Yesterday I spent some time going through my inbox and cleaning up a lot of email newsletters / services that I’ve subscribed to.  I think I unsubscribed from about 25 to 30 different newsletters and/or notification services.

I didn’t unsubscribe willy-nilly though…I kept those that I found interesting and/or that I look forward to reading.

One of the newsletters that I unsubscribed from was the AppSumo notification service for new deals. Now…I’ve purchased a package through AppSumo in the past and definitely signed up for their email alerts and find the service to be pretty cool.

Why did I unsubscribe? Well…in the last few alerts I didn’t see anything that caught my fancy.  So…I unsubscribed.

Today…I received a short email from Noah Kagan from AppSumo apologizing for the email (since I’d unsubscribed from the alert service yesterday) and apologizing for the previous email.

Apparently, the most recent email alert sent by AppSumo was a bit long and a lot of folks complained about it and/or unsubscribed from the service after receiving the email.  Noah apologized for the email length and asked whether there was anything that he and AppSumo could do to improve in the future.

At first, I figured this was a blast email to all customers but it didn’t appear that way. It was short, honest and open….so I responded with my above reason for unsubscribing.

Imagine my surprise when i received an immediate response back from Noah.  Here’s a guy that’s busy as can be running this great little web company and he’s responding back to little ol’ me within seconds.

That response cementing my relationship with AppSumo. I immediately renewed my subscription to the newsletter and am looking forward to seeing what comes across my inbox in the future.

Lessons

There’s a lot to be learned from little event.

First, its a simple lesson in being human and admitting that a mistake was made (although I didn’t unsubscribe because of that mistake) and asking for feedback on how things can be improved.

The simple act of admitting that a mistake was made and asking for feedback on how to improve for the future occurs rarely today in my experience.

When was the last time you received a simple email like this at your office?  When was the last time you admitted you made a mistake?  We all make mistakes…why not learn from them and move forward?

When was the last time you reached to your client(s) and asked for feedback on how you can improve something that didn’t work out exactly as planned?

Or…even more importantly…when was the last time you asked your client(s) how to improve service after a successful project / interaction?

While its good to ask for forgiveness and feedback if you make a mistake, it can be just as good to ask for feedback when you do things right.

Kudos to Nathan and AppSumo.  Go check them out and sign up…they have some great applications. They’ve got a customer for life here because they took a few minutes from their day and sent an email  asking for feedback.

Image Credit: Customer Service By nffcnnr on flickr