OK, it may not be Gmail. But many still do use Yahoo Mail as a primary or secondary communication for business or other purposes. So when the service was partially down for more than 48 hours this week, users got a bit testy.
Worse then the outage itself, however, seemed to be Yahoo’s response to worried account holders who rely on the service â€" even though it is free.
Yahoo Tweeted a Few Times At Best
The company did respond to direct questions about service problems in the early hours referring some to Customer Care. But Yahoo tweeted general updates a few times at best from its Ymail Team account during the initial outage, TechCrunch reports.
The first came Tuesday afternoon acknowledging the problem which, for many affected users, had started the night before. By then, upset Yahoo Mail users were already beginning to express their displeasure.
Astoundingly, except for a steady stream of reassurances to inquiries from users, the Ymail Team did not post another general update until the following morning.
By that time, disgruntled users were complaining about a lot more than just the technical difficulties.
The Yahoo team also finally posted a more detailed report on the problem with an estimate of the repair time needed to get people back into their accounts.
Later that afternoon, Yahoo had begun to restore email services to its users. The YMail Team also seemed to become more responsive â€" after being called out by users and the media.
What’s Going On Here?
But what does this say about the Yahoo turnaround supposedly being engineered by CEO Marissa Mayer?
Ignore for a moment some audacious moves like Mayer’s $1 billion purchase of hip social blogging site Tumblr earlier this year.
It’s important for Yahoo to play to its strengths and avoid appearing unreliable. Otherwise, users will start fleeing the site in droves, and so will the company’s business.
Image: Wikipedia
