Are there benefits to being personal with customers anymore or has everything become transactional?
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There are countless products and services out there, and I’ll admit I sign up for more than I probably should. But I usually stop using them for a few common reasons:
It doesn’t actually fit my needs
The company feels unreliable or opaque
The value doesn’t justify the cost
After spending my career in enterprise software, I’ve noticed that many of these issues aren’t just product problems, they’re relationship problems.
When companies show a bit of intention, clarity, and care, trust goes up. When they don’t, everything feels disposable, even good tools.
Curious how others feel: Are we past the point of customer relationships mattering, or is being more personal actually becoming a differentiator again?
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We’re living in a time where building something is no longer the hard part. While we still need great builders and makers, the bigger challenge today is experience, delivery and support. The real journey begins after someone becomes a customer.
@rohanrecommends couldn't agree more. While building has become easier than ever its increased the supply of products and services. The most value is always where supply is low and demand is highl; and right now one of these areas I believe this is on the CX front.
So true.
The product gets you the signup.
The relationship gets you the renewal — and the referral.
minimalist phone: creating folders
I think it depends on each company and relationship management.
The truth is that the smaller the company is, the more kind the behaviour to its people.
And when the company becomes a big corp with a lot of users/clients, you become only the number... zero emotions.
Hi@busmark_w_nika ! Firstly thanks for answering some of my other posts on Product Hunt, you truly are the queen here.
I agree with that post and your insight, even for the big companies its so important for them to have customer success departments that check in proactively with customers to maintain relationships and prevent churn.
minimalist phone: creating folders
@jake_friedberg Hahaha, thank you :) If a company can afford a department for customers, it is their win = advantage.
vibecoder.date
If you can get customers to think of you as a partner, even if it is transactional, you are at an advantage.
Most customers don't need you to be particularly personable. Only straightforward, and non adversarial.
The moment a customer feels antagonized they will jump ship as fast as they can.
@build_with_aj Yeah the key to that is customers letting you into their processes and flows as much as possible so you become integral to their success, then they can advocate for you elsewhere.
I've been told before customers are your best sales people, so they like to go where they are treated well and love the product or service.
Lightfern for Email
I actually think customer relationships and authenticity matter more than ever! It's really obvious when someone didn't really care these days because of the heavy use of AI writing. So when I get something personal or hand crafted I feel respected. We're building something around this actually - I think people would appreciate high quality help & writing advice, instead of AI doing all of the writing (in a generic, em-dash everything kinda way)
Scaling this tho is super hard! Once your customer base starts growing it becomes harder to find & respond to that signal in the noise -- which customers need help, which ones might be great to get feedback on, and which ones want to be left alone.
@dougli really appreciate the comment. I also took a moment to check out your profile, super impressive background!
Great call-out on the em-dashes. You're absolutely right, they’re often a dead giveaway for AI-generated messages and can feel impersonal, which is the opposite of what people want right now. I totally agree that it’s more important than ever to show real care and intention in outreach.
And that’s exactly why I built One Pager to make it easy for anyone to send truly personalized, modular messages to prospects and customers. It's a way to stand out by giving people the attention they deserve, without having to over-engineer the process.
Honestly, I just wished more vendors interacted with made the effort to personalize their outreach, that was the inspiration behind creating it in the first place.
Being personal still matters — maybe more than ever.
When products are easy to copy, trust becomes the real differentiator. I’ve noticed I’ll forgive missing features or small bugs if a team is transparent, responsive, and clearly cares. But even a “great” product feels disposable when the relationship is cold or opaque.
At scale, you can’t be 1-to-1 with everyone — but intention shows. Clear communication, honest pricing, and actually listening turn a transaction into a relationship. That’s what keeps me around.
Agree. In an era of product overload, communication, clarity, and a real human connection became more important than ever. When customers feel seen and understood, trust sticks. When they don’t, even solid products become replaceable.
@alina_petrova3 thanks for the comment, after looking into your profile and projects, seems like this is something you have a great grip on.
Trust is key and you hit the nail on the head calling out product overload right away. Helping growing brands build trust is exactly what we're trying to at One Pager. If you'd be open to it, I'd love to setup some more time to chat.
I definitely agree that there are benefits to being personal with your customers, especially when you are in an environment where it could easily become transactional and impersonal. The difficulty lies in the fact that being personal requires time and effort, which can be challenging to scale, especially as you grow as a company. However, when done correctly, it does create a sense of trust and makes the customer feel appreciated.
In the case of Talentaid, which we are launching tomorrow, the aim is to bring this personalisation into the job hunting process. The reality of the job hunting process today is that it feels like you are sending your resumes into a black hole with no feedback or guidance. The aim with us is to change this by gradually introducing tools that help candidates better personalise their CVs. connect with jobs that are better suited to their skills, and feel like they are part of the process, as opposed to feeling like just another resume in the pile.
In these early stages, I'll be reaching out to every single person who signs up, I'm hoping I have time to even send them personal videos via Loom asking for feedback :D