Update: Someone named Tony Wright (from RescueTime) has been kind enough to let me know that the change is working out well, and that RescueTime is a customer-centric company and not a me-centric company (i feel so special 
).
He also suggested that I re-read the blog post.
Aah – the joy of having a year’s time tracking data stuck with a company that randomly nukes features and points out that they are not a me-centric company. I guess there is no such thing as free lunch. It’s worth pointing out that twice in the past I’ve recommended RescueTime – not any more though.
RescueTime used to be my 2nd favourite productivity app (after The Journal 4 by David RM Software).
RescueTime basically is an app you can download and then it tracks what sites and apps you use and uploads it and lets you do different things.
It used to let you add tags. So, for example, I could tag all of the kindle related sites and then review how much time was spent on kindle related stuff.
RescueTime decided to remove tags completely sometime in June, and without emailing customers, removed the feature in mid July.
My past 6-12 months of use of the application and all the work I’d done to tag and classify all the sites and apps is lost.
However, to truly understand why RescueTime’s attitude to customers sucks, you have to read their blog post explaining this.
RescueTime think they know what’s best for customers, and are forcing customers to adapt.
Their blog post explaining this change is a masterpiece of ‘this world revolves around us’ and ‘who cares about customers’ -
Their #1 reason for removing the tags feature -
The VAST majority of our paying customers are not using tags or not using them well (i.e. tagging Excel as “excel” doesn’t seem like a productive use of time).
- So basically the non-paying customers don’t matter.
- Paying customers were not using tags well – so i guess RescueTime decides what using a feature well is.
They also hint at the real reason they removed the feature -
In addition to the data, tags create some big challenges for us. Creating visualizations of tags is difficult due to the one-to-many relationship (imagine a pie chart of tags- If Outlook is tagged as “work” and “communication”, where does Outlook time go?).
So RescueTime’s inability to work with 1 to many mappings means they nuke the feature? Wow.
And, they very succinctly explain why all the time users put into creating and using tags is irrelevant -
But why not just keep the feature and de-emphasize it? In an ideal world, this is what we’d do. But every feature that doesn’t bring joy/satisfaction to a meaningful percentage of our users has a cost… Too much cost, and not enough benefit, in short.
Instead of prioritizing customer experience and customers, RescueTime are prioritizing what’s convenient for them.
This is the cost of Free- that after 6+ months of using a sevice, they pull out the rug because it’s not convenient for them anymore. They also don’t have backwards support so all my tags are gone.
A few examples of customers feeling the pain
Example 1:
I’ve just checked and I have 581 things tagged as “work” which have been used in the past six months – RT has these scattered over all kinds of different categories. I’m currently a “Solo (Light: Free)” user. I can’t export this data to CSV. Is it all just going to vanish next week?
RescueTime expects me to go back and re-categorize hundreds/thousands of sites that I’d tagged over the last 6-12 months. Like this user, I’ve lost a year’s classification -
By removing tags RescueTime has lost me one year’s worth of classifications and I’ve kind of lost interest in learning how to make the categories work for me this way.
And a few more responses -
While I’m sure that I will adjust to the lack of tags, I’m perhaps disproportionately disappointed in this change because it’s an instance of software taking away features in an effort to dictate to me HOW should use it, instead of learning HOW i use it and adapting the software to better benefit that.
Oh no!!!! TERRIBLE decision! All my time on firefox now shows up as “System Utility”! I use the internet for work and for fun, and “System Utility” doesn’t capture AT ALL the essence of what I’m working on at any given moment. Oy, RescueTime, I fear this is the end of our relationship.
This is just a total lack of empathy with customers – and to make things worse you lose all the work you’ve put into classifying over the months/last year.
Closing Thoughts – RescueTime sucks
RescueTime have gone from a great solution to trying desperately to monetize – to the point that they’re mistreating their own customers.
I was hoping to see them succeed. Now, with their attitude towards customers and their sense of ‘we know what’s best for customers’ I’ll be surprised if they do.
Whatever you do, DO NOT use RescueTime.
Does anyone have any recommendations for a good time-tracking software? (online or offline).
Filed under: thoughts Tagged: | rescuetime sucks
I think you should re-read the post (and the comments, where most people seemed to welcome the change). I also think you should consider how appropriate it is to selectively take bits of the post/comments to paint the skewed picture that you have. You quote 3 or 4 people who commented negatively. Of the 35 comments on that post, only 10 were negative and most were constructively so and expressed willingness to give the new release a shot. Obviously, angry people are more likely to comment.
1) Customers were emailed via the weekly summary (you have the ability to opt out of that). There was also a big message within the app itself warning folks and linking to the post for over a week. And, of course, folks who don’t want to miss product news can also subscribe to our blog.
2) READ ABOUT THE DATA. The VAST (and I mean vast!) majority of users were not using tags at ALL. The majority of those that were were using them in ways that indicated that they didn’t even know what they mean (tagging Excel as “excel” for example). We also got tons of daily feedback from folks who suggested that the work that tagging required was painful.
3) I’ll give you some post-release data. Initial engagement (as measured by people who return to RescueTime after signing up) is up significantly. Signup rate (powered pretty much entirely on word of mouth– we don’t do any marketing) is also up. The changes worked!
When you say that we displayed a total lack of empathy with customers, you are sorely mistaken. The decision was based ENTIRELY ON FEEDBACK FROM USERS AND FEATURE USAGE DATA (again, re-read the post). I think you mean to say that we removed a feature that you (and a tiny minority) found useful. Keeping features like this is a good way to make bloated software and we think it’s a shame more apps don’t measure which features are used and cut the ones that aren’t.
We’re a user and customer-centric company. That doesn’t mean we are a YOU-centric company. I’m sorry for the folks who didn’t welcome the change, but our job is to make as many users happy as we can manage. Obviously, every single change (whether we’re adding a feature, changing the UI, or pulling a feature) is going to result in someone who isn’t happy about it. It sucks, but it’s the reality of change.
I won’t comment on the “desperately monetize” comment except to say that our revenue (before AND after the release) has enjoyed double digit percentage growth for many months now. I don’t like the phrase “monetize” – but we’re doing it quite nicely!
If you’d like a recommendation for other similar apps, you can check out SlifeLabs or ManicTime. I haven’t used both for a while, but they seem solid.
good for you that the change is working out.
Instead of telling me to re-read the post, you should let me know how i can get back my tagging data built up over my 6+ months of use.
TimeXchange.net is collaborative time reporting and approval. Simply create your project, invite other team members, set who will submit and who will approve, and you’re ready to go. Good for teams that are distributed or virtual because the collaboration resides in the “cloud” meaning anyone can be included in your project.
TxC includes timers, mobile apps and everything you need to submit and approve tracked time.
i agree, I am pretty upset they offer ‘free’ features and then pull the rug on them.
I am canceling my acocunt and further, won’t recommend it to anyone. I am so tired of companies doing this.
“enhancement’ – it used to be called bait and switch.
RescueTime should have forced a tag structure instead of letting people put in random tags. For example “work” should be filed under category A which might include other tags such as “play”, “family”, “friends”. And “communication” should be filed under category B which might include other tags such as “shopping”. Then each entry can be tagged with at most 1 tag from category A and at most 1 tag from category B. Visualization/statistics will be easier now.