Tag Archives: UX

Newsflash: MUSAK does not compensate for bad customer experience

09 Thursday Jan 2014

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Newsflash: Playing really low quality musak while the customer is on hold for 40 minutes DOES NOT improve the customer experience.  Nor, does ALWAYS playing the message that you are experiencing “unusually heavy volumes” right now improve your credibility. Now, I admit that someone in marketing who thought about for about 15 seconds *might* think that playing really bad music would be a good thing.  After all, people do pay money to listen to music.  Not everyone is a pirate.  And, people spend a lot of time listening to music.  Here’s the thing that will come to you if you think about for 20 or 30 seconds though.  People play to listen to the music they choose. They do not pay to hear the music you choose.  Furthermore, people pay to listen to music that is high quality. Granted, sometimes, when nothing else is available some of the people some of the time would prefer low quality music to no music at all. But NO-ONE chooses absurdly bad quality music over silence.  One more thing: unless you are a love-struck pre-teen, you do not listen to the same short sequence of music over and over and over and over for an hour at a time.  No.  You listen to a piece of music.  Then, you listen to a DIFFERENT piece of music.  Then, you listen to a DIFFERENT piece of music.

Now, I do grant that it is somewhat useful if you are going to put your customers on hold for 40 minutes that you give some sort of signal other than complete silence to show that you are still there and haven’t had the system “hang up” on them (which happens all too often but is another topic). But playing loud, obnoxious, very low fidelity music is not the answer.

Back to credibility.  If you are really monitoring the call volume and the customer calls at a time of really unusual high call volume, you may want to tell them that they would have better luck another time.  But if you *always* play this message, what do you think it does to your credibility? I am amazed to find that my credit union, an otherwise fine institution, *always* plays this message.  And every single time, it makes me think twice about whether I can really trust my funds to an organization that clearly lies every single day.

The word “simply” should be banned.

02 Thursday Jan 2014

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So, in 2013, I changed from four medical plans to four different medical plans to six plans for 2014.  Thank goodness we don’t have a “single payer” system because there is nothing I love more than pouring through a hundred pages of text for each plan which is mainly garbage but occasionally has important information.  There is nothing more fun than ping-ponging among doctors every time your plan changes.  Oh, wait!  I forgot that in addition to the plans I *actually* had, IBM also sent me huge packets of information on plans that were no longer relevant.  In the midst of all this, I was heartened to find a concise 72 page document from my dental plan which also informs me: “Please note: if you are a previous user of MyBenefits, you can still enjoy all the same features under the new plan. Simply visit (our website) and re-register with an updated username and password for access to your new plan.”  It is the word, “simply” that I object to. Indeed, in some parallel universe, there is probably a time and place for the word “simply” but in has no legitimate place in actually 21st century America.  It *invariably* signals this message: “We are going to make this difficult for you.  But we don’t want to come out and say that so we will preface our instructions with the word simply so when you have trouble you won’t blame us but yourself.”  

(Why do I need a different userid and password?).   Anyway, you know the drill.  You go to the website and the first six userids that bear any resemblance to my name are taken.  But they don’t typically tell you that till you also enter a password.  And, of course, there are the typical “security questions” such as “What sized underwear did you wear in the fourth grade?”  “What was your second grade teacher’s maiden name?”  “What was the name of the company you bought your first ant farm from?”  And so on.  

This ironic use of “simply” is not confined to websites.  It also applies to packaging as in, “SIMPLY remove the plastic overwrap.” Yeah. But, what if you left your chain saw in the garage?  “Simply, tear the plastic along the indicated line.”  In the rare case, when it is physically possible to tear, it never tears evenly.  More typically it is some semi-metalic plastic that requires an industrial laser cutter. the most recent example involved two different kinds of dry cat food.  These were nearly impossible for me to “simply” open.  I left the bags for a few minutes to get an exacto knife and when I returned two minutes later, my CATS had indeed simply opened the packages and spread the contents around the hallway.  For all I know, they might have actually ingested a piece of cat food but it was clear that their main intent was simply to cause a mess.  The reason they could open the packages simply is that they have cat claws!  I don’t!   Not sure what genius came up with the idea that packages of cat food should be opened simply by cats but complexly by humans.  

Since the word “simply” has simply gone out of fashion in its true meaning, I think we should simply ban its use.   Period.

I made a mistake; here’s what you can do to fix it!

18 Wednesday Dec 2013

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Having recently moved across the country, fixing up our new house, dealing with a huge moving van fire, health and family issues, I found myself with 45 seconds of uncommitted time, so I was **thrilled** to get a wonderful form letter from American Express informing me that a credit card I had cancelled about five years ago nonetheless had been compromised and it was up to me to take a series of time-consuming steps.  At last!! Something to do!! How thoughtful!   If all goes well, this would not only eat up the 45 seconds of free time but about 45 additional days.  Of course, all of these steps require either going on-line or calling an 800 number so we KNOW that all will NOT go well.  Going to a website generally means getting an account with a user name and email address.  These may be the  same or different depending on the site.  You can pretty much bet PeterSIronwood and Peter Ironwood and PIronwood are already taken so I will end up with some completely impossible to recall username like IPeterIWoodIS437.  Of course, I can regenerate my username by merely answering three simple security questions such as, “What is your favorite movie star?”  I don’t know.  Or, worse, it changes from day to day.  Maybe the people who made up these security questions have a favorite movie star that they keep constant for their entire 23 year lives.  But I don’t. “Where did you grow up?”  What makes you think I grew up?  And, what makes you sure it was in one place?  And, even if it was in one place, which is the exact spelling I used last time: “SanDiego”, “San Diego”, “San_Diego”, “San Diego, CA”, “San Diego, California”, “California”, “SoCal”, etc. etc. Of course, I could take the OTHER route and call an 800 number.  “We’re sorry.  All of our agents are helping other customers.  Due to unusual call volumes, your call may take longer to answer than usual.  Your estimated wait time is 5.5 centuries.  But meanwhile, you can listen to really loud, really repetitious, soul-sucking low-fidelity music.  This century’s selection is entitled, “The Dementor’s Theme Song.” You know what? If YOU screw up YOU fix it!  Don’t impose on ME to fix it.

The Opportunity of Disaster

30 Saturday Nov 2013

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After moving from Westchester County New York to the San Diego area, we were asleep (again) on an air mattress awaiting almost all of our material possessions to arrive the next day.  We were awakened by a call from our moving company that our things would not be arriving tomorrow morning as promised.  Or ever.  Indeed, our furniture, clothes, electronics, papers, photographs, paintings, kitchenware, bedding, etc. had all been destroyed in a truck fire near Albuquerque, New Mexico.  This was something of a disaster for us, and, from a positive “customer experience” standpoint, a disaster for the moving company.

But the point of this post is to point out that in this disaster, there is an opportunity for the moving company to be proactive and excellent and greatly ameliorate or even turn around this customer service disaster. They could, for example, send us a personal apology.  They could be in constant contact about the status of any remains.   They could arrange for us to visit the site of the fire at their expense.  They could arrange to quickly reimburse us at least for the full amount of our insurance with the moving company so that we could get on with our lives as best we could.  Obviously, photo albums, the drawings of my children, letters from friends, my grandfather’s paintings, and souvenirs from a lifetime of travel could not really be replaced.  But what *could* be replaced needed to be so quickly.  And, given that we were in a somewhat vulnerable state, this disaster really offered an opportunity for the company to provide the very best customer service they possibly could under the circumstances. 

That was the opportunity.  What did they do instead?  They basically refused to communicate with us.  At every opportunity, they balked; did not answer emails; did not answer phone calls; did not offer reimbursement.  As we found out later, they did not even pay the towing company who moved their van off the Interstate.  Instead, they focused on how to limit their potential liability by withholding as much information as humanly possible.  They refused to let us even come to the site and examine our stuff.  We found out the day before, thanks to our insurance company, that we would be able to see our stuff on Friday if we flew to Albuquerque and rented a car to drive to Continental Divide.  There we discovered the charred remains of our things.  And, we discovered that nothing had been done for an entire month to protect our things (or those of the other two ex-patrons who shared the misfortune of choosing this moving company).  What was left of our clothes, photos, furniture, etc. was all open to rain, wind, and passersby for over a month.  

Continental Divide is a fitting metaphor for the choice that a company faces when they make a BIG mistake.  They can admit the mistake and do everything in their power to make it right to the customer.  Or, they can do everything in their power to continue to screw the customer in order to save costs, face, and limit liability.  

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Where is the door?

30 Saturday Nov 2013

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Symmetry is often a really nice thing.  I like snowflakes as much as anyone.  So long as no more than three gather at any one time.

And, I suppose that making a building with four identical sides probably saves marginally on costs.  Maybe.  

But if you really care about the “customer experience” wouldn’t it be nice if the customer can figure out how to enter your building? I mean, enter it without walking the perimeter a few times.  Especially if it is raining, or sleeting, or boiling hot, or dark.  There is a variant on this which is popular with convention centers.  They are required by law I guess to have approximately 480 doors or more.  However, typically, all but one or two of these are locked.   

Perhaps an argument could be made that making the entrance to a building difficult to detect adds to security.  I seriously doubt it.  A determined burglar could find out by trial and error or observation where the door is.   That burglar has plenty of time because you see, being a burglar is how they make their living.  But not so your customer.  Much as you would love to *think* that your customer has nothing better to do than circle your establishment trying to find a way in, they do, in reality, have better things to do.  

Recently, I had occasion to visit Paris.  Do you have any trouble finding the doors in the building shown?  Last year was the 850th birthday for Notre Dame.  So, having an entrance which is distinctly visible from a distance as an entrance, we would have to say is a *solved problem*, n’est pas?  Check out Pattern 110, Main Entrance, in Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language.

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