As a technical support company, we have used LogMeIn for years to help us remotely administer client systems.  Many of those clients have 20-30 computers, or more, and we had loaded them all into our LogMeIn account for easy access by our technical support team.

We have many “free” accounts connected to it, and many “paid” accounts.  Some of our customers needed the “paid” features such as printer support, so we set them up with a paid account.

So our account, over the years, became a well-organized assortment of both paid and free LogMeIn accounts.  And we had a lot of them.

And then on March 5, 2013, LogMeIn sent the following email (excerpt):

“For nearly a decade, LogMeIn Free has provided unlimited free remote access to users on as many computers as they wish. In order to ensure that we can continue providing this free service and make meaningful improvements to it, we will be limiting the number of accessible Free computers in all remote access accounts to 10.”

We stopped reading around there.  But it goes on…

“Should you choose not to upgrade, only the first 10 Free computers in your account, according to alphabetical order, will be shown as available” … “These changes will take effect in just a few weeks, so act now to take advantage of our special rate.”

Well, we acted.  We moved all our customer systems (including the paid ones) onto our own hosted support solution and left LogMeIn a distant memory.  Didn’t have to think twice.  LogMeIn effectively pulled the plug on our business-customer relationship.

As a business owner, it’s important not to forget your customers.  They’re the ones who make your business work after-all.  In LogMeIn’s case, they made a stupid move. And unfortunately a lot of it has to do with communication.  I now know they are offering a reasonably priced “Central” service to allow the continued use, but their email didn’t mention anything about that in the first paragraph, and in big bold characters it simply stated, and I quote:  “Important message: Your account will soon be limited to 10 Free computers.”  We didn’t read any further before taking action.

So, in an effort to reduce the number of “free” accounts in use on their system, LogMeIn has also lost all our paid accounts.

It reminds me of when Neighbours (a coffee drive-thru) stopped taking debit as a form of payment.  Their focus was entirely on the wrong thing: the fees to run a debit machine.  Here’s the ripple effect: I used to get my coffee there each morning, and quite often a breakfast sandwich, but when they made that change, I didn’t waste any time (because I don’t carry cash)… I just drove across the road to Tim Hortons.  Stupid move on their part.  They’ve since re-introduced debit at their drive-thru.  Perhaps someone at the company woke up and realized they just cut out a large chunk of their business to save a few pennies per transaction.  Which costs more?

But where does that leave LogMeIn?  Their focus is obviously in the wrong place in the same way.  And we’ve gone elsewhere.

Own a business?  Think about your customer first, and then figure out how to make money while taking good care of your customer.  If you can’t be good to your customer, they’ll just go across the road and leave you wondering where all the business went.

– Robbie