1Password Redux and How to Win Over Customers

Remember a few weeks back I talked to you about 1Password and their move to an Electron app and how the Mac Internet lost its collective ever-loving mind about feeling abandoned and I didn’t see it that way?

When I published my blog post, I included on the Tweet Agilebits’ Founder and author of 1Password Dave Teare along with Michael Fey, the author of one of their blog posts I’d referenced in my article. As you might imagine, my blog post made Dave pretty happy after a couple of weeks of pure anger from the Internet.

Because I tweeted in this way, I became part of a few threads Dave had with other customers, and as a result, I got to see how Dave responded to customers. One thread became very interesting and I’d like to read it to you. The conversation was between Dave and a gentleman named Christian. I don’t know Christian, and he’s not a huge influencer of any sort, he’s “just” a customer.

Christian first responded to my tweet by writing:

@podfeet @1Password @dteare @MrRooni Unsubscribed after may years, trying LastPass.

Dave could have simply ignored Christian, but instead wrote back:

@ChrisXoss @podfeet @1Password @MrRooni I’m sorry to hear this. What part of 1Password 8 scared you away? In any event, I hope we can win you back some day. 🙏

I thought it was interesting that he would write back to a customer who was obviously angry and leaving anyway. I can only imagine how busy Dave was at that time and yet he set aside the time to respond to one voice. I imagine that Christian was surprised to hear back from Dave, and it also encouraged him to take a different path than simply leaving 1Password. Christian wrote back:

@dteare @podfeet @1Password @MrRooni Ok I gave it another chance to try the beta, it does not feel snappy (Im running it on an M1 device) the interface design looks a bit cheap, saw you improved the speed of the menu when you click the plus button to add a new item, you can really tell is not a native app.

Right away this told me that Dave taking that attitude was exactly the way to open someone’s mind even if it’s just a little bit. Christian wasn’t a convert but he was in the conversation and he was giving concrete examples of what he didn’t like. Dave could have dropped it, but he continued his conversation with Christian. He sent a two-part tweet to Christian and unfortunately, I only have part two, but Dave continued to pursue understanding from Christian. Dave wrote:

@ChrisXoss @podfeet @1Password @MrRooni …changes to item list scrolling to improve performance there. Where are you seeing things get sluggish? Would be helpful to know where to focus our efforts during the early access/ beta period to make sure we ship an awesome app when it’s ready. Thank you for helping! [2/2]

Think about that. Dave thanked Christian. In just a couple of tweets, Dave now has Christian helping him improve the product. Dave genuinely wants Christian’s feedback and is encouraging him to continue to provide feedback, while at the same time reminding him and anyone reading along that this is the early access/beta period when constructive feedback is most valuable. Christian’s next response was interesting – he wrote:

@dteare @podfeet @1Password @MrRooni Ok. I continued testing, Is not perfect but it works. I’m going to keep using 1 password. But if you ever create a native app again. I will move from Ok to Happy. I miss the bouncing of the app when you type your master password wrong. It feels just static.

Isn’t that awesome? Dave was able, through being respectful and open to criticism, to turn someone from angry to engaged to being a continuing customer. The story wasn’t done just yet. Dave wrote back:

@ChrisXoss @podfeet @1Password @MrRooni Thanks for continuing your testing. 🙏 We’ve heard from a lot of people that they want the playfulness back on the lock screen. saw some (internal) demos of this in development. I think you’ll like the update when it comes out.

How could this answer be any more awesome? Such a silly little thing as a jiggle when you mistype has gotten onto the roadmap because people enjoy it. I think these little touches are an underlying reason why Apple people are so committed to the platform. It reminds me of the first time I plugged my iPod Nano into my Mac and when I opened iTunes it showed my iPod as being Product Red. That delighted me. It made zero difference my usability of the product, but it “surprised and delighted” me.

Dave and Christian had one final exchange. Christian responded with:

@dteare @podfeet @1Password @MrRooni And good Job with the memory management for an electron app. Microsoft Teams just sucks so badly!

Christian, who said he was going to try LastPass and was unsubscribing from 1Password is now a proponent of 1Password and is very happy. The final word from Dave was:

@ChrisXoss @podfeet @1Password @MrRooni Thank you! Memory management is one of the reasons we’re so excited about Rust. 🦀 🤗

I don’t know what crab + hugging face means, but I think it all ended well.

I’m not sure what lesson you learned from all this, but I learned that my own approach can be improved in how I engage with people when they’re unhappy and I hope to be more like Dave Teare when I grow up. And no, 1Password did not sponsor this article.