At PageLime personality meets functionality

I happened to send out a Tweet today (like I do everyday) about a new product that's being offered in the wild, Apostrophe.  It's a great CMS (content management system) that was written by some great folks from P'unk Ave in Philadelphia.  In addition to being pretty simple to install, it's highly customizable and has a very slick design.  I highly recommend it to web developers, graphic designers and people dabbling in the art of web dev.  But alas, this post is not about Apostrophe, it's about another CMS tool called PageLime.

PageLime is another CMS that is completely web based.  This means, as a SaaS (software as a service) product, there are no server-side installs, no extensions to be added to Apache or complicated databases to be setup.  PageLime was created by two guys who were/are freelance developers and hold full time jobs in addition to supporting PageLime -- Emil Anticevic and Thomas McLeod.  And they've done an excellent job so far from a technical and personal perspective.

Right after I signed up for the service, I got an email (a form email) from one of the founders over there, Tom.  While it was an automated email, it had a number of things that help people connect to a great service: It was personal, humorous, to the point and from a real email address.  Let's take a closer look at each of those and why I feel that this will eventually lead these guys and PageLime to great success:

1. Personal - The email that came through looked like this:
   Hi,
   I'm Tom, co-founder of PageLime. I just saw that you registered a new account. Let me know if you have any questions,comments, concerns, PageLime bugs, want to talk about life, or anything else. I would love to help out. Thanks - Tom
   See how Tom and Emil did that?  They make the user feel like they were receiving a real email from the founder.  This means that the user feels a personal connection to not only the person sending it but the company and product behind it.


2. Humorous - Part of the email mentions that they'd love to talk about life with you.  They aren't trying to pitch more about their product or trying to elicit only comments and suggestions from the user, they're actually trying to make a real connection.  One that may last beyond the use of the product, today.


3. To the point - This welcome email is short and to the point (not like this blog post).  It means that it's a quick read, I didn't send it right to spam and I didn't have to load any images to get the whole picture.


4. From a real email address - This may be one of the most important aspects of this welcome email.  The email comes from Tom and Tom's real email address.  This means that if I do want to talk about life or report some PageLime bugs I can simple respond to the email.  It doesn't go to some massive mailbox, it goes to Tom's actual inbox.  That's pretty neat.

There are a number of ways that companies can make a real connection to their users, fans and readers and these are just a few things that PageLime has done well.  I hope to see them continue to be as personal as they can for as long as they can.  This is uber-important for the future of their product.

What do you think?  Should companies be more personal?  Less?  Should they try to stay involved with their users on a real level or stick with the "large company" mentality?

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