My name Is Timur Dadupota, How can we help?

This the defacto popup message that welcomes every user that visits Blurbiz.

Bit about us

Blurbiz is an online video editor that helps users create engaging videos for your social media channel like (meme videos, Facebook and Instagram Stories and many others).     

When we first started Blurbiz, we integrated it with Drift. Drift is a messaging plugin, which is there to help you engage with potential customers. 

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Most of the time this pop-up is ignored by visitors.

I've used Drift to close accounts,as well as setup live demos among others - which is great. But there is a dark side to Drift and it can get ugly, but I personally get a kick out of it.   

  
I am sure anyone who is using either Drift or Intercom knows what I am talking about.

Which is messages like these.

From your friend

Suvendu Sarkar

at

suckmydick123@gmail.com

😂

At first, it used to bother me, not because I got irked by it. 

It’s because as a startup founder, I know that it's part of customer service and I don't want to talk to my customers in a rude way. I always thought it's better to avoid it than engage with the people who send these messages.

Normally I am a snarky guy if I get comments like these in person.

I thought to myself what will happen if I engage in chats like these? I thought of running an experiment. Instead of avoiding, blocking or ignoring hateful banter, I chose to engage.   

Here's what happened, not too long ago after I got a message.

From 

Abdi Wang,

It started innocently enough, but soon turned ugly.

We have a paywall that asks for a credit card to get a 7-day trial. As a part of user research, I always ask users what kind of videos they are they looking to create, to see what their needs are and whether or not our platform is fit for them.

At this point, I knew what kind of user this was, and leaped to respond.

Now all hell broke loose :) How dare I not give a free account.

I even manage to get a curse word in Hindi, if not from India or Pakistan it means “Dog” lol.

Now my hand was hovering over the block button. I could just have blocked the person.

In contrast, I did what I believe deep down what we all want to do and responded.

I said to myself  “let the games begin.”

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Now there was a moment where I was expecting another round of S%#*! and F*&#

What happened next, surprised me.

This had to be one of the great moments in my Drift history, I thought I might have gone too far.

But what followed was the greatest message I received.

Now I am not joking.

He actually paid and signed up for Blurbiz!

I called this experiment a success!

This got me thinking, Not only this was so much fun, but I got a paying user out of it.

And that is what I have been doing, replying to hecklers and abusive comments while I can.

Now I want to make sure, I am not being mean or coming off as a mean person.

On behalf of every person that sits behind Drift and Intercom chats, who get these type of comments once in while.

Here is a small collection of rude abusive, aggressive, offensive and sarcastic comments That I manage to put in these 4 categories. Hope you get a laugh out of these as much as I did.

1. Slick but no so slick con Artist.

2. Gay name callers.

3. Teenage Trollers.

My personal favorite

4. Downright Non-sense.

Now a word of caution if decide to engage in these conversations don't be mean. Always put your best foot forward, and if you work for a company that uses these messaging apps on their website, it would not hurt to ask for permission from your supervisor to engage before doing so.