There's No Escape ...

Listen: no business is immune anymore from having dirty customer service laundry aired in public in the most frightful way. A call between a Dell rep and an angry customer illustrates this.

In essence, the customer was upset because he spent an hour on an automated system trying to find out how to turn off a laptop stuck in shut down mode. At the end of the call, he is told by the human Dell customer service representative to hold down the power button for 1o seconds. But the caller, by that time, was agitated almost to the breaking point (warning: the strongest language is involved).

While the Dell rep does not stoop to yelling back and appears calm, the smirk in his voice clearly comes through, and makes Dell look bad, bad, bad – really worse than if the rep had yelled back. The answer is to be authentic. No one would have blamed the rep if he’d complained about the behavior of the customer: that would have been an authentic, truly human response. There’s only one way to get respect here that I see, and that’s to just honestly care about how much time the customer’s wasted.

Banks : Don't They Have To Provide Good Service?

About a month ago, I got into it with my bank. The problem? BofA had decided that the way I was withdrawing funds was "unusual," based on some algorithm they had created. I could understand that, but the problem was that I'd been withdrawing money the same way for - let's see - about two years.

And how did I discover this new algorithm? You guessed it: when I went to use my debit card on my way to the airport. Luckily, I had another bank card I could use.

Why write about this now? Two reasons. First, I read this article by Paul Gillen over on B To B Online a few days ago.

But what tipped me over was my friend battling with her bank, Washington Mutual, for six days. In her case, she was battling over thousands of dollars, and a frozen account. In the end, after several horrid phone conversations, in desperation she went into a branch. That worked, and the "very nice young man" even followed up the next day with her.

Wow.

So how do we rate something like this? Was WaMu successful or not? In my case, I don't know what worked: I both called and went into the bank, but didn't see results until weeks later. In fact, I was considering changing banks, but what a hassle - and this, I think, is what banks have working for them that allows such awful, uncaring service to exist. Changing banks can be just a pain. So I waited and waited to see if the situation would continue, and lucky for me, it was magically fixed.

Banks also have this whole mysticism thing going on: who knows how they operate? I was told there's an algorithm - does that mean suddenly there wasn't? Did they change it? Or do I have a special notation on my account, allowing the alg-y thing to be bypassed? Who knows, so how can I compete?

My friend was given 3 different reasons why the problem was occurring and 3 different ways to correct it - but nothing appeared to work until she presented herself front and center. In the end, it was the bank's error - to which they never admitted. In her case, I guess you could call it mumbo-jumbo instead of mystical stuff.

The upshot is that banks really need to do a better job. Indeed, given that they are responsible for such an important part of all of our lives, you'd think they'd actually give a hoot.

So what can all of us do about this? You got it: blog, baby, blog. Follow Paul's lead.

"Shoot" the Rapper

This is not amusing:


You can read more about it at All Hip Hop.com. I found this when looking up the MySpace ads for a few of the presidential candidates. These ads are showing up on the pages of Virginia Tech victims. The company is The Advertisers Reward Network and may have been running online for several weeks.

So my question is ... what is MySpace going to do about this?

DirecTV: They Don't Care, I Guess

Tim Jackson over at MarketingProfs says DirecTV struck out; he provides a detailed report of DirecTV's failure to reign in its 100 mph drivers.

Fatburger's Phat Customer Service

The best turkey burgers I've ever had are those from Fatburger. They are succulent and juicy! However, that is not the reason I'm telling you about Fatburger: the service is as phat as the burgers.

Fatburger does not pre-cook their burgers, meat or turkey. So you have to be willing to wait. And I always am when I go because everyone is always pleasant and often down-right friendly. I don't feel like one in a long procession of customers. If you want a great burger (my friends swear by the beef burgers), see if there's a Fatburger near you!

Blockbuster and NYT: Too, Too Much

You know there are too many ads running on a single web page when your browser freezes up, even if for just 5 seconds. I had this experience this morning. Of course, it's not the first time and won't be the last - but I was shocked to have it happen on the New York Times. A banner ad and a side ad were the culprits, both from Blockbuster and both using Adobe flash. If I hadn't been working, that browser window would have been shut down.

I don't think this is providing a good experience for readers.

What's With the Missing Links?

For a long time now I've seen a disturbing trend on some websites, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and others. Reading the newest post from Seth Godin has finally made me comment. Seth said,

I read a blog post describing the best way to get the most out of a Squidoo lens. The author said you should make sure that the keywords and title are perfect and limit outbound links so that you can be sure that people will only do what you want them to.

He was talking about how to make your stuff so good that people just want to link to you. But that's not where I'm going. I want to complain about online news stories that talk about a person, place thing, website, or online company - but don't bother to make it easy for us to find out more.

Here's a great example. (Hint: try to find a link to any of the studies mentioned!)

It's not hard to embed a hyperlink, guys. In fact, you can craft a link that will open in a new window if you're so worried about losing eyeballs. That's got to be it, right? I can't think of another reason why they don't want give out some link love.

As Seth says, "If you make great stuff, people will find you."

[LATER THAT SAME DAY ... ]

Yet another example, in an otherwise fine critique of Edward Tufte's work, shows several links missing. Indeed, at one point the author quotes a writer from, "..the online Business Intelligence Network." Is there a better opportunity to provide a link?

Wall Street Journal: Overdoing It

WSJ.com is running a customer survey campaign. But in my 15 minutes on the site, I was asked 4 times whether I would take their survey. This is the second time this has happened, though the first time, about a week ago, I was only asked 3 times.

Needless to say, after that pestering, I did WSJ a favor by not taking the survey.

Dementia In NFL Players

Some N.F.L players are paying a high price for the glitz, glamour (and in some cases) and big payday of playing American football. More reports are leaking out about the debilitating health of retired players. The latest highlights two players affected with dementia. They are 2 of 20 known, with an estimated 60 or 80 more unknown.

If I knew that the NFL was making such a fuss about church groups gathering together to watch the Big Game so they could support their retired players, I'd be sympathetic.

Add to del.icio.us

Starbucks: I Smell Just Fine

A very unhappy Starbucks customer takes Howard Schultz to task in Time magazine. I enjoyed the well-crafted commentary, but wonder where this person lives. In parts of San Francisco, there's a Starbucks on every corner. Maybe the real estate is too rich where Bill works, so the company can't afford to buy the space. Or maybe no one's willing to sell to them?

Anyhoo, I've used Starbucks to jump on wifi, and think it's fine. Of course, I've not done it where there isn't enough seating. Still, I think it's great they have it. Why would I want Starbucks to stop offering wifi? I know I can always count on a speedy internet at a great price when I've traveling state-side.