21 posts tagged “customer service”

Disqus is the latest site I managed to find a bug with (sigh).
   I have tried to upload an avatar to it. Now, I am pretty sure I had my photo set in Disqus a long time ago, but the site seems to have forgotten that setting and put me on to the default.
   Not a problem: let’s try reloading one.

Based on my experience, getting to this screen is a 2 in 4 chance. But that’s all right: maybe we can put the two failed attempts down to timeouts and other internet issues. I’ve now highlighted the part which I want on my avatar. I click ‘Save changes’.
   There is a 2 in 7 chance that I will get to the next screen, which confirms that the photo is saved. (The other five times, I was taken back to the screen that I had before this, with the old avatar in place. Reloads would not change it.) But on those two times, what’s happened? Did I ask Disqus to squash the photograph?    I don’t know how these websites work. I suspect there is a magic Harry Potteresque sequence of words I have to mumble while drinking spirulina to get the photograph right, which I utter while pressing the ‘Save changes’ button with my little right toe.
   Friends joke that I have a Frank Spencer reaction to computing (and I encourage the jokes, because I find it funny). But I also argue that I am doing what everyone else is doing, but that the sites themselves are imperfect and untested. The difference is I am less willing to tolerate it when websites go buggy, and I expose the errors. (I know our own sites are imperfect, too, but at least we believe people when they alert us.) And since support staff no longer listen to complaints (note: I have not told Disqus of this error yet but their instruction page is a bit hopeless), I use blogging to vent.

When Vox goofs, someone responds. Unlike some sites I can mention.
   Not only that, Daisy herself is a Voxer, which means whatever we go through, she goes through. That’s living your brand.

If you plan on asking Twitter for support, you can’t. The helpful section that was there has now gone, and you are stuck, as with Facebook, with known issues.
   The only resolution I had was to go to this forum link on Twitter. In the lower right-hand corner of the page, you should see a box where you can ask a question. Fill it in, and you should be taken to another website called Get Satisfaction, which is monitored by Twitter. You will need to sign in using Open ID or Windows Live.
   I am not sure what good this will do, but if you need to vent and hope there’s some remote chance someone from Twitter will hear you, it’s the best thing.
   It has been impossible to Tweet here all day, and Twitter has made no announcement on whether its site is down—it certainly isn’t a ‘known issue’.
   Hopefully the above will help some Tweeters out there who cannot post, add or block on the site.

Sons of Maxwell, a Canadian duo, flew United in 2008 and musician Dave Carroll was dismayed to find that his guitar had been damaged by the airline. Unfortunately, when he tried to get this sorted with United, the reps he spoke to all passed the buck, over a period of one year. It took this song going on YouTube (eventually getting millions of views) before United offered him compensation, which Mr Carroll suggested the airline donate to charity. It’s actually quite a good song and well recorded, and it has helped raise the group’s profile tremendously!
   United, meanwhile, looks inept, with its too little, too late response.

[Cross-posted] Both JY Ætna and JY Integrity are fonts that users of Vista Print can select to make their business cards.
   When I first found this out from my friend Dale, who uses Integrity on hers, I was quite chuffed. But then I thought: I don’t remember seeing Vista Print among our licensees.
   I am not accusing this company of piracy. Far from it. It could well have licensed the fonts legitimately for each location. I am simply curious which of our retailers the deal was done with, and whether everything’s above board. Maybe someone at the retailer end goofed. Maybe the fonts were part of a compilation. Maybe Vista is indeed among the client lists, but I missed that month’s report. Maybe we messed up on the wording of the licence that we provided to that particular retailer. It would be nice for everyone to put things right. This is just regular, everyday commerce. Any explanation is conceivable.
   If it is all above board, then I’d welcome the chance to promote the fact that JY&A Fonts’ products are good enough for Vista Print to use. I love the fact that they are being used in an online application.
   We win, they win, customers become aware of more choice.
   So I contacted Vista Print. I asked if we could do a joint promotion. And I asked about the licensing, just to be sure. How hard could it be, after all, to figure out where one purchased a couple of font licences from? And why not have the opportunity to promote yourself further?
   I appreciate this is an international company, but then I also know that the purchases would be centralized.
   It’s been a couple of months and I’ve heard nothing. I’ve also heard from a colleague that he’s been trying to find out the same thing—for a year.
   Vista Print, your silence has me worried, and you already have some unhappy customers.
   Fast forward to this week. I mentioned Vista Print on Twitter. One of my Twitter contacts mentioned she wasn’t a customer, but she gets their spam. (I did, too, and in French—the same company or a licensee? Sadly, I’ve deleted them all, so I can’t back this up.)
   And Vista Print itself has a Twitter account. In fact, they Tweeted me, asking if they could be of service:

   I said they could and asked for a contact address (presumably via private messaging) so we could chat through the above.
   And what did I receive via private messaging?
   Spam, entitling me to 25 per cent off.

I sent off a letter ensuring Vodafone would never bill me again for the cellphone plan, and along came a message acknowledging it (especially as they failed to acknowledge my last two emails) with this prominently, in caps, in the header:

From: "PLEASE DO NOT REPLY - VODAFONE"
Reply-To: "PLEASE DO NOT REPLY - VODAFONE"

   In the body of the same email:

If you have any further questions please reply to this email …

So which is it?
   The New Zealand office is the only Kiwi person or organization I have blocked from my Twitter account.

Wow.
   That’s all I can say after the Crowne Plaza’s contact with me yesterday.
   As some of you know, I wasn’t that complimentary about the Crowne Plaza Today Gurgaon hotel during my time in India. The service was a trifle slow for such a top-rated establishment, and I blogged about it, almost in a throwaway fashion.
   Yesterday, two of the staff—Monica, as well as Nitin Sharma, the assistant director of the food and beverage department—called me to apologize. And this morning, I awoke to find a written apology from Mr Sharma, which I have gratefully accepted.
   His words: ‘I would like to extend my sincere apologies for the delay in service at the bar.
   ‘I hope you will accept my apology and give us another opportunity to showcase our hospitality. Once again I am truly sorry for the inconvenience caused.
   ‘I would request to give us another chance of proving the real hospitality of Crowne Plaza.’
   If I wasn’t already enamoured with the high quality of Indian hospitality, I am now.
   Of course I will be delighted to return to Gurgaon and check out the Crowne Plaza Today once more.
   I’ve also offered to write about this in the online edition of Lucire, because the positive side of this deserves a wider airing. Who knew that the Crowne Plaza would make a customer feel this good after a negative experience?
   This is real customer service in the 21st century. It shows (a) consumer power; (b) the fact that brands are now being steered by audiences and that the legal trade mark owner tends to be a steward steering perceptions; (c) that the Crowne Plaza is willing to engage its customers, safeguard its brand, and help steer those perceptions positively.

We all know that Facebook is arrogant, with the way it has treated people over its redesign. I didn’t know that illiteracy was now a job requirement. What, pray tell, connects the answer with my question? What is this place, Yahoo!? I have missed the salutation and closing as I see no point to embarrass the Facebook support member who probably copied and pasted his reply. This is an issue that runs far more deeply.

One friend, *******, is on here but had to sign up as ******, because she tells me that Facebook won’t allow her name. Another friend—I am asking on his behalf—really is called (and was born) ********, but he’s faced the same problem. Can these folks show a driver’s licence or something like that to prove that these are their names and join Facebook without resorting to an alias? I mean, there are some strange aliases already on here (how many Brad Pitts or Catherine Zeta-Joneses?) and while their names are a bit strange, it’s a shame they can’t use them here.

The reply came today:

We appreciate your email. Unfortunately, we cannot release any information regarding a user's account to anyone but the account holder. Sorry for any inconvenience this security policy may cause.

If you would like us to look into this issue, please tell this user to contact us directly from the login email address associated with their account and include a brief description of the problem. We will then be able to assist them further.

Thanks for contacting Facebook,

What?! When did I ask for information about any user’s account? And how can the user contact Facebook when Facebook has not let them join because of his name?
   The first friend I mentioned, who is on Facebook with an alias, already asked the service. They ignored her email. I wrote back just now:

I was not asking for information about a user’s account. I was asking what they would need to provide to you in terms of proof, since they can’t sign up with their real names. ***** has emailed Facebook but you have failed to respond.
   I do not see how I can provide you with an address because you have not allowed them to become members.
   Disregarding who these people are, in general, if a person with an unusual name wishes to sign up, and you bar them from doing so, what proof should they provide to you to show that that is their real name?
   I don’t want any personal information. I am seeking advice for people who wish to join Facebook—unless you don’t wish to have any more members?

   I really cannot stand it when customer-service people do not read what you have written. Yahoo! was infamous for this and Facebook had, before this year, been quite good to its members.
   Don’t get me started on Vodafone, which probably has the worst single customer support service of any company in any country I have dealt with.

Vodafone spammed me again on the cellphone. Scotty, when you get to New Zealand, do not sign up with these idiots. They never do anything right. To wit:

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Please see the thread below for the dialogue that has got us to this point.
   I vehemently dislike cellphones and consider them a necessary evil now that hotels and telcos (with calling cards) make it so expensive to use a normal telephone. They are, for me, strictly an out-of-town tool.
   But even with that limited usage, I am annoyed.
   My problems with Vodafone have related to everything from overcharging to spammingand your latest spam, quoted below, has not helped one bit with my already overwhelmingly negative attitude to cellphones and cellphone service providers.
   I have complained at least three times in writing about promotional messages from Vodafone. In November 2007, your company finally explained to me that I would no longer receive promotional messages, but that there would still be some necessary ones relating to the Vodafone service from a legal standpoint, specifically, ‘important information on solutions to outages etc that have effected [sic] Vodafone customers, will still be sent to all Vodafone customers.’ I can tolerate that status.
   Can you please, then, explain how the following text message from you is a legal requirement or something relating to an outage? Do not even get me started on the absymal English:

Tell us what u think & u could win $500 airtime! Free call 480 now 2 find out more or go to www.VodafoneVoice.co.nz to join our online panel
2008 Sep. 18 16:01
From : Vodafone

   If it weren’t for the plan I was forced into, I’d throw the bloody thing away and go back to being blissfully cellphone-free and put up with hotel overcharging, because that surely is better than getting aggro every time I have to write to you. But for now, please indulge me while the plan runs out by honouring your own promise.

Sincerely,

Jack Yan

The remainder of the message, containing older threads dating back to May 2007, has been omitted.
   Not many things piss me off, but cellphones do.
   And I am a tolerant guy. I even hired a cabbie driving a Toyota one time in Auckland. I also recently spoke to some communists.
   Strangely enough, I would like to hold on to my number post-plan for emergencies for the very small group of people who know it, but I can tell you now that Vodafone will not be my provider of choice.

Wow, this is what I call service. No sooner had I moaned about CarGurus.com and Car IQ not doing their research in my last post, along comes co-founder and CTO Nick Shanny, on this blog, telling me that all had been sorted.
   I know technically it’s not hard these days to monitor what people are saying, but to actually give a damn—I take my hat off to Mr Shanny.
   Pity there’s not the same amount of caring in other parts of commerce, but it’s good to know some companies take their reputations seriously.