Considering the amount of (online) news FreshWorks has been making around their IPO, this is probably a timely recall.
A decade ago, just a year into their inception, Freshdesk was called an ‘unethical troll trying to cash in on Zendesk’s (that was founded in 2007 in the same SaaS space) good name’ by an .
Another follower of the influencer joined the conversation by adding, ‘bunch of Indian cowboys’!
And then Zendesk’s founder Mikkel Svane joined the influencer by calling Freshdesk a ‘freaking rip off’.
How Freshdesk (that renamed to FreshWorks in 2017) handled this animosity is a good lesson in digital PR!
The name-calling was uncalled for, was happening on Twitter, initiated by well-known people from the same category (SaaS), and would affect consideration of Freshdesk among prospective customers, particularly in the West where the words of Ben or Mikkel carries more weight. And Zendesk was a relatively bigger name by then, so Mikkel coming down to the level of street-fight by indulging in name-calling was going to make unsavory news for Freshdesk.
What choice did Girish and Freshdesk have, in terms of a response?
The usual PR rulebook within the world of mainstream media PR says that one shouldn’t accentuate bad news by shining the light on it and bringing it more attention. That is, do not draw attention to something that could affect your perception negatively.
The most obvious step was to join the conversation. That would mean the negative perception would remain where it started and could reach the same people it would create a perception with.
Girish engaged with Ben politely, but Ben seemed more concerned about continuing his tirade using just the names of both companies since they both had ‘desks’!
But when others joined in, and even Zendesk’s founder chimed in, Freshdesk knew that they had to do something else to contain the damage. But, instead of focusing on merely containing the damage, they went on the offensive!
So, Freshdesk created an entire website called ‘Rip Off Or Not’ using Mikkel’s own quip!
There were two objectives for this website:
1. Act as a fact-check repository to showcase the bad faith action by Ben, since he was professionally linked to Zendesk
In a 2015 post for ComputerWorld, Ben adds a specific disclosure to this effect.
2. While people enjoy the drama behind the revelation of why Ben was attacking Freshdesk, offer them a free demo of Freshdesk! You’d see that the free demo link is added thrice on the website!
Freshdesk demonstrated chutzpah in this offensive. The website’s URL was ripoffornot dot org, while the page itself was named like it was validation from a rival company’s CEO! Effectively, Freshdesk turned an impulsive, tacky Twitter tirade by a rival company CEO into a statement of validation, by calling people’s attention towards it and turning them into demo users. And that perhaps comes only from the confidence in their own product/service.
This tactic is the bedrock of digital PR – the participants involved are not the only audience… the whole world is. Whatever you say online is a broadcast, not a one-to-one conversation. The currency to digital PR is attention gained – or, pull communication, unlike media PR that is push communication. The crux is to pull attention towards you, for a purpose. Even if it is bad news about your own company, make sure that you pull attention towards it but turn that attention into something positive.
That site , by the way!
The only thing Freshdesk got wrong was the quote in the end that was attributed to Mahatma Gandhi.
It is indeed popularly attributed to Gandhi and many famous people have made this attribution, but 🙂