Tag Archives: Customer service

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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March 13, 2013 · 9:01 am

Wet Newspapers

Here are a couple of quick examples of how two companies address the same customer happiness issue with two differing degrees of success. You’ll notice I say customer happiness rather than customer service. That’s because more often than not the service defines the happiness or lack thereof.

It rains here from time to time. As I’ve mentioned previously, we have a couple of newspapers delivered here at Rancho Deluxe each day. Rain and newspapers are fundamentally incompatible – just try to read one that’s been left out in the rain unprotected.  Every once in a while, the delivery person doesn’t get the newspaper wrapped up too well and it’s wet.  Not a big deal.

We’ve had a wet week and so each of the two newspapers – The NY Times and USA Today – has shown up wet.  What happened next is the subject today.  In the case of the Times, I went on their website where the link into account service is very clear and let them know we received a wet paper.  I was given the option to get a credit or to have another paper delivered – potentially that same day.  Three clicks and all done.  The paper did show up followed by a telephone call from a human – not a robot – making sure I’d received it and the matter was resolved.  Wow.

Compare that with yesterday’s experience with USA Today.  First, they redesigned USA Today ‘s website and it is very pretty.  Unfortunately, they’ve let “pretty” get ahead of “useful” and it took several minutes to get past the pretty pictures and actually locate the link into my account.  At one point I hit the “subscribe” button (which is all the way down the page – I wonder how that link converts?) but I could do nothing on that page except subscribe.  Oh wait – there’s a “chat with us” link available.  Maybe they can help?

Nope.  I gave them my name and email and told them I was a current subscriber.  This was at 8:25 am.  The autorespond said their reps were unavailable until 8 am in the same time zone I was in.  Right – 25 minutes prior.  Fail.

I won’t bore you with the details of how I finally got to the right page but when I did I clicked on “wet paper”.  I was not given an option on how the issue would be resolved (I still don’t know).  I was told it would be resolved within “1-2 business days” which is what the follow-up email said.

Two big companies, two very different responses to the same problem.  With which company would you rather do business?  More importantly  which one is most like the way your business handles issues?

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February 25, 2013 · 10:39 am

FailOS

The telephone went out at my brother’s house the other day. This hasn’t been an unusual occurrence and is usually resolved by a call to the folks at Verizon, his telephone provider. One pole in his area seems to have an issue and service will just go out for no apparent reason. When his line failed the other day, I called Verizon to let them know. That’s when things took an interesting turn that is a great example of what businesses can’t do if they want to survive.

1980s Dodge Ram Van Verizon

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“It’s because you have copper wire” the customer service rep informed me.  “You need to upgrade to fiber optic – have you heard of FiOS?”  Yes I have, but that wasn’t solving the issue since repair couldn’t come anyway.  Since no one is in the house most of the time, we’d have to call to schedule an appointment when someone was going to be there.

Fast forward a couple of days.  I was going to be in the house so I called Verizon.  Of course, the numbers listed on their website were not correct – I was instructed to call another number (why can’t a PHONE company switch you –  strike one).  When I got the rep on the phone and said I’d like to get a repair person to the house I was told the rep could “see your house is on old copper wire.  We need to upgrade you to fiber optic cable.”  I told him I was fully aware of FiOS and just wanted the telephone service I already had to be fixed.  Not internet.  Not TV.  Land line telephone.  After a few more minutes of him telling me all about the virtues of a service I didn’t want or need, he gave me the number for repair.  I stopped him and asked if he could just switch me over?  “”No, we’re a call center (which means he’s probably off shore) and I can’t do that.”  In other words, I called the repair number and was sent to a sales center to sell me FiOS.

Land lines are an endangered species.  It’s a once-ubiquitous business that’s declining rapidly.  Rather than selling the service on the merits – clearer voice, much better reliability in an emergency such as a storm – and providing excellent customer service to those still paying for the service, Verizon seems interested only in pushing FiOS.

This is what no business that wants to be successful can do – ignore the voice of the customer.  It’s not about what you’re selling – it’s about what I need when I interact with you.  There is no chance you’re selling me additional services when you demonstrate that you won’t service the ones I have.  Many businesses still put themselves above the consumer.  We can see it in their messaging, paricularly in social media.  It’s all about the brand, it’s all about the sale.  Sorry, guys.  Not anymore.

I fixed the telephone line myself – it turns out there was a short in the alarm box that connected to the telephone line.  It took about 3 minutes to figure it out and to fix it.  We’re in the process of selling the house and I want to be the one to call Verizon to turn off the service.  I suspect if this is how they treat all their customers that I’m not alone in wanting to make that call.

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