While on the subject of customer service

Picked up this gem from BoingBoing. Word to the wise, steer clear (heh) of Fox Rent-A-Car.

FTA: Well-known BoingBoing poster tries to rent a car in Oakland, using his debit card. Fox required a printed itinerary to prove he's legitimate. Sure, he could have made up the itinerary just so he could show them a bogus screen. Had he known (and a smart crook would have) he would have had the printed document handy.

Presumably, they've had folks do this sort of thing, before. Well, one has to think they made their ridiculous policy for a reason. I wish them luck with that.

Where I work they recently changed policy. Previously, it was "verify, then trust". Now, they turned it around. Of course we don't rent cars, though it's arguable our risk in trusting could be much higher.

It's all a matter of what a company values. I would suggest that valuing your customers and treating them how you would like to be treated might be a somewhat better approach.

I have my own bad customer experience story with Budget Rent-a-Car. They routinely allow customers to reserve smaller cars, knowing they won't have one available when the customer shows up to rent. Then they try (hard!) to up-sell the customer on a larger car. When you push back they will tell you they don't have the size car you reserved, sort of implying you need to pay more for a larger car. Nope. I insisted they rent me whatever they had at the price I had agreed to when I reserved the smaller car. They really and truly didn't want to do that. They expected that it wasn't my money paying for the rental (but it was, in that case, and I was younger and poorer), so I really wouldn't object to being charged more.

I know this is their "policy", if you can call it that, because I have heard others relate the exact same suck-ass experience. Mine was back in 1987, and I will never rent from them, ever.

Hertz is the big one in the car rental business, and not for nothing. I have rented Avis for years (initially because it was the preferred car rental company where I used to work, and I traveled on business a lot), and I have always found them to be helpful and friendly. They really do try hard to please the customer. Once in Cincinnati the Avis agent drove me from the drop off to the departure area because rush hour traffic had delayed me. This was so I didn't have to wait for the shuttle bus and risk missing my flight. I don't know if he knew I was a regular, but I suspect he would have done that for anyone. Regardless, they sold me.

It's simple. And it's why I still rent Avis, today. I always expect that if I ever have a problem, they'll take care of it.

And the hits just keep rolling in ...

Q: What's the most visited page on my entire website (except for the 2 "home" pages)?
A: This one: http://rlaenterprises.net/blog/2006/03/microsoft-net-20-mscvr80dll-and.htm

I used to get a lot of hits because of the Windows XP install --> SATA hard drive "problem". Problem being there ain't no SATA disk device drivers in the XP install. Maybe SATA drives have become uncommon, or something.

When I look at my Sitemeter statistics for referrers, almost all of them are from the major search sites, and almost all of them include mscvr80.dll in them.

"Reports of my death have been exaggerated"

Sheesh. This article discusses the top 10 dead (or dying) computer skills.

Methinks they doth protest too much. First of all, it's COBOL (all caps) since it's an acronym--not "Cobol". Bzzzt! Thanks for playing.

COBOL isn't dead, not if my company is any indication. I have to think there are a lot of other large enterprises with tons of legacy COBOL that they're feverishly working on extending (and not just on "life support", either). At one time we may have dreamed of ditching this stuff, but today we realize the investment is still generating returns, and still remains too expensive to replace. My guess? Fools will still be singing of the death of COBOL when I'm dead (probably in 30 years), and it still won't be dead. Uh-uh, ain't gonna do it!

Still in use where I work: IMS and Cold Fusion. I can't say about the futures of those, but it's reasonable that if Computerworld was off on their COBOL prediction, what's the chances they got some other things wrong, as well? Like I said: sheeh!

Mystery of lost keys solved

To recap: Last Monday, a week ago, I drove home from work, as usual. My wife and I commute together (since we both work for the same company), and these days we usually take her car just to help keep the mileages about the same between our two cars.

To keep this from becoming a long story, once at home in the garage, I had my hands full getting out of the car, so I put my sunglasses, parking transponder, and apparently the car keys on the roof of the car so I could get my backpack off the back seat.

Next morning she can't find her keys, me having left before her because I had an early meeting and she didn't have to be at work until 10:30 AM. So she uses her spare key and off she goes to work. Obviously she didn't see her primary set of keys on the car roof. She's short.

So, here it is 10 days later, and what do we get in the mail? Her car keys. Banged up; one key bent. And a letter from Kroger (large grocery store chain in the eastern US) telling us their customer care center identified us from the "Kroger Plus Card" key tag she always kept on her keys. Truthfully, she has about 10 key tags for various places. Anyway, Kroger found us in their database and mailed the keys back to us.

At first I had no idea how the keys could have been left at Kroger. But the scratches, etc., said that somehow they must have been knocked around. Obviously some good Samaritan found the keys on the road somewhere (after they slid off the car roof) and seeing the Kroger tag turned them in to Kroger. Kroger went the extra mile (so to speak--that's about how far away the local store is from us) and returned the car keys to us.

Kroger deserves kudos for obviously seeing an opportunity for good customer service and acting on it. The anonymous person who found the keys also deserves a mention, since today most people would simply chuckle and keep going.

Say whatever you want about Kroger, it does appear they are trying. And in this case, succeeding. Thanks.

And you say you want to outsource your customer service?

I found this post on BoingBoing. After reading it, it became so obvious I had a moment of "why didn't I think of that?" Indeed. And I don't make a 7-figure salary as CEO of some Fortune 100 company.

Customer service, if you believe the stock market numbers, certainly appears to be mission-critical. Yet, CSRs (Customer Service Representatives--the grunts who answer the inbound phones) are some of the lowest paid and least respected people in the organization. Perhaps they should be just a tad more important.

No one seems to value good customer service skills. Certainly not if all you are willing to pay is $10.00 per hour. It's particularly onerous to have to "translate" your need to someone for whom English is a second language. I am not knocking Indian workers, because I have good friends who are Indian, and they work just as hard as I do, but still there is that language barrier. I make this point because I am attuned to the accent. Not everyone who calls ... say Dell, for example ... will feel the same way (or understand the broken English, as well, either).

Let me be clear. This is not discrimination against overseas workers. It's a cultural matter, and all about the quality of the experience. People are funny about things, especially when they have a problem and are looking for a solution. It doesn't take much to turn a potential win into a dismal loss.

Digg revolt, part 2

Here is a quote from a quote from an article I found on BoingBoing.

It is this: all information is not equal in value. Some of it was created with considerable investment in time and money that needs to be paid back.

I think this view misses the point: It's the users (read that as: the market) who will decide what has value, and what has none. Just because you think what you have is valuable, and you want to charge for it (or prosecute for it) doesn't mean it really has value.

Yes, those "self-obsessed post-adolescents" as Digg users are described (contrast and compare my "just a bunch of computer geeks" statement from before), are the minority now. Sure, tell us we're immature and we don't matter (and by we--I include myself even though I'm past the age of 50), but sooner or later you will be brought to a rude awakening. Trust me. I don't buy Sony, and never will, again. I have friends of means who feel the same way. In time we will represent a majority. What, then, o mavens of industry?

Now, let's discuss the "only a utopian fantasist would argue that all information should be free" statement. No. Not all information should be free. But the point (that is missed, yet again) is exactly who should determine what's to be free, and what isn't? The point really isn't that the AACS code was posted on the Internet, it's that Digg users exerted their ownership of Digg, and decided it was important that their desires not be ignored. Sure, the owners of the AACS code can go after the Digg users. Sue away. Have at it. They "stole" from you and should be punished.

But as for Digg, they are not responsible for the content. Period. The real owners have decided that.

PS. Hasn't anyone thought of the real reasons why Digg users are so pissed off about the AACS code? Maybe it has to do with the reason it exists, at all. Yes, it's hard to respect those who (by virtue of attempting to restrict what you can do with things you buy, like movies) don't respect you. If you seriously want to treat me like a criminal, then I will piss in your Cheerios every chance I get. I hear a tinkling sound, right now.

PPS. I call "bullshit" on the following statement, as well: "Those morons who want to destroy private property (and that includes trade secrets) put at risk the very future of innovation itself." Nah. Not a problem. Trade secrets (AKA patents) today only serve to inhibit innovation. Real, true innovation needs no protection. It's just harder, that's all.

The users have spoken ...

... but will the RIAA, MPAA, and others, listen?

Despite the fact that this particular article was very poorly edited (it's rife with grammatical errors, especially in quotations (where it's hard to imagine that the person actually spoke so poorly)), the message is quite clear. Digg found out the hard way that the users are the ultimate arbiters of what is appropriate, and what is not. Indeed, cross your user community at your own peril. My point in the opening statement is exactly that.

Today the online community is "that bunch of computer geeks" to the likes of the MPAA. Most people out there in all those flyover states aren't strong online users, still, so Hollywood can mostly do what they like. That's not always going to be true.

Don't believe me?

Just look at your kids. You think they don't go online? What's going to happen when they are where you are, today? No, there is no amount of legislation or protectionism that will stem the tide when people can all get together and form consensus via the web. Today it's Digg, tomorrow it will be everyone else.