Law Technology

How to Alienate Your Vocal Supporters

By Andrew Flusche

It’s simple: just focus too much on big businesses.

I love EchoSign for e-signing documents. My clients love it too, so that makes me love it even more. I even wrote about EchoSign over at my law firm website. And the EchoSign folks picked up the article on their blog.

But I’m not feeling the love from EchoSign right now. They let me down.

I’ve been a loyal EchoSign user since I discovered their service last summer. I’ve sent dozens of documents through their system to lots of different people all over the world (every document sent through the system has their branding tastefully in the email). I know quite a few people who are using their service because of my recommendation.

But they’re alienating me. I consider myself a member of their tribe, and they’re leaving me out in the cold.

EchoSign made the choice to only allow their big business users to access their API. Yep, to use the API, I would need to upgrade to an account that costs $299 per month!

Why do I care?

An API allows programs to talk to each other. I’m developing a custom law firm management system that will integrate all my key programs.

The main systems that I use all have APIs. And every program (except for EchoSign) allows any user to access the API.

Remember the Milk (to do lists) - check
Google Calendar - yep
BatchBook (contact management) - sweet
FreshBooks (invoicing) - done
MailChimp (email newsletters) - perfect

I had a nice exchange with a customer service rep who informed me that EchoSign’s product isn’t built to allow API access for a solo user like me. I asked if there’s any way they could give me access, and it’s just not happening. Apparently the API is inextricably tied to the big business Enterprise account.

What a silly mistake.

I understand why companies try to court big business clients. But that can alienate vocal solo supporters. EchoSign could probably get lots of business from other solo users, especially people like freelance designers, programmers, and other web workers. But alienating supporters isn’t the way to make that happen.

EchoSign is still my choice for e-signing. However, I will be keeping an eye out for a system that will integrate with my other programs.

Or maybe the folks at EchoSign will see this and make a way to let everyone use the API.

Full post as published by Legal Andrew on April 25, 2009 (boomark / email).