Bored of eating your own dogfood? Try smelling your own farts
This provocative piece lambasts large companies for their abysmal customer service, particularly their reliance on unhelpful AI, while paradoxically touting innovation. The author champions the concept of 'smelling your own farts' – a blunt call for companies to genuinely experience the worst aspects of their own products, not just the polished parts. It's popular on HN because it skewers common corporate disconnects and champions practical empathy over theoretical metrics, a frustration many tech professionals share.
The Lowdown
The author recounts a deeply frustrating encounter with a large company's customer service, highlighting an unhelpful website, an automated phone system, and a relentless push towards an AI assistant. Despite the company's self-proclaimed status as an innovative, tech-excellent entity, the customer experience was abysmal, leading to the central argument about the importance of authentic product experience.
- The author's initial frustration stemmed from being funnelled through unhelpful digital channels and a robotic phone system, exacerbated by misleading claims of high call volumes.
- He contrasts the company's self-perception of technological prowess with the actual, poor user experience provided by their systems, including a particularly jarring AI voice.
- The piece emphasizes 'dogfooding'—the practice of using one's own products—as crucial, but argues it must extend beyond ideal scenarios to include the 'difficult' customer journeys.
- Examples are given, such as mobile network employees spending time in call centers or Jeff Bezos's reported 10-minute wait for customer service, to illustrate the value of direct exposure to customer pain points.
- A positive counter-example is provided by a small startup whose senior leadership genuinely engaged with the author's cancellation feedback, demonstrating empathy and a willingness to acknowledge product flaws.
- The core thesis is captured by the stark metaphor 'smelling your own farts,' advocating that leaders and developers must directly confront the unpleasant realities and shortcomings of their own products to drive meaningful improvement.
Ultimately, the story argues that true product improvement and customer empathy can only come from direct, unfiltered exposure to product failures and user frustrations, rather than relying solely on sanitized metrics or theoretical innovation.