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After spending 7 hours diagnosing my 8 month old Lenovo T60p today, which I bought with next business day on-site service, I found out that the computer’s hard drive is busted. They are sending me a new hard drive, but the image disks needed to rebuild the hard drive will take three days. When I told the technician that they should not sell their service as a next business day service he snapped at me telling me that he was not selling anything - he was just fixing stuff over the phone.

So much for IBM service…

And this is the computer that already had its main board as well as its memory replaced (within a week or so).

In the old days they called this a lemon…

Time for Mac?

I already wrote how MetLife refused to renew an insurance policy on a Condo we own in Vermont because I had too many claims on my main home, and how committed I was to move all my business, 7 policies in total, away from them. Before I could even shop around for a new insurance provider, they dumped me for the insurance on my main home.

I have been a loyal customer for 20+ years. Every time I needed a new insurance policy I bought it from MetLife - so 100% customer loyalty for over 20 years. I am paying MetLife more than $12K in premiums every year. Over the lifetime as a home owner policy customer, which goes back 21 years, I had 3 claims - costing them less than $20K. In fact, one of the storms (the one when the Federal Government declared our county a Federal Disaster area - Mother’s day 2006) cost me $50K in repairs, for which MetLife paid me a whopping $500 (make sure you install sump pumps if you have a finished basement). The only issue is that the three claims came in a streak of bad luck spanning less than 3 years. So what do their sophisticated analytics systems tells them? Dump the customer, and send them form letter MPL9192-078 - stating: “All insurance companies set their premium rates based upon certain standards and expectations as to the characteristics of the risk which they will insure. such characteristics are blah, blah, blah…”

To add insult to injury, and because they dumped me, I may have to apply for insurance through the Fair Access to Insurance plan, which according to a few brokers I spoke with today could jack up my premium by more than 100%.

What is wrong with this picture? By all accounts I think that I should qualify for discounts on my premiums for being such a loyal and low cost customer, but instead I am being treated as if I tried to defraud MetLife.

That totally sucks…

I am not for big government, but where is the help system you need when you are so unfairly treated? Of course, I should not complain, as it is all about replaceable property for me. For others who get dumped from health insurance it’s a matter of life or death.

I read the stories of others being dumped by insurance companies, and never thought it would happen to me. Surely my insurance company would not do that to me, they always seemed to be talking nice to me, and always sounded like they wanted to help me…

That was until yesterday - when MetLife dumped me.

I have 7 policies with MetLife, including cars, homes and even a life insurance policy. In the 20 years of being a customer with MetLife I almost never claimed anything - until last couple of years, when it seemed like my house was being taken over with water. First came a flood, which ruined my finished basement - but of course that was not covered. Then came another big storm which caused water to come through parts of my walls - but since they categorized that as seepage, that was not covered either. Then came another storm which lifted some tiles from my roof, causing water to pour into my foyer. That was covered and cost them $1,900. And then, just after I repaired the roof, the outside walls, and the basement, my dishwasher popped in the middle of night - flooding and ruining my whole first floor and parts of my re-finished basement. That was covered and cost $14K to repair… Besides that I had a claim for stolen ski’s a few years back, which cost them $500, but which cost me way more than that as all my insurance policies got jacked up.

So yesterday I called to renew a condo policy for a condo we have in Vermont - and I got turned down for excessive claims… yes, you heard that right - 3 claims on 7 policies is considered excessive claims at MetLife!

Of course I am now ready to take all my business somewhere else - but are there insurance companies who are truly customer centric? Are there insurance companies who will actually know I am the same customer whether I have a policy in Vermont, Massachusetts or somewhere else? Are there some businesses out there worth doing business with? Or should I just go on price and consider them my enemy?

Let me know…I want to go away from MetLife forever!

The other day I went to my local CVS to buy some new razor blades and shaving cream. I was a bit surprised that they had their blades behind some sort of mechanized dispenser, but decided that it was probably meant to prevent theft of these expensive thingies. After picking up my blades and shaving cream I realized that the dispenser had triggered a store-wide message on the PA system saying something like “customer assistance in the shaving department…customer assistance in the shaving department…customer assistance in the shaving department…”. Now I did not need any assistance - I knew exactly what I wanted. I proceeded to the cash register with the PA continuing to blare its annoying message causing people to look at me strangely since I was the only walking around with shaving paraphernalia. It made me feel as if I had done something wrong - a real crappy buying experience. After standing in line for a little while one of the store employees spotted me as the guy who had triggered that alarm - and told me that I had bought the wrong shaving cream. I looked at my cream, the one I always buy, and told her that this is what I wanted. She argued that the razor blades I had bought, which were the Gillette Mach III, around for more than a decade, required a different type of shaving cream. With everyone in the store staring at me, I decided to follow the annoying lady back to the shaving aisle, where she pointed me to the “right” shaving cream, one that I do not like because it clogs up my blades 3 times as fast. So I told her that I did not like that cream - at which point she lifted her shoulders, as if I were one of those pathetic losers, and declared that I would then have to pay for them. That is when I realized that this was one of those good old 20th century bundling deals from Gillette. I tried to confirm with my helper - “so you mean this one if free if I buy it with the blades?”, but she had already given up on me and walked away.

But that’s what it was - a good old product bundle. One where one of the products, the real cheap one, would cause the other, the real expensive one, to become obsolete about 3 times as fast as with the other shaving cream, which btw also happened to be from Gillette.

We live in an age of unbundling - the customer wants and is expecting best of breed product choices, not just proprietary product suites. Technology companies have learned how to cope with it (well most of them anyway), restaurants in food-courts have learned how to deal with it, and just about any industry that has seen unbundling happen has found renewed growth and new business opportunities.Product bundling is not a good marketing practice anymore - especially when it is meant to move more crappy products that cannot succeed on the their own through the supply chain!

Gillette - please take note… and CVS, leave me alone if I do not ask for help - please!

[warning: rant coming] I have used LogoWorks for 4 projects now. The first two experiences were so delightful that I could not stop talking about them - resulting in more than one referral customer. The third experience had a little problem, but they addressed it by giving me a change, which I would have had to pay for, for free - so I was still a champion.

Then came my last experience. I ordered a logo last Wednesday, which was supposed to be ready this past Monday at 4:37pm Mountain time. When that time came and went and nothing happened I emailed support - getting a machine generated response. The next day came and went and nothing happened again, so I emailed support and got that same machine generated response. On Wednesday I took a closer look at that email only to find out that it listed the email for my project manager and that I should contact that person (for some obscure reason the system could not do that I guess…). So I did - sent an irate email to my project manager.

She simply responded: “Sir, you must complete your billing informatin for us to continue.” After a quick check, I found that not only had I received a receipt, my credit card had been charged. So I sent back all the supporting information with a closing saying: “Now what? This is RIDICULOUS…”

Now at some point in time I did create another account by accident, but that one had no projects in it - all four of my projects were in the same account that kept showing me:

My project manager sent me another saying: “Ok Sir I am so sorry about this I was looking up your project under your gmail address…I can see that the problem with your logo is that we do not have enough information about the company to get started.” Now, just like any other time I created a project with them, I followed the instructions and filled out the whole creative brief. But I never received an email asking me for more info…not at my main account nor at the other account, which had an email that I also use. In addition, I could not even access the brief to add more info…it was closed and telling me that designers were working on my project. I complained to my project manager about the fact that no one ever contacted me and that there was no way for me to add info to the profile.

My project manager responded by explaining that they never contacted me because they were looking at the other account - the one that has no active projects in it! And that I could email her the additional information about my company.

What are they thinking? That their customers are stupid or something?

So I responded: “That makes no sense (and note that in my experience as a marketer it is never a good idea to BS a customer – especially not an irate one)…But even if your system would have gotten confused, as you are, then I should have received a email there and that did not happen either…I am still not sure what info you require to continue….when you say you can email, what do you need? Address, telephone number, number of employees, color of my eyes? I am pretty sure that I said that this was a marketing services company – providing marketing consulting services. What else do you need???? When you are the one that is screwing up and aggravating the customer beyond belief, don’t you think you should be a little more helpful in trying to get the customer somewhat satisfied again?”

That was yesterday afternoon….I have not heard from them since - and my dashboard still says “Designers are working on design concepts….Check back Jul 16, 2007 4:37 PM Mountain Standard Time to view design concepts.”

Is this a case of a large company screwing up a gem by integrating it with their customer prevention processes? Or is this just a case of a team that made money on the acquisition and lost their passion around the business? Obviously I cannot tell, but having done 4 projects now, I could clearly see the downhill trend in this case.

[Tags: customer support logoworks customer+service ]

[UPDATE 05/16/07] After spending between 15-20 hours on the new computer in the last week, HP fixed their telephone lines and I got in touch with my case manager - who was very efficient. They are going to replace the whole computer. Fedex is picking up the old one today and I should have the new one next week.

[UPDATE 05/17/07] Someone from the small & medium business division emailed me to apologize for sending me two monitors - apparently this error occurred due to a system issue. She wanted to know if I “would like to keep the monitor or return it; this would be at no charge of course.” I assume the return would be at no charge and not the “keep” option…sigh

Depending on how you look at it, this could be the funniest or saddest buying experience - I will let you be the judge of that. This is my story of trying to buy an HP media center PC - a fairly high end machine by desktop standards. Unfortunately there are so many “Colbert-esque” twists and turns to this story that it became really long - so I apologize for the length of this marketing horror story…but I am sure you will relate to some parts of it.

First was the actual buying experience - I decided to buy an HP Media Center from the Home Office division but did not like the monitor choices from that online store. In looking around I found what I wanted in their small and medium business division’s store. Trying to buy that monitor did not exactly go as smooth as expected. Not only did I need a different account with different rules to be able to buy this product, which all by itself caused some problems as I described last week, but they shipped me two monitors - even though all my records and confirmations show that I only purchased one. You might think that was a good thing - getting a spare monitor for free. Not so, they also charged me twice (not right away, mind you, but a few days after I received the order)!

Hmmm…come to think of it, I may have stumbled across the secret HP formula for success…just send duplicate orders to your customers, charge them for it only a few days after someone accepted the order, and hope that nobody will notice
The real story started when I got my brand new machine on Tuesday of last week. Somehow I could not get the sound to work. I tinkered with it for a few nights thinking that it must be a classic case of “stupid user errors,” but no, I could not get it to work. On Friday I finally got in touch with their support department and spend a long time online with the first technician, who took me through all her possible help screens to debug my problem. She finally told me that the system was somehow not recognizing the Soundblaster card, which her system showed as having shipped with my new computer, and that I should shut off the computer, open up the tower and re-seat the Soundblaster card. And if that did not work I should reload the drivers. ..easy, that should solve my problem.

So I did that, but never found the Soundblaster card. Thinking that perhaps Soundblaster had stopped branding their product, I decided to re-seat all the boards I could find. When that did not work I reloaded some audio drivers but not the Soundblaster drivers, as I could not find them. So I got back in touch with the award winning HP support department.

The second tech took me through many of the same steps and also some new ones. After what seemed like an eternity she finally gave up, sending me a link to all the help screens she was going through to troubleshoot my system and saying: “Francois, Please try the steps from the article if that does not resolve the issue we will take the PC for physical evaluation. This will get your issue resolved” (in quotes taken from the actual chat transcript) I thought she had not noticed that besides buying a PC with all the bells and whistles, I had also bought an in-house support plan - the type that promises to send a technician to your house or office if something does not work. So I mentioned that to her and also said that her proposed resolution was unacceptable. I also asked her how I could return the PC and inquired about further escalation possibilities. By now, the only thing she was concerned about was: “Are you ready to send the PC to our factory, so that we would physically evaluate the PC and get the issue resolved.” When I asked what was included as part of the in-house service plan she answered “The in-home service would cover replacement of hardware component if any..” How she decided that this was not a hardware issue is a mystery to me - after all the first tech rep told me that it sounded like the system was not recognizing a piece of hardware….was it even there? When I asked for a manager she told me that a “quality manager” would call me back within 48 hours - which BTW still has not happened.

I can assure you that it was a lovely way to spend 3 hours on a Friday night - thank you HP!

On Saturday I took a closer look at the in-house plan that I bought, only to realize that you have to register that thing within 10 days or else it becomes null and void. I opted for the online registration. The system prompted me for some personal information and then for my products’ serial numbers and product numbers. At first it would not accept the product numbers which were listed on both the computer itself and on the invoice. It presented me instead with a series of numbers that did not resemble anything that I had received from HP. I picked one anyway but then the system told me that it could not register my computer’s serial number as it did not exist. Thankfully there was a human-based backup system reachable by fax which figured it out based on the numbers that the online process had rejected.

…another hour well spent on a beautiful Saturday - thank you again HP.

As you can imagine, by now I was livid…

I got a sliver of hope when I discovered the HP Marketing Excellence Blog authored by an HP VP of Marketing Strategy & Excellence who had just received some award by Brandweek for being a marketing exec who “gets it.” Hooray, someone at HP was engaging in the market conversation. I left a comment on his blog saying that I wished I could congratulate him for his new award, but that while he might “get it,” he had obviously not been able to instill that “getting it” into his company’s culture. Since marketing is all about making sure that all the customer touch points reinforce the same marketing promise you make at the point of sale, I told him that I could not consider HP’s marketing successful and worthy of an award. He approved the comment really fast and sent me an email explaining that he would see what he could do to help me. I thanked him with some additional details of my ordeal so he would have all the ammunition to get this resolved. I also lefr a message on their customer experience blog - pointing out some the problems with site incompatibilities which I had encountered and the form that did not work, but that comment has yet to be approved.

Unfortunately things did not improve after that…

When by 3pm yesterday I did not get a call from anyone, I sent the VP a quick note letting him know that I had not heard from anyone. Shortly afterwards I got a call from a senior case manager who introduced herself and gave me a phone number with two extensions, one for my case and one her personal extension - unfortunately I was on the phone when she called and so that information came to me via my voice mail box. When I called back and dialed her extension, I got a message that this extension was an invalid extension. When I dialed the extension for my case the system would hang up on me. Thinking that perhaps it had to do with my VoIP service I tried repeatedly from my cell (T-Mobile) as well as from my home phone (Verizon) - but in each case the system would keep hanging up on me. I recorded this experience, so you can listen to what it sounds like to call HP support if interested.

Not believing that this award-winning support department would do this sort of thing I kept trying, finally entering a random set of numbers which got me to by-pass the IVR and put me into the general queue for their case management service. When I finally got a live person I asked to be connected with the extension of my case manager - only to be told that he could not connect me to that extension. He asked me for all sorts of information to identify myself and subsequently transferred me to someone else who asked me for all the same information - and also unwilling to connect me to my case manager. 45 minutes later I got transferred to a third person who first asked me “how” he could help me, but then quickly sensed the mood and tried to connect me with my case manager. When that failed he asked for my number and proceeded to give me the “right” number for me to call back - which was the same number I had tried all along. I asked him to use his cell phone or some other phone to call that number himself and verify that it kept hanging up on me. He said he would, put me on hold and NEVER came back. I did receive an email from my case manager saying that she was unsuccessful in reaching me via phone (1 try!), but that I could call her back at her personal extension - that same defunct number. I tried to reply to the message but it was one of the mailboxes you cannot reply to…

…another 2 hours well spent - thank you HP!

If anyone at HP is listening, here are a couple of recommendations:

• Stop your marketing - if your post-sale processes are set up to destroy your brand promise as it did for me, then all your marketing dollars are wasted resources. They will not buy customer loyalty, which is where your long term profitability will come from
• Stop focusing on optimizing mind-less processes. Empower some humans to by-pass the processes and get the customer the help they deserve. Build escalation steps within your support infrastructure that includes real techies - not telephone operators who are following a set of screenshots to debug a system
• Fix my problem or send someone to pack up and pick up this machine - as a small business owner I cannot afford to spend any more time on your problems, and I certainly do not want to inherit them

Buying and supporting PCs is getting worse than dealing with airlines. Even my $4-7 (for full fault tolerance) a month ISP is offering me better service.

Hopefully someone at Lenovo is paying attention - if this is how their competition deals with customers it cannot be that hard to capture all those lost souls and turn them into life-long loyal customers.

Click to hear the sound of HP support hanging up on you…

[Tags: HP customer service hp hell wom hp problems marketing]

[rant coming] OK, so I am in a complaining mood this week, but as a passionate marketing person it is so depressing to see how large companies deal with their customers. My last mind-bending experience is with Sony.

I bought a Viao laptop from their online store last week and picked a model/color that was in stock and that was going to ship this past Tuesday - May 8th. I even paid for the 2 day shipping upgrade as I wanted it for the weekend. On May 8 I went online to check on my order and their system now showed that my order was now not scheduled to ship until May 9th. So on May 9th I went and checked and the system showed that my brand new toy would ship that day. When I checked on May 10th I was shocked to find the system now yelling at me: “CURRENTLY OUT OF STOCK, ship date unknown”. Never did I receive a notice from Sony explaining what was happening. The only thing I got from them was a useless dock that I had ordered with the PC. So I emailed them to complain about my 2 day shipping surcharge which was now meaningless and also to ask them for clarification on what was going to happen and how I could potentially cancel my order and return the dock.

36 hours later, the system is still yelling: “CURRENTLY OUT OF STOCK, Ship date unknown” and I still have to receive my first email or phone call from Sony. What did I do wrong?

Companies operating in the consumer electronics space have to know that as long as they do not screw up, people will continue to buy their brands when it’s time for an upgrade. That is true for PC’s, printers, cameras, you name it - heck - I bought 7 Dells before they screwed up. So how can a company, who is currently not doing that well to begin with, first screw up on their supply chain management so than a product that showed in stock suddenly goes out of stock with an unknown ship date, and secondly screw up even more by not communicating with a customer who not only paid extra for expedited shipping, but who also took the time to alert them about the fact that he was becoming irate? And did I mention that I usually buy top of the line, or should I say with tons of options that you don’t really need - so over a lifetime this could mean tens of thousands of dollars to Sony just from this one customer - me.

These are the basics…this is not sophisticated management theory:
a) make sure you have a reliable supply chain
b) have an impeccable customer service process - especially when a) fails

My Return on Information with Sony is close to zero…

sigh…

[end of rant]

[Tags: customer service supply chain sony viao roi return on information]

Last Friday afternoon I was supposed to fly from San Diego to San Francisco on Alaska Airlines. We all know that the airline industry as a whole has gone down the tubes lately, but the 7 hour ordeal I went through was just a little over the top - talk about a business that could not care less about their customers.

It first started with weather and air traffic control delays - a problem which seemed unique to them as 3 United Airlines flights for San Francisco left with no problems. They then boarded us and announced that we had one additional delay. When our time to leave came up they told us that one of the air-conditioning packs was on the fritz - even though I could swear that we were still getting fresh air through the vents. When that was fixed, a circuit breaker tripped, and we all had to deplane. We each got a $6 meal voucher which got you a small pizza with no toppings and no drink - pepperoni or anything else had to be paid for by the customer.

We were then told/lied to that we would leave on an airplane that was parked at the gate next door with the same crew except for a new pilot. In the meantime I noticed that they had changed the flight number at the gate with the supposedly broken plane to a later San Fran flight.

When we finally boarded our flight one guy from the later flight tried to get on ours and was told that his flight would board momentarily at the gate next door. Knowing that the plane was broken, and having been lied to all night, I felt bad for him - thinking he would not see San Fran that night.

Our new plane had no power, since power could only be turned on by the pilot who had not yet arrived - a new twist in the story as I was led to believe that we had a new pilot who was already in the San Diego airport. No power means that it really gets hot, and it also means that the toilets do not flush, so it really gets stinky too. After being in there for awhile we saw the other airplane - the one we were on originally - take off for San Francisco! Once that flight was gone we were told that our pilot had arrived but that he was so ill that he had to be taken away by paramedics…so they cancelled the flight.

Couldn’t they come up with a better story?

Obviously they decided that since we were so delayed already they were better off canceling our flight and having the next flight be an on-time departure. Instead of telling us that, they kept us at the airport for another few unnecessary hours and then made us board an empty plane so that we would not rebel when the later flight took off…

…of course, there was no budget for overnight accommodations…you were on your own - they would not even make suggestions on where to stay. There was an Alaska Airlines manager at the airport but he was not available to speak with customers - I bet he was fearing for his safety at that point.

When I tried to leave for San Francisco the next day, the only thing they could do for me was to get me there by 10:30pm through Portland. When I asked if they could put me on another airline they rudely told me that they could not do that and that I had to buy another ticket from another airline directly if I wanted to see San Francisco before 10:30 that night…

Note to self - never even think of flying Alaska Air again. They are rude and they don’t even try to pretend that they are not lying to their customers.

[Tags: Alaska Air Alaska Airlines customer service worse practices airlines]

My PC has been sluggish lately. Since I do not have an IT department I looked for some online solutions to help me figure out what might be wrong with my system (I know that it is partly my fault as I keep downloading beta software that is really pre-alpha software)…

After (very little) research I decided to download the Uniblue Wintask Pro - which seemed to have received good reviews from sites that I trust (i.e., CNET). On top of that it came with free software that promised to speed up my PC - exactly what I was looking for. When I tried the Wintask Pro it did not seem to offer me much more than the Windows Task Manager - so I went for the free software that promised to solve my problem. The minute I launched the application it told me that there was an upgrade available, which I eagerly downloaded (yeah, yeah, in my multitasking way of doing things I am sure I missed some legal “fine print” in the process somewhere). After running the application’s diagnostic it came back with a whole bunch of issues related to my computer that needed to be “optimized” - which of course resulted in much optimism on my part that I would finally be able to solve my problem…

…except…the new version can only do diagnostics. If I want a version that actually fixes the problem I need to buy that one too…

How is that for misleading a newly minted customer who just dropped $50 on your solution?

I may spend another nanosecond or so to see how I can get my money back - since they have a big sign on their site claiming a money back guarantee - but do you think that I would ever recommend this company or buy from them again?

Marketing and customer service is not so complicated - it starts with common sense!

• Do not trick your customers
• Do not lie to you customers
• Do not mislead your customers
• Do not blame your customers - even if it is their fault
• Do not treat your customers as if they were stupid - even if they are
• Don’t assume that customers do not talk about their experiences with others
• And please, do not assume that customers have no memory

Oh, one more thing - Everett Rogers laid out a scientific approach to the principles of adoption of innovations (same as new products) back 40 years ago - this is not rocket science - it’s almost antique!

[/rant]

[Tags: customer service uniblue]

[update 11/28/06] See also related article on how Bruegger’s gets it and fixed the problem.

For awhile I was refraining myself from writing negative things about Bruegger’s as my previous rants (here is one) got a pretty high ranking on Google. But the absurdness of their practices is so flagrant that is has become too hard not to write about it.

A few weeks back I went to Bruegger’s only to find out that they had no bagels - you heard that right - on a Sunday at 8:30 am they had NO bagels. Apparently the baker had overslept. If you are a bagel shop and for some reason you have no bagels, why even bother to open up shop???

Then a week later I got a bagel with hair in it. We tried to convince ourselves that it was hair from a cleaning brush so that we could at least continue eating the others - but even that is unacceptable!

When I walked into the store last week, there was a huge line…and one very sloooow server. When a guy ordered 36 assorted bagels I thought I was going to die - the misunderstandings and the recounts that took place as part of that transaction were like a caricature on how to really piss off your customers. The thing is, even that server probably should not have been there. She most likely missed the memo that said that there was a team meeting on the back porch of the store. Indeed, after waiting in line for 15 minutes, a team of 4 Bruegger employees - including the top store manager (a very grumpy man), and the assistant manager (who clearly lacks respect for the top dog) - all came in chatting from the back porch - oblivious to the collective negative energy that was about to turn violent in their store.

And then there was this morning. I was early and there was only one server again, who evidently had forgotten (or never was given) the log-ins for the cash registers. She was using a little hand calculator to figure out how much customers should pay. I had three bagels and even though there is a special price for a three-pack, that little calculator did not have an option to enter a three-pack - the only option on that calculator was 3X the price of a single bagel. For awhile it thought it might be an operator error, but after a few minutes of arguments I realized that it must have been a calculator limitation (arrggghhhh!).

If you are in management at Bruegger’s and happen to read this post (although I bet you nobody is listening) - the next time you are in my town, go take a look across the hall to Starbucks. The place is humming, employees add to the vibrancy of the atmosphere, I have never seen them run out of coffee, and I have never had hair in my coffee or in their pastries!

And if you are wondering why I continue to put up with this nonsense - you have just encountered a case where the buyer and the actual customer/consumer are two different people. I don’t usually eat bagels - my son does. And yes, I have thought about taking him with me a few times so that he would get fed up with this whole thing and allow me to buy bagels elsewhere…

[Tags: bruegger’s customer service bagels]