Tag Archives: Customer satisfaction

March 21, 2013 · 9:48 am

The Bluetooth Runaround

Today we have yet another tale of consumer woe and multiple corporate failures.  This one is a doozy, since it affects a couple of popular products and is generating a lot of chatter on the interwebs.  In fact, one popular site has over a hundred comments on this topic and that’s just a subset of the problem.

Android invasion, Sydney, Australia

(Photo credit: Pranav Bhatt)

As our featured players we have a very popular phone, a couple of very popular families of cars, every cell phone carrier (notice I didn’t use the term “popular” with them) and a LOT of consumers.  Let me explain.

A coupe of months ago I upgraded my phone to the Galaxy SG3.  I love the phone – great display, very fast – no complaints at all.  It came with the Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android and I use AT&T as my carrier.  When I got the phone I linked it to my car – a Nissan Altima Hybrid – using Bluetooth and was happily using the car’s built-in hand’s free system to chat and drive safely.

A month ago I became even happier when AT&T pushed an upgrade to Android, installing the Jelly Bean version.  The phone seemed even faster, I got Google Now, and  I was happy to be running a more current version.  Until I received a phone call in the car.  It sounded like an alien calling and I had to pull over to pick up the phone and talk.  I rebooted the phone, it connected to the car, but the sound was bad.  Unusable, actually.  I tried pairing it again to the car, hard resets of the phone and a few other tricks but the audio is completely garbled.

A search on the topic showed me that we have a multiple part blame game going on.  It is an issue affecting not just Nissans but VW/Audi, Inifinitis and a few other models.  Just this phone, every carrier, and only when the phone is upgraded to Jelly Bean.  The carriers say it’s Samsung’s fault.  Samsung says the auto guys need to upgrade the Bluetooth software in their cars.  They all blame Android for not making the Bluetooth version in Jelly Bean backward compatible.

Here is what none of them are doing:  taking responsibility for fixing it.  What they’re not seeing is that it’s costing them money as well as massive amounts of goodwill.  At a minimum  it’s hundreds of calls to customer service, each of which costs money   In the case of the carriers, many people are demanding new phones (which have the older version of Android) to replace the upgraded one.  That’s expensive.  Does any business have too many customers?  There are a lot of cars/phones/carriers from which one can choose, and while very few people are going to make an immediate change to their car or carrier, people don’t forget how they were supported when the time for that evaluation comes.

I’m not sure how I’m going to deal with this.  Maybe I’ll just try to use the phone’s speaker if I get a call while driving.  Maybe I’ll go get a new S3 and not upgrade it until I see this is fixed or they push another version of Android (the rumors are 4.2.2. fixes it).  I’m really interested to see if any party to this mess steps up and does something other than point fingers.  Why am I not surprised?  Isn’t that sad?

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December 19, 2012 · 10:23 am

Wiggle Room

Maybe you’ve been playing along with the home version of Instagram‘s TOS controversy.  The interwebs have been buzzing about it for the last couple of days and since I hate to miss a party I’d like to pile on.  However, I have a bit of a different take here, so before you turn away in disgust at my blatant attempt at link bait, please read on.

Via Crunchbase

For those of you who haven’t been paying attention (or who aren’t Instagram users), the basic facts are these.  Instagram, a widely used photo-sharing application, announced it was modifying their Terms Of Service to include this language:

“…you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.”

Pretty clear what it means in my mind but I’m not a lawyer.  Actually, since these are for users to read and understand, I shouldn’t have to be.  In any event, many users were distressed that their images could be used without their permission in commercial ventures.  As one might expect, since there are quite a few professional photographers on the service, they were among the most alarmed, and posted that they were deleting their accounts.  So did many users.

The CEO of Instagram stated the following:

“To be clear: it is not our intention to sell your photos. We are working on updated language in the terms to make sure this is clear.”

Intention?  Hmm.  Here is my take on the whole thing.  If you’re not going to do something, say so.  Don’t use careful, lawyer-like language – “not our intention”.  It makes you seem like you’re lying.  If your kid was dressing up on a school night and says “it’s my intention to stay home and do my homework”, you wouldn’t just leave it at that.  We need to be clear and honest with our customers and partners.  Wiggle room isn’t part of that.

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December 17, 2012 · 1:48 pm

Learning From Hospice

I’ve written many times here on the screed about customer-focused business behavior. I want to tell you about several professionals who exemplify what I think is the ultimate in customer focus.  These are the people who provide hospice and palliative care.  While it may sound a little cold to look at what they do as a business (and it’s a lot more than that, I know), there are a few really important things we can learn from them.

First, we often focus on the lifetime value of a customer and we prioritize the kind of service we deliver predicated on that.  After all, the new customer who walks in to take advantage of a GroupOn offer is very different from the loyal customer who comes in once a week.  How do you prioritize your customers when the entire reason you’re there is that you’re going to lose them in the near future?  The answer is to do it as they do – deliver an incredibly high standard of service to everyone, looking at them as if they’ll be customers for life.

We all have customers who are demanding.  Imagine a customer who can’t do much of anything for themselves.  While we might talk about our jobs as 24/7 situations, very few of us actually live with our customers.  These folks do, and they are on duty 24 hours a day for several days at a time.   That might make anyone a little cranky, but part of the job is maintaining a positive attitude in the face of a lot of negativity (terminal illnesses tend to breed bad vibes…).  Something to consider, perhaps, the next time we have a 30 minute meeting with an unhappy client or a customer rep who needs to engage an angry consumer on the telephone for an hour?

I can list a bunch of other comparisons here but the entire point is to change your perspective a bit as mine was changed over the last few months.  A family member was fortunate (strange word to use when anyone needs this) to have had some excellent care from professionals providing hospice and palliative services.  The way they went about their jobs, even when their customer was grumpy and difficult – was inspiring.  It opened my eyes and hopefully I can pass that along.

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