Hotmail is a really big service – servers measured in the thousands, active users measured in the hundreds of millions, incoming mail measured in the billions. It’s not cheap to run (yeah, we’re Microsoft, cry you a river). To keep our costs down we don’t make it easy to e-mail a human directly to get technical support and as a result users get (understandably) frustrated.
Enter Reeves, fearless, rogue cowboy PM, roaming the uncharted wastelands of the net searching for Hotmail users in need. I spend tireless hours combing the dark corners of the net looking for…
OK, I don’t even believe myself. What I do is set up Google alerts to drop me an e-mail once daily when news reports mention Hotmail. My primary interest is to find out what reporters are saying about Hotmail but I occasionally find gripes mixed in with the news. Last week, for example, I came across a pro-wrestling reporter who had to re-write his weekly article because he was unable to get into his Hotmail account.
Since I’m not in support the only ways for me to be able to help people with Hotmail is to post info on my blog, free-lance by tracking down gripes on the web or (crazy thought here) to proactively design new features for Hotmail which make it easier to use <gasp>.
So, as always, if you have a gripe about Hotmail, e-mail me. I love to hear compliments about our product but hearing complaints is the next best thing. Coming up with brand new stuff is hard… fixing stuff we broke is easy, if we know it’s broke(n).
P.S. it appears Hotmail is becoming a regular topic in the industry news… I wonder if I’ll get a chance to meet The Rock.