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Having cited Apple as an example of companies bringing their customer service back home I was dissapointed to read this item over at Boing Boing Gadgets which seems to suggest that they aren’t.

Not only has the writer repeatedly had trouble getting through to Apple but when he got through this is the quality service he received:

“I see from your serial number you have a Macbook Pro.

“Yes, I replied.”Is this a portable computer?”

When I replied—incredulous—that it was, the man said there was a special “portables” department and shuffled me back directly into the same queue I had been in before.

Total wait time: 45 minutes.

Total problems solved: 0.

How very disappointing.

I hope Apple aren’t arrogant enough to think that their products don’t need support and if they do it can be poor support… that’s not the kind of “reality distortion field” that got them where they are.

Dear readers, customer and company representatives,

I am sick and tired of bad service. Not of bad products and goods but of the service that supports those products or is the product itself.

I am fed up with you seeing me as an annoyance, as something that costs you money to provide a service to and of your belief that I will accept the poorest possible service and not take my business to your competitors.

Here’s the thing; I will, and at the drop of a hat.

Here, out of the goodness of my heart, are a couple of clues for the clueless companies out there:

Clue 1
I am fed up with receiving terrible service because it “boosts your bottom line”. Here’s the thing, “off-shoring” your call centres to India is a terrible and short sighted idea. Yes, it boosts your bottom line but for how long? What happens as your customers wise up to the appalling service and start to move to your competitors with call centres in the UK? What happens to your bottom line then?

I have never had a positive experience with an Indian call centre. The moment I get through to one I know that you the service provider and the person I am giving money does not value me as a customer; you see me only as a cost. The service I receive represents your company – don’t you see that?

I get through on a crackling line to somebody that calls me Mr David or even worse Mr Hugh-geeze. Who then says things like “may I have your address?” Yes you may… oh wait you want my address? Well why didn’t you say… Then once we are past the name calling invariably my question or issue cannot be dealt with and I am transferred back to the UK. I was once dealt with by one of BT’s India call centres and found that they couldn’t even talk to the UK; they had to email the issue to the UK.

You are handing your competitors a real a true advantage. Think how many adverts you see on TV where a UK call centre is used as a positive selling point.

Clue 2
I am fed up with dialling your customer “service” number to hear the message “All our representatives are busy now; please hold and we will deal with your call as soon as possible.”

Arrrggh…

If you are going to provide a telephone line for customers make sure there is somebody there to answer the phone.

Then when you make me hold for an eon or two don’t have a message that says “your call is important to us” – no it’s not. If it was, you’d be speaking to me.

Dear customer
You are as much to blame. You continue to accept service this bad; you continue to give these companies your money. You do not complain and you do not move your custom and money to a competitor.

Stop accepting it.

Complain.

Above all stop giving people who treat you this badly your money.

That’s the other problem; stop thinking only about the cost and start thinking about the experience of dealing with this company. What’s the point in saving a few quid if it means an hour on the phone every time your bill/statement arrives?

My dream
I have a dream that one day people will stop accepting poor and insulting service, stop accepting being treated as an annoyance and will vote with their feet and take their business elsewhere.

Already some companies have seen the light, Adverts are on television promoting UK call centres, Apple and Dell have already brought some their service back from India – only some in Dell’s case I believe but would be happy to be proved wrong.

The future
To make my own small contribution to this cause I will be writing about every piece of bad service I receive or see and the companies that deliver that service.

But I will also be celebrating the great service I receive or see and celebrating the companies that delight and deliver.

If you receive good or bad service then please share it here. Let’s name and shame those companies that don’t care and let’s celebrate and congratulate those that do. That’s what it boils down to you see – caring. Too many companies simply do not care about their customers.

Note: This entire post was written whilst waiting for BT (British Telecom) to fix the lates in a string of mistakes they have made on my account. Mistakes happen I get that but I really shouldn’t have to spend an hour or more on the phone to make you fix them.

It makes such a refreshing change when a company a) has a personality and b) feels able to express that personality in their communications with their customers.

I recently ordered the new Thomas Dolby CD and DVD from CDbaby.com and just received this fantastic email to let me know they had shipped.

Subject : CD Baby loves David
Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved ‘Bon Voyage!’ to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Sunday, November 26th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as “Customer of the Year”.  We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

I’d never heard of or used CDbaby.com before this but just a simple email like this will make me return again.

I’m reading The Cluetrain Manifesto at the moment and CDbaby.com clearly get that markets are conversations.

I’ve had the most fantastic piece of customer service ever in the last week.

Recently I decided that enough was enough and returned my Mont Blanc fountain pen for a refund; a pen I’d wanted since I was in my early twenties. When I was out of work just over two years ago I promised myself one once I got a decent job. Having secured the job it still took me nine months to buy myself one mostly due to the high price tag they carry. I loved the pen; it wrote beautifully but never felt very robust or worth the high price. In the space of a year it went back to Mont Blanc twice as the clip came loose. When the same fault occurred for the third time I decided enough was enough and back it went.

I tried to kid myself and use a cheaper pen but it didn’t feel right. I bought the Mont Blanc partly with some birthday money from my Grandmother and Mother and worked bloody hard for the rest. The pen was more than just something to write with.

Having briefly used a Pelikan in the past and knowing how well made they are I decided upon one as my fountain pen. The 800 series is the same size as my old Mont Blanc 146 and so I started looking around for an M805 – the version with silver rather than gold trim. I found a good price online and ordered one. It arrived quickly but I was sadly disappointed; it wrote terribly with a very dry and fine line. I contacted the seller, as Pelikan offer a twenty eight day nib exchange if you are unhappy, who said that I would need to send it back to the importer which I duly did. On a pen costing that much I’d of liked a little more help. I decided to swap for a bold nib assuming that the original medium nib was indicative of Pelikan medium nibs. This was mistake as the bold felt very dull and expressionless to me.

At this time I fancied ordering a bottle of Pelikan ink to try and had seen pictures of a special bottle with a built in pens stand so ordered one from Ray Adams at Pelikan Pens UK an independent Peikan dealer who has turned out to be the one the best people I have ever dealt with.

In the email exchange to order the ink Ray asked what pen I had. I told him and explained my situation and Ray suggested I call him to talk more. Ray thought the original medium I had must have been faulty and offered to help. Now bear in mind that I did not buy the pen from Ray but he offered to send me another medium nib to try as well as a bold for comparison at no charge to me. Two Pelikan nibs together cost almost £300 and Ray just popped them in the post to me. I honestly didn’t think that anybody operated on trust and provided such amazing service anymore. I was delighted and a little humbled.

Ray is a gentleman who cares about people and service. If you are in the market for a new fountain pen. ballpen, pencil or even just some ink I wholeheartedly recommend Pelikan Pens UK.

I finished work early on Friday and headed across London to the very lovely Apple Store on Regents street.

I was standing around for waiting for the usual email checking foreign student to clear off so I could have a last confirmatory play with a 20” iMac when a member of staff approached me. Upon finding out that I wanted to buy something rather than merely access Hotmail he immediately removed Sebastian from the iMac – hurrah.

Now, I don’t know if his name was actually Sebastian but since the greatest advert ever was taken off the air they’ll always be Sebastian (‘all hair gel and fancy loafers’) to me.

Anyway, I played with the iMac, established that extra RAM wasn’t needed and handed over my credit card.

I hadn’t realised how heavy a G5 iMac would be and so got a taxi to the station although the walk from the platform at my home station resulted in very sore hands.

I spent the evening loading up all my data and settings and re-installing OS X onto my old Mac Mini for which eBay beckons. Only once that I had finished did I start to realise that the iMac was rather loud. I can accept some fan noise and air noise and the G5 needs air moving as it runs very hot but one of the fans makes a really nasty noise. A bloody shame and annoyance.

This morning I phoned Apple Care as I’d splashed out on the extra warranty and support. It took ages to get through and deal with the very slow and almost incoherent call handler (I think his name was Sebastian) but I finally established that somebody would come to my house tomorrow and try to fix the iMac if they couldn’t they would take it away.

“Excellent” I thought that should be nice and easy. That is until that is the company that carry out the repairs called me. They informed me that actually all they do is send out a courier and that I would be without the iMac for 9 working days.

I called Apple Care back and the chap I spoke to (not Sebastian this time) explained that Apple tells them one thing but reality is different. Luckily I can return my iMac within 14 days.

So Apple Care is worthless and my iMac is noisy and is heading back to the Apple Store tomorrow for a full refund.

I pick up a new iMac from my local John Lewis on Thursday as I figure that if it goes wrong they are at least local and even better I get a 2 year warranty for free.

I received a response from TescoDownload.com albeit a standard email. It seems I have to use Windows Media Player to transfer the downloaded files to my Rio Karma.

I suppose if I’d of thought about it I would have realised this as it must way they control the DRM on the files. I have now transferred the track to my Karma – sadly it doesn’t sound very good at least not as good as those I have ripped myself with WMP 10.

Speaking of not sounding very good… I bought a Creative Zen Touch 40Gb at the weekend and was rather disappointed.

The user interface is not very good and a number of buttons are used to reach tracks and settings; both the iPod and the Rio Karma have more elegant and easier to use UIs. The Zen Touch does not show up as a hard drive in windows so you are required to use the supplied software; as with the iPod and Rio Karma. However whilst iTunes is fantastic and Rio Music Manager is good the supplied Creative software is terrible. I mean really, really bad: slow, ugly, not intuitive and just downright awful.

What really surprised me was the sound quality; it was at best average. This really surprised me as the Creative products I have used in the past have always been excellent. The sound from my Zen Touch was thin, sibilant and too ‘trebley’ – there was even hiss present.

Very disappointing indeed – so it was returned.

The quest for my next music player continues. I have to hope that either Rio produce a 40Gb Karma or that Apple produce a PoweriPod.

I don’t want a colour screen; I want at least 40Gb, great sound and a small form factor with an ‘insanely great’ user interface.

Come on… somebody must want to build such a device…