Gather ’round, it’s story time. This is a story of woe and it may include some profanity, though it’s edited for the under aged among us. It’s the grand tragic tale of how it cost me $1250 to get started using Drip. It’s a cautionary tale for you, as you look at your client services. The takeaway is, make sure you don’t just provide information about a problem–have a solution ready.

Getting Started with Drip

I’ve been told for what feels like years that I should be using Drip. It’s probably not years, but about 70% of people in my mastermind groups use Drip, so I hear about it at least three times a week.

After finally biting the bullet and going to sign up, I hit a wall in three seconds. See, I guess at one point I had signed up with Drip to help a client with their account. The only email I had in their system was tied to an account I had set up for a previous client so I could integrate Drip with their website.

An account the client had cancelled. Which meant that my login was left in some odd ‘limbo’ state where I couldn’t start a new subscription for my own Drip list.

After a number of emails back and forth with support (over most of a single day), I changed my login email to be ‘curtis+superlame@curtismchale.ca’ and then created a totally new account so I could give Drip money.

The Second Hurdle

Unfortunately it only took me ten more minutes to hit a second hurdle, the one that prompted this post.

Drip is an amazing tool and it sends lots of emails for lots of people. Understandably they want to make sure they don’t get flagged as a spam emailer by anyone, so if you’re on a free trial there are some limits.

When I went to schedule out five emails over the rest of November (so I could drop MailChimp and be all cozy with Drip), I found I couldn’t.

After a number of emails and another entire day I find out that…

During the trial period, broadcasts are limited to 1 per day to up to a total of 500 subscribers unless we review the account. The restriction is in place for new trial accounts to protect our sending reputation until we can confirm that an account isn’t at risk for spam or bounce issues.

If you have any questions, please feel encouraged to reach out.

I had already told them I was trying to get this set up so I could launch a pre-sale of Finding and Marketing to Your Niche the next day. In fact, that’s how I opened the email exchange two emails before. I even told them that I wasn’t sure what it was going to take but I needed it to work that day.

Now in light of me needing a solution, look at the email I got. Is there a solution presented? Have they suggested any path by which I can get a working Drip account?

No they haven’t. They basically said “Yup, that’s not working, here’s why it doesn’t work. Have a great day”.

Here’s a profound question for you…what if the email actually had a solution in it? Maybe they could have sent me this email instead.

During the trial period, broadcasts are limited to 1 per day to up to a total of 500 subscribers unless we review the account. The restriction is in place for new trial accounts to protect our sending reputation until we can confirm that an account isn’t at risk for spam or bounce issues.

That doesn’t help you right now though, so we have two options. First I could charge you for the first month now and that means you’re no longer a trial account and these restrictions don’t apply.

Second I can forward this to $name and they can review the account (they may want to see your MailChimp account to see your sending history) and they can get you approved. (Curtis: I have no idea if option 2 is actually an option.)

You did mention you’re launching tomorrow so the fastest way to make this problem go away is to be billed. The review can take a couple days.

What would you like to do? If you have any other questions, please feel encouraged to reach out.

With the second version of the email you get the why behind the problem and most importantly a way to resolve it so that I can use Drip.

After a few more emails they did charge me so I wasn’t a trial account anymore, but even after I asked them if that was an option and told them to do it if it was, I had another email telling me it was an option and asking if they could do it.

Another two stressful hours wasted, while I again said “Yes, I just said charge me if you can so I’m not a trial”.

When customers reach out to you

As you run your business, make sure that if your customers have a problem you don’t only acknowledge the problem, you actually provide a solution for them as well.

[Tweet “Don’t stop with acknowledging your customer’s problem–provide a solution.”]

If you’re not providing solutions, then realize you’re wasting your clients time. If you’re wasting their time you’re also annoying them and annoyed clients aren’t going to give you great referrals.

photo credit: zengei cc