[SOCIAL MEDIA] What Seagate should be doing better

Seagate, like so many companies nowadays, has a Twitter account. There's a string of casual tweets from SXSW, but what's not being emphasized enough (aside from this brief tweet) is a clear answer to the ongoing confusion and anger about various firmware problems with their hard drives. Many customers still speculate,

"Even with the 'fixes', I heard problems are still happening! Is it true?"

It'd be healthy to define those specific problems and focus on followup.

I bought a couple Seagate 1.5TBs a few months back, and thankfully, they've been running well with a newer firmware revision (CC1J). Others haven't been so fortunate.

No mention of these drives is safe from sudden declarations of "SEAGATE SUCKS!" and a rash of 1-star reviews, like on NewEgg. In every single deals thread I've seen, including hot ones at SlickDeals, there's continued argument and a lot of assumptions based on one's narrow firsthand experience.

Even if the problems were really fixed, it's hard to get that impression when there's still a lot of panic and fear. Even searching Seagate's Knowledge Base for "1.5tb" didn't reveal a relevant result.

Seagate has a mixed personality

I laughed so hard at their rap video. Their Twitter account has a kewl, stylish background and they occasionally reply.

But I'm let down that Seagate's company website doesn't do a good job of exposing their humanity.

Shockwaves of scares

Most humans buy into rumors if they're not hit head-on: even a fleeting mention of "My friend told me to stay away!" is enough to make you rather not risk it. Sure, if you bought a Seagate and it broke prematurely, that's awful, but where's Seagate's own voice in all of this? What are they doing to be exceptional, to rise above the noise and debunk myths that are damaging their brand and public perception?

One of the things that vexed me was that Seagate was slow and unresponsive to my emails. To add insult to injury, they didn't even make a firmware download openly available: you had to contact them, and even when I did with the requisite details, I didn't hear back. By that time, I'd learned details from other Seagate owners, but I know of no good reason to clamp down on that info and keep a fix behind the walled garden. It just adds support load and increases confusion — exactly the opposite of what you want to do. Trying to cover up bad PR just leads to the Streisand effect. Even NewEgg ended up posting a link to the Windows version due to popular demand.

I know from a cornucopia of personal experience…

that you can't possibly respond to every question or post in every single forum in the world. But what you want to focus on is chopping the slop, dispelling ambiguity, and making your official voice heard where it matters, like posting in some of these deals threads with 1,000s of views and pointing to earnest reassurance that reads like a human being instead of a pressbot. Or at least, making it easier to find this stuff from your official site, whether it's a blog (Seagate doesn't appear to have one), Twitter account, or wherever else people are looking and want you to care about them. (Because they bought your stuff and expect it.)

The ongoing solution is straightforward, and takes minutes to do yet saves many hours in the future: AMPLIFY and BROADCAST links back to THE SOURCE.

Push the Nirvana Fallacy aside,

and focus on the big batches of positive difference this would make. It'd also raise the confidence of current Seagate customers who haven't had problems with their drives, but are concerned they may be like ticking time bombs. I can't emphasize it enough: provide earnest reassurance. A company-customer relationship doesn't end with the sale, and especially with something like a hard drive which is meant to be used for years, longterm trust is essential.

Tagged as: General