en.wikipedia.org Anchoring Anchoring or focalism is a cognitive bias where an individual depends too heavily on an initial piece of information offered (considered to be the "anchor") when making decisions. Anchoring occurs when, during decision making, an individual depends on an initial piece of information to make subsequent judgments. Those objects near the anchor tend to be assimilated toward it and those further away tend to be displaced in the other direction. Once the value of this anchor is set, all future negoti...

(note: throughout this post, i will put what you need to do in bold)

as i’ve said many times before, much of your initial campaign and website would have been crowd pleasers if things actually went according to plan.

but as things have gone horribly awry, they are all working against you and making your users more impatient and angry than if you had made less precise and grandiose promises.

you promised:

transparency

PERSONALIZED progress tracking on YOUR ORDER on a daily, even HOURLY basis!

a preorder screen that tells you what month your order will ship if you buy today

those were your ANCHORS. you, tied us to a commitment of transparency as well as a tracking system SO PRECISE, that we were getting UP TO THE MINUTE updates on when our orders were hitting different parts of the production process as well as a good faith estimate on when we’d get them.

this is why when you later say, “it was a GENERAL estimate”, it doesn’t hold water… when you’re updating progress BY THE MINUTE, you can’t later miss deadlines by WEEKS!

considering how this is all turning out, i suspect that all that tracking info was b.s. just a backend algorithm advancing through the checkpoints in an equal but offset manner based on when we ordered with absolutely no data on what’s actually going on in the assembly process. i wonder if we all took screenshots of our order tracking and examined it, whether we’d see that was the case… ?

on transparency - to quote the princess bride, “this word you keep using, i do not think it means what you think it means.”

even today’s update (june 29) gives absolutely no information on what’s going on besides the most vague and general… it does NOT explain why you couldn’t have posted something equally as vague and general a week ago when you promised it.

you even said that it was being delayed because of fancy production values that NOBODY EVER ASKED FOR… and yet, in today’s update, nothing. and no more than the work of 5 minutes.

you know what that looks like to us? that you’re either lying through your teeth constantly or you don’t know what you’re doing and you’re flitting from one approach to the next like a chicken with its head cut off.

so here’s what you need to do:

from now until the textblades ship, which may or may not be the second week in july, you post a SIMPLE, TEXT UPDATE once a week about where you’re at and whether your target ship is looking like it will make it or whether it looks like it will slip and tell us why.

regarding the pre-order process telling us our expected ship month based on when we ordered - the forum participants have noted something interesting - while the shipment for pre-orders was dependent on when you purchased, so that januaries shipped in march, februaries in april, etc… funny thing with your “service” screen updates now…

WE’RE ALL GOING TO GET OUR TEXTBLADES IN JULY!!! irrespective of when we ordered… we having january orders to april orders… AAAAAALLLLLLLLLLL saying JULY!!!

so the question is…

how is this possible? do you really have such small order volume so that you can get all of us in the month of july?

are you lying to us now in an incredibly misguided bid to appease us for the moment but deal with exponential rage later?

answer the question:

ARE ALL BACKORDERS REALLY GOING TO GET SHIPPED IN JULY???

re: PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE MANIPULATION - the invitation and threat of canceling our order. (you can look it up on wikipedia but it’s pretty self evident and not necessary)

basically, what you’re saying to us when you do this - when you even have it in the updates - you’re presenting a case of plausible deniability but ultimately telling us this:

“IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT, GET OUT”

“IT’S OUR WAY OR THE HIGHWAY”

along those lines.

now… that’s something that you can say… that’s something people DO say… but rarely do they say it to their customers because that’s no way to earn loyalty or affection.

basically, you’re saying for all of us who complain and who demand more frequent and informative updates - no… you can’t ask anything of us. and if you don’t like it… get out.

for those of us who have paid our money already in expectation of a delivered product… that’s not acceptable.

you’ve made a commitment to transparency. we have paid our money. our money was INSTANTLY ACCEPTED no matter how interminable the delay.

you HAVE OUR MONEY and the deal was made.

here’s what you have to do:

be open to what we’re asking of you. ANSWER US.

we are demanding nothing more than what you promised. you gain NOTHING by stonewalling us and using ludicrously esoteric words to more or less tell us that you’re not going to do anything we ask.

personally, for me, you’ve alienated me already.

if the textblade is any good, you will be my next slingbox. good product, terrible company.

i have nothing good to say about your company. i may like your product. but if i have my way, i will never do business with you again and i will never recommend someone who i like to do business with you.

all because of how you behaved when things didn’t go as plan.

i think that’s a shame for the both of us.

from this point - you can win me over by apologetically keeping us posted on what’s going on.

OR

you can make even more enemies by doing what you’ve been doing in the way you’ve been doing it.

your choice.

but think about it - you’ve obviously went to great lengths to create an image with flashy videos and aspirational quotes and all that stuff… you went to that amount of trouble already. why CHOOSE to trash all that effort at the end?

last points:

you have our money - you owe us updates in lieu of a product

weekly updates until you ship. BE OPEN. TELL US WHAT YOU KNOW.

accurate information - because inaccurate information shows you disrespect us. is EVERYBODY REALLY GETTING THEIR TB IN JULY?

not too much to ask.