Open Letter to Mark Pincus, CEO, Zynga.

Mr. Mark Pincus
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Zynga Games Network, Inc.
San Francisco, CA

Dear Mark (and team):

How far you’ve come. I had to remind myself the other day that I’ve been playing Poker with you guys since 2007, back in the days when you had no problems sending us to scam websites for chips, and you spent the revenue while we spent days removing spyware from our computers.

I remember thinking back then that your organization must be run by a bunch of kids. See, I’ve been in the Information Technology business for 30 years, so anybody who gets behind a keyboard but never heard of punchcards is a kid - you’ll have to forgive me for that.

Still, it’s been a long time in internet years, since you and I have been doing business, and I’ve always referred to the folks that run your company as ‘kids’, primarily because it never occurred to me that grown-ups could get away with such outrageous Corporate behavior. Yes, I’m still a little miffed over all the spyware, and still chuckle to myself when you first tried pawning off FarmVille as your own creation...while WE were all enjoying Farm Town.

Imagine my shock to learn that you are 44 years old and hold an MBA. Considering Zynga’s recent Corporate performance, that amazes me. It also amazes me you’re still getting gobs of Venture Capital - they must not play your games the way your customers do.


You guys are SO lucky. Partnering with Internet giants like Facebook, Yahoo and Google. Revenues in the millions, and financial participation soon to top $1B. You’ve made the big time, get loads of good press, and even now those days of sending us to seedy websites seem all but forgotten as you forge ahead in turning an industry pioneer into a real, live business.

I just don’t want to see you blow it, and right now, you’re blowing it.

Lately, Zynga’s performance with respect to one particular game I play, FarmVille, has had me referring to you all as ‘kids’ once again.

The difference now is that I’m taking the time to share my thoughts with you - and here’s your first refresher in Business Management:

When a customer takes the time to write you a letter, you better read it. It means that your business is almost as important to them as it is to you.

Why do I care? Because as much as your games and service lack, the social connections forged by the communities that have built themselves up around your products are the best thing about being online, in my opinion. I’d like for you to embrace that instead of battling it.

Lately, FarmVille has certainly seen it’s growing pains. You’ve lost millions of users, Mark. That translates into millions of dollars in lost revenue. I know if I were sitting in your chair right now, I’d like to know why.

Here’s the part where you sit up a little bit and pay attention to a customer:

Buggy Software

All software has bugs. Nowadays, customers understand this. Bugs are one thing, but software which gets progressively slower to load, and introduces new glitches with every release usually gets replaced pretty quickly. I’ll bet your Corporate Standard for spreadsheets isn’t Lotus 1-2-3 for that very reason.

Yes, even the giants fall, and fall hard.

I know. You’re working on it. Developers are always ‘working on it’. I just don’t get the impression that anyone is managing it. Your QC on updates is really lacking.

Social Media

Every time I log onto Facebook, arguably the world’s largest Social Media pioneer, to play FarmVille, I shake my head at how a company like Zynga could be so firmly entrenched in the world of Social Media, and yet use their own Social Media so ineffectively.

Outside of applications, your presence on Facebook is a token at best. Your fan pages are seldom updated, often unmoderated, and are usually hours if not days behind in announcing what little communication you allow to eek out. Your own website and forums aren’t even Facebook connected! My daughter’s blog is Facebook connected, guys. I realize that’s a big job, and you have a lot of customers, but I also suspect you have an idle developer or two sitting around eating Cheetos. Put them to work, would you please?

Your use of other social media is also a bit of an inside joke to your users. You publish an audio podcast via YouTube (which is sad enough for a company of your size now), but you can’t even manage to get THAT published on iTunes, where a large number of users go to get their podcasts. C’mon, guys. It may be a minor point, but it makes you look like...yep...a bunch of kids.

I know Twitter is ‘new’, but look at how Microsoft and Comcast are using this medium to service and interact with their customers....and then look at the pitiful updates you guys put out. It’s used for nothing but promoting your products - and it makes you look like a 15 year old kid trying to promote his own website. There’s no actual content being shared. No data we can’t get someplace else.

There’s more, but I know when to stop and not cross over into bashing. That’s not my intention - just a reality check on how you guys manage your social media. It needs work, and a lot of it.

One of the things that becomes clear is that your use of Social Media reflects the attitude of Zynga when it comes to communicating with it’s customers in general. It’s curt, abrupt, and very, very rare. Just because you have Lexi talk to us in a sultry voice every week doesn’t mean you’re actually delivering clear, concise information, and you’re certainly not managing our expectations.

Managing Our Expectations

You must spend a fortune on Customer Service. I’ve had some good experiences with your CS folks and I have had some laughable ones. Makes you no different than any other organization.

What makes you different is that you’re providing a service to millions of people worldwide, and when you have an outage or a widespread bug or an update or anything at all to share with us, you do so only reluctantly and we pretty much have to pull teeth to get real answers.

Do you know how many fewer emails you’d get by Tweeting, “Problem with your Beehive? Clear your cache and try it again. Here’s how: (link)”? How much money you’d save?

It takes 3 seconds to send that information to every one of your customers on all social networks. Instead, hours later, you post a cryptic note at the top of the application screen that makes the whole thing look like we’re logging onto a mainframe...and that users who can’t get INTO the app can’t see anyway.

Yesterday was a perfect example. Nobody took the time to let your dedicated customers know that the regular update will be delayed. We expect an update on Tuesday evenings. You know it. We know it. Would it have been that hard to just send out a 140 character ‘delayed’ message out to everyone? Some folks would have actually gotten up from the computer and done something else.

No, you’re not making any money when they get up from the computer. I know this. What you don’t understand is that you have customers that literally wait with mouse in hand on your updates and information and only leave your product when absolutely necessary.

The loyalty and good faith you’d generate by the occasional acknowledgement of game issues and update as to various remedies would be overwhelming. Many of your customers are pretty die hard and would return that goodwill into spendable cash for you.

You’re very lucky to have customers like that who are so dedicated. Businesses would pay eagerly for the secret to generating such loyalty. The Zynga customer loyalty is evidenced in the way the gaming communities have rallied to provide our own technical support, gameplay instruction, information network and other social interaction.

In short, we’re doing what YOU should be doing. And entire Cottage Industry of micro-bloggers, websites, Facebook fan pages and groups have sprung up all to support YOU and your products.

We’re providing service, goodwill, advice, information dissemination (which is discovered by other customers because you’re surely not sharing any), supporting each other and keeping everyone informed because you have magnificently failed to do that for your own customers.

Ah, I’m sorry. I keep forgetting. You’re “beta”. Right.

Do us all a favor and stop hiding behind that ‘beta’ disclaimer. That only worked until 1995 or so. Now the playing field has changed and the world runs on software that most IT veterans would consider barely up to the beta stage.

You are selling me a product for which I pay hard-earned cash. Don’t try to hide your actual shortcomings behind the ‘beta’ label. It’s a cop-out, we all know it, and it insults our intelligence.

Okay, that’s it. Those are the three big ones, but there are a whole list of *faceplant* type issues which you guys just don’t seem interested in addressing. I’m not going to pound you with the application specific gripe of the day - you already get thousands of those every day, I’m sure. My concerns are much deeper than just a dead White Stallion or the ability to force-breed the Horse Stables in FarmVille, although it’d be nice if you fixed that, too.

My concern is that you’ll continue to ignore your customers, retreat into your server rooms and boardrooms, and continue to lose users. We both know where that leads. Just ask Lotus...or MySpace.

My best wishes for continued success,

Farmer Brown

http://fauxfarmer.blogspot.com