefit them and their clients.
I have worked in the IT department of large companies and in turn been exposed to every employee. I will admit that at times I select everyone in the former colleague list without reading all the names, but this decision was made because so many names were familiar to me that it was easier to select all than hand pick 98% of them.
Unfortunately, I must not have left as lasting an impression on some people and the “I don’t know” button has been clicked too many times.
I don’t understand why someone would not want to connect to a former co-worker even if they don’t remember them and perhaps it is these people that are growing diamonds in there butt. I don’t need to understand these people; however, I don’t belive that even these people understand the implications of clicking on that button. I doubt that they are angry and intending to inadvertantly restrict anyone’s account – they are just given 2 options – “Accept” or “don’t know”. In my opinion they should just hit accept because we are former colleagues and obviously not a spammer – but I will concede that is their option.
I don’t agree with putting restrictions on a service whose intent is to connect people. If I wanted a list of the people I already had contact info for, I would just go to my Outlook address book and not need linkedIn.
However, if they feel that there is some need to police the usage, perhaps it would be better to give people more options.
“Accept (I embrace the concept of linkedIn)”
“Ignore (get on with my life)”
“I dont remember (not the senders fault I am brain dead)”
“Report Abuse (I have coal in my butt)”
Thanks,
Paul