A few weeks back, I commented that I was becoming increasingly frustrated with Typepad. A few hours later, Six Apart's Mike Sippey who is in charge of the Typepad product, pinged me and invited me to lunch. We got together yesterday, chatting for over two hours.
After spending some time discussing, industry and personal niceties, I let loose with a 20-minute barrage of why I was considering a divorce fromTypepad. Fueled by excessive coffee and a frustrating morning, I was pretty aggressive.
Mike did what I think any company representative should do when confronting an upset customer: He listened. He really listened. He jotted notes, asked drill down questions, that got into specific details.
Mike told me that new human resources had been added to the Typepad team and in January users will start seeing a steady flow of extensive improvements just about everywhere in the product and its deteriorating support service. I agreed not to post specifics.
I believed what I heard. if it happens as he says, then I will likely find myself once again a happy customer. If I don't, then it's nice to know there are other options open to us end users.
Stay tuned.