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Post by becky642 on Nov 11, 2010 9:34:16 GMT -5
A couple of weeks ago when our basements went missing, I called General Mills about the closing of Millsberry and our missing basements. Since I was also reporting a tech issue, I was sent a transcript of the phone call. Imagine my surprise at not seeing my words written in the transcript. The customer service rep paraphrased the things I said and totally missed the entire point and tone of my call. Here's the response from General Mills from that phone call followed by the "transcript" of my call: Hello Ms. xxxxxx:
Thank you for contacting our company with your Millsbury inquiry. Again, we apologize for the technical issue you encountered on the missing items in the basement. I have reported this and it is a known issue and the web technical team is working to fix this morning. Please check back this afternoon and the missing items should be replaced.
We hope you find this information helpful. Please let us know if we can help you again.
Thank you, Imee B. Roberts Customer Care Specialist
>Original Message From: becky642@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > >I am protesting on closing Millsberry. This morning all of the items in the basement was all gone. We have 2 more months to play but we can't access them now. Please put them back. I've been playing for over 6 years since October 2004. My email address is xxxxxxxxxxxxxx, user name becky642. I am the decision maker here and I buy all of your products and my kids and I are hooked on Millsberry. Tell them to take it into consideration and don't close it. I will protest and we will be emailing you guys. Believe me when I tell you that is NOT an accurate representation of what I said on that phone call! Everyone needs to write! Make sure your comments are in your own words and not rewritten by someone who's just trying to get you off the phone. Please, take an hour or two and compose a thoughtful message. Tell them how much fun you have playing this game, how it's the best game online, how it encourages you to buy their products, how it has helped you develop friendships, and how much it has taught you. General Mills needs to know how much Millsberry means to you and your family, and what a loss it will be if it's closed. I will post my own letter in my next post. I know we have some GREAT essay writers in our midst. Sharpen those pencils and get to work! I have almost 100 email addresses I will gladly pass on to whoever asks for them.
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Post by becky642 on Nov 11, 2010 9:40:42 GMT -5
Here's the letter I sent to General Mills this week: Dear General Mills,
I think the decision to shut down millsberry.com at the end of this year is short-sighted at best. Calling it "graduation" is absurd. Graduation is something to look forward to. Bulldozing our beloved town doesn't fit the concept. Who makes these decisions? We have children in our Millsberry Users' Group who are in tears over this. What responsible company makes children cry?
Millsberry is the best, standalone, family friendly game on the Internet. It's unique. There is nothing else like it. That it's provided free of charge by the manufacturer/distributor of our favorite products is a bonus. I've bought certain things for my family because of the advertising within the game. We root for Clint Bowyer every week and load up our shopping carts with General Mills products.
If it wasn't performing to your expectations, why not reach out to the user base to find out how you could make it better? You might be surprised at the diverse backgrounds of your adult players. That's right, it's not just children who love Millsberry - there are moms, dads, grandmas and grandpas playing this game with their families. Some of us are retired or semi-retired and would love to help you take this game to the next level. As a Systems Analyst, this begs the question, what were your expectations? You've put so much into the game recently (some of it actually overkill), that it surprises me you'd seemingly cut off your noses to spite your faces. Was there some metric you used to determine whether or not it would stay open? What was that metric, and how can we help you achieve it? We want Millsberry to stay open. We want it to succeed.
Bulldozing it now, after you have invested so much time into it (not to mention the amount of time your loyal fans have invested), makes no sense. Why not put people in charge who actually play the game? You could easily promote even more of your products. Instead of the overkill I mentioned above (the abundance of Fruit Rollups products comes to mind), you could also offer Green Giant stuffed animals, Pillsbury Dough Boy ovens and refrigerators, little bags of Gold Medal flour for our countertops, etc. The possibilities are endless. Don't limit your target market by catering exclusively to kid's products on the site. Reach out to the families who love and could love this game. You can even tie the products in with those offered on your new shop.generalmills.com site. Get the pixilated version in Millsberry AND buy one in real life!
One thing we've been told is that this closing is due to a lack of participation. According to the counter at the top of the page, for the past year or two there have been at least 2,500 players online at some point each day. Since not everyone is online at the same time, I have to assume that at least 3x or 4x that amount are playing every day? Is that a close number or is it on the low side? Regardless, in 2007, when the counter first went live, it wasn't unusual to see 10,000 people online at one time. What happened? The servers crashed or slowed to a crawl, and people stopped playing because they couldn't play. This trouble with the servers was followed by months upon months of no new items or promotions. More people lost interest. Please don't punish those of us who have been loyal players. Let us help you fix whatever you deem are the problems.
Looking further, the site traffic stats for Millsberry.com on Alexa are quite impressive: www.alexa.com/siteinfo/millsberry.com All the more reason this decision is so mind-boggling. Sure, usage is always a bit down in the fall when kids go back to school, but that's to be expected. They still play on weekends and vacation days.
This was also eye-opening: valuethewebsite.com/www.millsberry.com
Why would you close this wonderful site?
Millsberry is the place we can all go to when real life gets us down or we're overwhelmed with work or school. There's no crime, everyone is nice, cleaning your room is as easy as dragging a mouse around, and most of the games in the arcade and the various activities on the site are educational, help tune fine motor skills and encourage friendly competition, while building rooms brings out the creative side in everyone. Millsberry provides hours of non-violent entertainment for families all around the globe.
After two weeks, we're still not ready to accept that this decision is final. Can we please find a way to Save Millsberry? I look forward to your replies and hope someone will address the questions and points I have presented above. Thank you all in advance.
Best regards,
I signed it with my real name and address, as welll as my Millsberry name and a link to our forum. As I said above, please take some time and compose a thoughful message. If you need anyone to help proof read it for you, just ask. It would be nice to also have it posted on this thread for everyone to see!
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Post by spudos on Nov 11, 2010 16:25:55 GMT -5
I think that letter is very persuasive and powerful. Thanks for voicing the concerns of many people on here. Although I'm busy with school as always, I hope to make time to write a letter similar to this. Thanks for the important notice!
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Post by becky642 on Nov 11, 2010 21:31:24 GMT -5
I forgot to mention that we have almost 100 email addresses to send our letters to. If anyone is interested, please PM me.
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Post by kanda on Nov 12, 2010 13:15:37 GMT -5
Dear General Mills,
I have played Millsberry on and off since 2005. Since this year I have been playing almost non-stop and enjoyed every second of it. I was very outraged and saddened when it was announced that Millsberry would be closing. While I understand that not as many people have been playing it as before, I think that the people who are still playing it are the dedicated members. These people get on daily and work extremely hard building rooms and yardsaling. Why would you do this to us? I know that Millsberry doesn't cost anything and while we all appreciate this we just want Millsberry to stay. I for one have been home sick for 5 weeks and the only thing keeping me sane is having Millsberry to come and play. I don't know what I would do without it and am not comforted with the thought of a "newer, better" game. I like this one just fine. Millsberry is simple enough for yound children and challenging enough for the adults and I think it would be a real shame to take that away. There is no other site like Millsberry. Other sites either cost money to play, are too complex for even the adults to grasp, or are too simple for children and adults. Millsberry is that wonderful game in the middle. My last point is....What do we do in the interim? If there is no possible way we could get Millsberry to stay open then why couldn't it be open until the new site is available? Many of us have tried to find a new game or a game to wait things out until the new one is open with no luck. I'm not good with having all this time on my hands and nothing to do! Please don't take Millsberry away from us! Sincerely, XXX
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animalfan5
Buddy
forever in my heart xx
Posts: 315
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Post by animalfan5 on Nov 19, 2010 20:22:31 GMT -5
Those are very good letters becky and kanda! I can see they are definitely from the hearts of the members who truly value Millsberry for the good things it has given to us over the years. Here is my letter, though I might change it a bit later on:Dear General Mills, You have decided that it is time for us to "graduate". Well, I still think there is time to reconsider. Please, think of all the people who you will upset if you truly make this decision final! Millsberry is a very popular website, and even if you consider the numbers to be low, there are still hundreds, even thousands of kids, teenagers, adults that go on everyday! That's right, you have succeeded in making a fun website that people all ages enjoy! I myself have been playing for more than 4 years, and I am still just as addicted the game as I have been when I first started discovering Millsberry. Think about it: Spending years collecting items, decorating rooms, earning Millsbucks--did I just waste all of those hours for nothing? What is it that you truly didn't like about the site anymore or about the players that made you want to close down? Isn't there an alternative solution? Millsberry has did so much over the years: It helped donate to people who are hungry or in need of money, it taught as fun facts and recipes through the Bookends books, and it helped us with many math and language arts skills. More than that, Millsberry has been able to find the perfect balance between being educational and being a fun game to play. Wasn't that the main purpose you opened www.millsberry.com 6 years ago? Perhaps things have changed over the years. Maybe user activation have changed. Maybe it is hard to keep running a site of this quality for so long, but we want to help keep it open. Please don't close it! Think about us: Those members who have been playing for years, read about all of the Millsberry news, visit all of the Millsberry stores, put heart into participating in every Millsberry event. Trust me, there is a huge number of people who are like that, myself included. Those people, and I, were literally in tears when they found out the news. Do you want this? I want to find a way to reach a compromise. Your Millsberry members are here, ready to find a way to keep Millsberry open and make it even better. I have to admit the best times I had in Millsberry was doing events like searching for Jenneira's spaceship items, buying cool items that have to do with random seasons and holidays in the world, and just earning trophies for games. I loved that Millsberry had games in different categories, which made us think about exercise and community service as well, as problem-solving? Didn't you have fun seeing how the little town of Millsberry has grown into a real community? To me, it would be like watching your kid grow up and leave home in a way. Think about what I wrote in this letter. Now think about how much fun you had with your site. Now think about if we really deserve to lose Millsberry on New Year's Day. It really wouldn't be a pleasant start to the new year, will it? Please consider what I have said. Yours truly, XXXXXX
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Post by kristi1980 on Dec 6, 2010 12:17:14 GMT -5
I want to apologize to everyone here that in the time that you all need me most, it has been one of the most trying times in my own life. I would love to also send a heart-felt letter to Mills about the many reasons why I love the site, and why they should not close. But I feel at this time, it would be slightly hypocritical, because I have not been able to log in recently and participate in the game, which has been very disappointing for me.
I really hope that General Mills does grow a conscience and listen to the outcries of its users and decides to remain open. I think that because people have been so loyal to their site, and dedicating so many YEARS to Mills' building and growing, that they should count for something more than just words. I myself have been a member of Millsberry since 2006 and up until only a few months ago, I played just about daily and it is truly shocking that General Mills company has made this heart-breaking decision so suddenly and despite the members. I would think that a large company such as this would have the heart to listen to its faithful and loyal consumers, at the risk of hurting the very business they have been using this site to promote for the last few years.
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