Back in 1995 digital audio on the home computer was just taking off. A company called Twelve Tone Systems produced a midi sequencer called Cakewalk that was very successful. Then the company decided to add digital auto to the program, and the result was a disaster. The program simply didn't work on some systems and the features of previous versions were absent on the new version.
The company president, Greg Henderschott, signed on to the various email lists dealing with his product and took questions, gave updates on the company's steps to correct the problems, and endured the blasts from unhappy customers. After the release of a fixed version of the software, Greg stayed online for nearly a year answering questions. I've long thought that his simple act of communicating with his customers saved his company. Twelve Tone, and it's current product Sonar, is a major company in digital music today. It seems that some folks in the photo related business could learn from this story.
juan