According to Kris, Zooomr will be launching tomorrow (7/16/06). As I mentioned in my previous post, Zooomr had a much hyped deadline on Friday that they missed due to a DOS attack.

I am writing this follow up post to express how impressed I am with Zooomr and specifically Thomas Hawk’s response to this mishap. Thomas Hawk is Zooomr’s Chief Evangelist, and he has earned his title (and salary) these past few days. Hawk found my post (I assume through Technorati) and responded within an hour of my posting comments on their missed deadline. More importantly, he followed up with another response today to let me know that the service would be launching tomorrow and to thank me for my earlier comments.

What Thomas did is simple and highly effective. It took him 30 seconds to personally let this potential customer know that the team was aware of the situation, that they appreciated the support of bloggers, and that they were rushing to solve the problem. The followup was even more key. By writing my initial post, I self-identified as an potential customer. Thomas went the next step and contacted me again to let me know that the worst was behind them and that launch was imminent. Had I read the blog post on Zooomr alerting me to this fact already? Of course. But the little extra step taken by Hawk was far more effective. Zooomr took what seemed like a negative situation and turned it into an opportunity to make meanigful connections with their potential customers.

This is the type of personal attention that wins hearts and minds.

Kudos to Thomas and the rest of the Zooomr team. You guys get it.

I look forward to seeing the finished product.

Update: Scoble explains my point above in three sentences (this in reference to a senior executive at Nestle replying to a negative blog post about his company):

Nestle just became a little more human due to a letter from George. I appreciate that a senior executive is fighting for his company’s reputation! I want to do business with people like that.

I guess that’s why they pay Scoble the big bucks.