Chris Dalton's Personal Development Blog

Subject: Group Announcement – A total mystery [160317-005516]

In the old LinkedIn Group area, this would be sent to everyone in the group via email (unless they had opted not to receive such up-dates) and posted as a discussion. But under LinkedIn’s improved group area (notice I have ironically resisted putting quotation marks around the word improved. A sort of double irony, if you like) it is LinkedIn that decides how many of the group should get it. Since I never received my own announcement to the group I’m the owner of via email, I wanted to find out who did.

So I wrote to them to ask. Surely they would know.

Little did I know I’d be entering the Twilight zone…. below is the short exchange I’ve so far had with Ravi. He has what at first sight seems useful job title, but I failed to find the specialism useful. See what you think.

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Message# 1 (sent by me)

Member (03/17/2016 10:39 CST)

Issue Type: Groups

Subject: Group Announcement – A total mystery

Your Question: I’m the group owner for “Henley Business School – post-experience”. We have almost 9,000 members. I have just written and sent an announcement. So far, so normal.

Then you’ve made it weird.

I get a message telling me you (LinkedIn) have decided which members will get this as an email. Who? Who not? Why? How would you know? How do I know who? Huh!?? Since I have not received my own announcement as email, I conclude that LinkedIn thinks the group owner is not interested in their own announcement! So, please let me know how many of my group were sent this message. Please, please, please do not include in your reply a stock message along the lines of “we’ve passed this great feedback on to the team developing this part”, as no-one thinks this about LinkedIn any more. Sadly.

Thanks, Chris Dalton

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Message #2 (the reply)

“LinkedIn Response (03/18/2016 06:50 CST)

Hi Chris,

Thank you for reaching out to me.

When an Group announcement is sent, it will be sent to all the members on the Groups. We do not sent it to specific members.

Can you please send us the email you have received from us regarding the announcement.

I look forward to hearing your response in order to further assist you.

Ravi

Consumer Support Specialist”

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I have to say here that I wasn’t really expecting them to fix the issue, just re-assure me who was emailed, and why. What was their rationale? I had drawn a blank there, but Ravi’s answer had also drawn a little bit of ire. I know that this isn’t completely reasonable as I’m writing to someone who is employed at a non-decision-making level of the company, BUT this is an online, technical organisation, one with a reputation built on building reputation. So…

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Message #3 (my reply)

Member (03/18/2016 09:10 CST)

Hi Ravi,

Thanks for the response, which I’m going to have to say I don’t fully understand – for the following reasons:

It didn’t answer my question (which was, by the way, who in my group were emailed the announcement I made?)

According to your own web site, not everyone in the group is sent the announcement. I know this partly because I haven’t received it via email, and partly because there is a message reading:

“You sent an announcement. You can send another one
in 6 days.

You sent “Newsletter from Henley Business School – post-experience,” Mar 17, 2016. We’ve figured out which members of the group are most likely to open and be interested in announcements like this, and sent it just to them.
The announcement was emailed to 7,764 group members.”

From this I would deduce that you DO send it to specific members, and not to the whole group. Which is annoying. “We’ve figured out…” How?

Chris

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Message #4 (the template reply, which prompted this post)

LinkedIn Response (03/19/2016 01:22 CST)

“Hi Chris,

I’ve sent your information to our product team for consideration. When many of our members ask for the same improvement, they try their best to get it done. However, due to the large number of suggestions they receive, they usually don’t provide a timeline.

In the future, you can send suggestions to us by clicking any  “Feedback” link on the right side of your homepage. This will send your comments directly to the appropriate team. You can also keep up with the latest product news and enhancements on our official blog, http://blog.linkedin.com, and check https://members.linkedin.com/we-heard-you for additional feature updates and fixes.. It’s our way of keeping you informed on all the exciting work we’re doing behind the scenes.

Again, we appreciate the feedback and believe that together we can create great products for everyone!

Regards,

Ravi

Consumer Support Specialist

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I have to note that LinkedIn is not devoid of a sense of irony, as they have included in their stock responses suitably placed “inverted commas” around the work Feedback.

I give up!