It’s a simple but very sad story. Dr. Libshitz want to get an account with Verizon to have DSL.

Verizon wouldn’t let him use his own name. Specifically Verizon’s computer objected to 4 … count’em 4 … characters in the doctor’s last name.

Ok. Computer’s aren’t perfect. But come on. It shouldn’t take an act of the gods to get this sorted out. The problem wasn’t the computer saying “no”. The problem was that no person would override it and say “yes”. Every person thought their job was to do what the computer told them to do.

GIVE ME A BREAK!

Verizon should put this story of incompetence in their new employee orientation for every single member of their customer service team.

Read the story here
http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/26089374.html 

(A special thanks to Jim Huggins (no known relation) for posting this here
http://jkhuggins.livejournal.com/96029.html?view=149021)

Ok. Not an original title. But I’m frustrated.

People who know me will tell you that I’m no fan of AOL. In fact, I believe that you ought to go out and register your own domain name and get yourself an address that you “own” … an address you can use for the rest of your life no matter what ISP you happen to use.

But back to AOL.

A while back I had another experience with AOL that just convinced me again that AOL Sucks.

I have a client who used to use AOL. I eventually convinced her to change and we moved to an alternative webmail provider that lets her and her staff work more professionally. (In case you are interested, it is http://www.Mailtrust.com. My client has been very pleased.)

They allowed their old AOL account to continue to run, checked it, forwarded new email to their new account, and told everyone who wrote about the new address. After a while the volume on the old account declined and they decided to cancel the AOL.

Unfortunately, at the time they cancelled, they had just returned from a vacation and the AOL account had a vacation message on it.

The result is that when you emailed this CANCELLED account, you didn’t get a bounce. Instead, you got the old vacation message.

Ok. I can see how a poor design and a lack of a comprehensive test plan could allow this, but I’d just call and get them to fix it.

The first problem was getting AOL to even understand the problem. They kept assuring me that my account was cancelled. The fact that it might still be working wrong after being cancelled took a bit of persuasion. Eventually they decided I needed tech support.

After repeating everything again tech support began to attempt to diagnose the problem. No it didn’t relate to AOL on my PC. No, it wasn’t an operating system error. No it didn’t have anything to do with my firewall. And after being on hold for a while the polite, but inexperienced tech support guy returned to tell me that it might be a server problem and could I please hold more.

After more holding, he returned again. He was right. It was a server problem. And get this, he’d managed to get the server people to promise to get it fixed within 3 months. THREE MONTHS!

I’m a patient person. But when I lose it, it is gone.

So … I called back to the billing department,

Then I had them reactivate the account to a free service and reset the password since no one at the client could remember the old one. (No charge for all this.)

Then I logged in and turned off the vacation message.

And finally, I called back and cancelled again.

The result is that everything is ok. But I spent 45 minutes I didn’t need to. And AOL spent all that time not being particularly helpful.

The most infuriating part of the whole thing was the tech guy trying to tell me that since he wasn’t in the server department, it really wasn’t his problem, and also since it was a server problem it really wasn’t a problem, and implying strongly that 3 months is an acceptable response time.

Customer service courses have preached for years that despite the silos employees live in, your customers don’t see silos. They see a company.

Maybe AOL should take some of those courses.

Back on 06.Jan I was posting about Circuit City losing a bunch of money by firing 3,400 people who worked there and knew what they were doing and replace them with cheaper, and much less knowledgable, sales clerks.

That is not “customer service” in my book.

As I noted there, BestBuy was making lots of money because they understood customer service … they hired people and then trained them so they would know their stuff.

And, as I had posted just a bit before, my favorite computer store, MicroCenter understands customer service. Their employees know their stuff.

Now I’ve discovered a New York Times article about Amazon.com and customers. In this article, Joe Nocera, a New York Times columnist, tells how he didn’t get his PlayStation 3 from Amazon.

It seems it was shipped. It was delivered. His neighbor signed for it. And then, his neighbor, trying to be helpful, set it outside his door where it was stolen. Now remember … it was signed for.

Anyway, Joe called Amazon and asked for a replacement. As Joe said …

In my heart of hearts, I knew I didn’t have a leg to stand on. I was pleading for mercy.

The Amazon rep, listened, and then …

 After assuring himself that I had never actually touched or seen the PlayStation, he had a replacement on the way before the day was out. It arrived on Christmas Eve. Amazon didn’t even charge me for the shipping. My son was very happy.

 Joe goes on to tell all about Amazon and Jeff Bezos and Jeff’s obsession with the customer, with customer service and with what drives the customer experience.

Amazon.com’s margins are low, but their customers are loyal. They don’t do what makes money this quarter … they do what makes money year after year.

They train and empower their customer service reps so that they can agree to reship a $500 product … and land millions of dollars worth of free PR in the New York Times.

I’d barely finished my post about my favorite computer store (MicroCenter, www.myephemerae.com/my-regular-computer-store). I’d explained why it’s my favorite: the staff knows their stuff.

Then, I discover this InformationWeek article titled Clueless Circuit City Scrooges Itself Out Of Christmas Sales (http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/ 2008/01/clueless_circui_1.html).

In summary, last March, Circuit City decided to fire 3,400 people who worked there and knew what they were doing and replace them with cheaper, and much less knowledgable, sales clerks.

Sorry, but when you are trying to make a wazillion dollars selling stuff that consumers don’t really understand, like PCs, cameras, and televisions, you need staff that knows their stuff.

What happened? Well, their 3rd quarter and Christmas sales tanked.

In contrast, their competitor, BestBuy, trained its staff on their high tech products so they could actually help customers and what do you know … BestBuy’s 3rd quarter profit went up 54%.

Seems I’m not the only one who values staff who know their stuff.

Having posted about a New Computer Store (www.myephemerae.com/a-new-computer-store) it only seemed appropriate to mention my regular store as well.

I live less than one mile from the Dallas location of MicroCenter (www.MicroCenter.com).

I love this store for one huge reason … the sales staff know their stuff. Not only do they know where stuff is (which is a huge accomplishment in many retail stores today), they understand me when I don’t use the right words, and know what I should have asked for when I make a mistake.

(My personal computer is a PowerSpec (their house brand) and I’ve been very pleased.)