reDesign

April 26, 2013

A few thoughts on customer service

Filed under: customer service — Rakesh Agrawal @ 5:22 pm

As a product guy, I’m always looking to improve products and experiences. Much of my thinking is driven based on more than a decade of creating online products and focusing on the integrated product experience. This includes brand, marketing, sales, product and customer service. But some of my thinking is driven by my own experiences using other people’s products. A few from the last two weeks stood out.

Quirkiness and Virgin America

I was flying home from Las Vegas on Wednesday night. After we boarded, the pilots came out and introduced themselves as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. The captain even did a Bush accent (including pronouncing America the way W does.) He encouraged everyone to vote Republican. I like Virgin America a lot, but this was just a bizarre experience. (It wasn’t even funny.) If that’s where it was left, I’d chalk it up to quirkiness gone bad.

But our flight was delayed on the ground and the pilot came back in his Bush-like drawl and explained that we were being held on the ground because the guy who beat him out was on Air Force One near SFO, and we had to wait for ATC to give the go-ahead. As far as I can tell, Air Force One wasn’t near SFO. (I check the White House’s published schedule for that day.) That, in my mind, is not acceptable. If the reason for the delay is known, passengers should be told it honestly.

Disclosure: This flight was part of a trip to interview Virgin Group founder Richard Branson. Virgin America covered travel for part of the trip.

T-Mobile

I ordered a new iPhone. When I ordered it, I was told that it would be delivered on April 12, the date of the launch. Because I was traveling, I had it sent to where I was staying that day. For whatever reason, it didn’t arrive. I was able to get UPS to re-direct it to my apartment, where I finally received it on April 25. I received my first bill before I received the phone — and the billing began on April 14.

T-Mobile knows when I first used the phone. I couldn’t possibly have used it from April 14-April 24, because I didn’t have it. That’s more than $20 worth of service. They know I didn’t have my phone because 1) they monitor the UPS tracking information and sent me an email when it was finally delivered 2) they know when my phone first connected to the network.

Shouldn’t they be able to automatically start billing when I have the phone? Yes, they can get an extra $20 out of me. But it’s not the right way to start off what could be a multi-thousand dollar relationship. I called customer service and the agent, while friendly and nice, took a long time to understand the issue.

Having worked with wireless carriers in the past, I know that part of the reason is likely that their billing systems are ridiculously complicated. But that doesn’t change my expectation as a consumer to be treated fairly and not to pay for service I didn’t receive.

Update: T-Mobile did post a $20 credit to my account. But they didn’t credit the corresponding taxes. On my most recent bill, the taxes and fees tacked on 27% to my base bill. Such things should be automatic; if you’re refunding monthly billing, you should automatically refund corresponding taxes.

This isn’t to blame the CSRs. It’s about poorly designed systems (best case) or systems designed to maximize revenue (worst case) by skimming undeserved revenue around the edges. If we make it enough of a hassle, people won’t complain about really small dollar amounts and we can boost margins.

My next task with T-Mobile is to get them to unlock my iPhone, which I paid upfront for, so I can use it on my trip to Turkey with a local SIM. The original CSR promised it would be taken care of, but I got a rejection notice from T-Mobile’s SIM Unlock deparment. And every CSR since has refused. As part of T-Mobile’s new “uncarrier” strategy they have claimed that they will immediately unlock phones that have been paid for; somehow that hasn’t percolated through their organization.

Starwood

I arrived at my hotel in New York and found that the Starwood social media team had left a gift for me. It turned out that it was a guidebook for Kauai — the destination of my next Starwood hotel stay.

That’s using data (my upcoming reservations) to deliver a personalized experience. Well done, Starwood.

There was a fire alarm at 2:30 a.m. during my stay. The next morning, I woke to find an apology letter from management explaining the situation and offering free breakfast. Because I already had breakfast plans, I asked if they could credit my Starwood account with a few bonus points instead. No problem.

American Express

I’m going to be traveling to Europe in a few weeks and I’d heard that AmEx now issues Chip-and-Signature versions of the Platinum Card.

I called them up and asked for a new card with the EMV chip. The CSR knew exactly what I was talking about. Immediately, she asked me when my trip was, just in case they needed to overnight the card. I said to go ahead and send it standard mail.

I immediately received an email saying that a card replacement had been initiated. (Important fraud prevention technique.) The next day, I received an email that my replacement card had been mailed. (No need to call back to check.) Proactive notifications are one way that companies can deliver better customer service and reduce operational expenses.

When I received the card, I was a bit concerned because I didn’t see the EMV chip. (When I previously requested a replacement card from Citi for the same purpose, they sent me another card without a chip.) But I peeled off the activation sticker and sure enough the chip was there. I activated the card online (more convenient for me than a phone call, less cost for AmEx). I received an email confirming the activation as soon as it occurred. (Security.)

My only persistent complaint about AmEx is that they still require cardholders to deal with their annoying IVR — even those who pay $450 a year for the Platinum Card. Chase and Discover have products that are cheaper that allow you to talk to a human immediately. This is especially annoying because I do everything online — e-statements, online bill pay, etc. I even have AmEx connected to my iPhone’s Passbook. If the task were automatable, I wouldn’t be calling.

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March 4, 2013

How customer service should be done

Filed under: customer service, travel — Rakesh Agrawal @ 9:51 am

Live from St. Regis Deer Valley

Last week I was skiing in Deer Valley when Groupon’s terrible earnings came out. While I was skiing, I got an email from CNBC asking if I could come on air to talk about them. We tried to get me into a studio in nearby Park City, but for logistical reasons, it wouldn’t work.

I knew there was a hotel at the bottom of the hill. I wasn’t staying there, but I thought I gave them a call.

I called the concierge at the St. Regis from the slopes and asked if there was a space where I could do a Skype call for a TV interview. Jeanine said she would have to check with the manager. While I skied down, she checked. By the time I was on the lift back up, she’d called and texted me. She found a quiet space.

When I arrived, she guided me to the location. She volunteered water, note paper and a pen. She also noticed that there was music playing in the background in the room and turned it off.

That’s incredible service, especially for someone who isn’t a paying guest. I never mentioned that I’m a Starwood Lifetime Gold member. I’ll be back in Deer Valley — and next time, I plan to stay at the St. Regis.

You can watch that CNBC segment here.

July 4, 2010

United’s mobile check in not ready for takeoff

Filed under: advertising, airlines, customer service, mobile, ui, wireless — Tags: — Rakesh Agrawal @ 8:00 am

On my last trip, I had the opportunity to try United’s mobile check-in and mobile boarding passes. The promise is paper-free check in. It sounds really great, but it’s not quite there. Partly it’s due to United’s horrible user interface, partly the newness that gate agents aren’t accustomed to it.

The user interface rarely misses an opportunity to add extra steps.

  • When online check-in opens up, United sends you an email reminding you to check in. But clicking on the link in the email takes you to the full browser version. (It should automatically redirect you to the corresponding page on the mobile site if you’re on a mobile browser.)
  • When you go to http://mobile.united.com, you have to enter your confirmation number (who remembers these?), e-ticket number (ditto), Mileage Plus number (I don’t remember it despite being a top tier flier for years) or email address (long to type). There’s no way to just cookie your email address or MP number for all future check ins.
  • You’re presented with upsells, including the ridiculously overpriced Award Accelerator. (No way to say “I never ever want this.”)
  • After you finally check in, you’d think you get a boarding pass. But now you have to enter an email address to send the boarding pass to. (Never mind that you just logged into your account with an email address; it’s not prepopulated.)
  • You’d think, “OK, now, I’ll get an email with the boarding pass.” Nope. You get an email for each segment. Neither of which contains a boarding pass, but a link to a boarding pass.
  • Instead of using one link tied to your record, there is a link for each flight. If you click on the email for the wrong flight, you can’t just flip to the other flight. You have to go back and open a different email.
  • When you finally get to the boarding pass, you see a 2D bar code read by the scanner, along with your flight and seat information in text.

After doing all of this, I went to the airport without any paper. First step: security. The TSA agent looks at my ID and phone to compare names. He then has me hold my phone over a reader. It beeps and lights up in green. Good to go. At the gate, I hold my phone over the reader. Beep. Green. Board.

At the gate for my connection in Denver, I get paged because the agent wanted me to swap seats with someone else. She asks for my boarding pass. When I say I’ve got a mobile one, she prints out a boarding pass with a new seat assignment. Being a geek, I refresh the screen and see that it shows the new seat and ditch the paper. Unfortunately it doesn’t scan and she has to board me manually.

Leaving SFO, I had to standby for an earlier flight because of weather. Although the boarding pass initially showed my standby status, somewhere along the way that disappeared. (Causing me to panic and race to the big screens in the gate area to verify that I was still on the list.) When I cleared standby, the agent called me up and issued a paper boarding pass. The link I had showed no boarding pass.

In a future ideal world, my phone would beep when I cleared the standby list, I’d click to accept and the screen would show the updated boarding pass. It would free up the mob around the gate, let me get a drink or food and get the plane out faster.

In Denver, my original mobile boarding pass was still valid. It took some fiddling to get it to scan. I thought 2-D bar codes could be held in any direction, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

Note that although the boarding pass is generated dynamically, the information is static. If your flight is delayed, you won’t see that reflected. You’ll have to go back to http://mobile.united.com and enter your flight information. It also self destructs after a flight, so if you need documentation for business purposes or making sure you get your frequent flier miles, you might want to stick with paper. (In theory, it shouldn’t be needed for miles purposes, but I don’t like to rely on theory when it comes to airlines.)

More on: airlines

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August 8, 2009

The benefits of starting from scratch

Filed under: airlines, customer service, travel — Rakesh Agrawal @ 9:28 am

Today marks the second anniversary of the launch of Virgin America, an upstart carrier that has inspired many loyal followers. Virgin America is a clear example of the benefits of starting from scratch.

Virgin America cabinAmong Virgin’s features:

  • Brand new planes.
  • Cheerful gate staff and flight attendants.
  • AC power plugs at every seat.
  • In-flight WiFi on every seat on every flight.
  • Live TV.
  • The best in-flight entertainment system on a domestic carrier.
  • The best premium economy offering (Main Cabin Select) in the U.S.
  • The best domestic first class, with the exception of three-cabin transcontinental offerings like United’s p.s. It even rivals some U.S. carriers’ international business class offerings.
  • In-seat, on-screen food ordering.
  • Specialty food choices.
  • A simple frequent flier program with no redemption restrictions.

Virgin America is the airline I’d design if I were designing an airline from scratch. It solves the needs of today’s travelers.

The legacy airlines can’t come close to Virgin’s offering. Retrofitting aircraft is expensive and many carriers are facing liquidity crunches. Union rules make it next to impossible to fire rude and bitter flight attendants. Bureaucratic processes and lethargy prevent innovations like Virgin’s IFE system (see my post Could YouTube have come from a large company?) To the extent that Virgin America has a legacy, it’s the halo from Virgin’s fun, irreverent brand and Sir Richard Branson, chairman of Virgin Group. (see video below)

On most airlines I complain about things like surly flight attendants, seats held together with duct tape, dirty planes, long mechanical delays and shabby terminal facilities. On Virgin America the complaints are in a different (and whiny) league: the IFE system has some bugs in it, seat-to-seat chat needs status messages, in-flight WiFi can sometimes be slow. The only substantive complaint I’ve had so far is that the Web site is incredibly slow and painful to use.

I’m not the only one who has noticed: Virgin’s load factor has been steadily increasing, even as it has expanded capacity. Virgin’s flights often sell out before those on legacy carriers on the same routes.

Virgin came into the market at a really tough time for the industry, with record oil prices last year and the toughest economy in decades. Here’s hoping Virgin America makes it to its 20th birthday.

May 4, 2009

A wow experience from United Airlines. Wow.

Filed under: airlines, customer service, travel — Rakesh Agrawal @ 10:16 pm

It’s rare these days that a company impresses with customer service. It’s even rarer when that company is an airline, especially an American airline. That’s the experience I had last week when I was flying home from New Orleans on United Airlines.

It started out pretty awful. A few hours before my flight I received a text message that my flight was delayed. Then another. By the time I arrived at the airport, my originating flight had been delayed more than two hours, ensuring that I’d miss my connecting flight in Denver. As it got close to the new departure time, we were told that there was a mechanical issue. After a string of “we’re waiting for an update” announcements, we finally boarded three hours later when a new plane arrived.

Based on experience, I was braced for the worst when I arrived in Denver: a 90 minute wait for a harried customer service rep who would look for every excuse to not put me up for the night. Before leaving New Orleans, I’d tweeted “United already knows who will misconnect. What are the odds they’ll be proactive and have hotel vouchers waiting?” I would’ve placed them at 1000:1, best case.

But that’s exactly what happened. After we landed the gate agent came on board and announced that they had prepared packets with hotel and meal vouchers for everyone who was stranded. Three people were staffing the desk, despite the fact that we arrived around 2 a.m. They were polite and directed us to the hotel shuttles.

Within 20 minutes of landing in San Francisco the next day, there was an apology in my email box for the inconvenience. A link in the email invited me to select from a list of appreciation items, including a $250 travel certificate.

The immediacy and the proactive nature of the response made a very positive impression. It’s great to see companies using IT in this way.

January 6, 2009

Tech lessons from a trip to Borders

Filed under: customer service, iphone, mobile, mobile search, search — Rakesh Agrawal @ 10:42 pm

On my way home from work today I decided to stop by Borders to pick up a guidebook for my birthday trip to Mexico City.

Step 1: Figure out if the Borders near my house is open. I called 1-800-555-TELL using my car’s Bluetooth to get the phone number. Tellme connected me to my neighborhood Borders. “Thank you for calling Borders… for our store hours and locations press 1.” FAIL. With more people relying on cell phones and increasing legislation requiring hands-free systems while driving, Touch Tone-only systems need to go away. After 2 1/2 minutes and three full loops of the menu I was finally connected to the store.

SnapTell screenshotStep 2: Arrive at the store and look for a guidebook. No one was behind the information desk. Two computer terminals allowed me to search for a book. The search results include books that are only available online, aren’t yet published and a few that are “likely available in store” in a seemingly random order. FAIL. Gee, wouldn’t you want to sort the books that I can walk out with first? Otherwise, why am I here? The screen says my book is in section “B020,” with no indication of where that it is.

Step 3: I notice on my way out of the store a book in the bargain bin on Sonoma wineries. I figure this is the perfect opportunity to try out SnapTell, an iPhone comparison shopping application. Take a picture of a book, CD or DVD and SnapTell shows you how much that item sells for online. (It’s like Shazam for shopping.)

My first picture wasn’t good enough; I got an error message. Second time was a charm, despite taking a picture of a book that was too wide to fit in the frame. I could scroll through a list of prices from online merchants.

While I was impressed with the image recognition, the data quality needs work. The results included older editions of the book; the 1 cent price shown on the summary screen was for an older edition. Even when the current edition was shown pricing didn’t correlate to the merchant. Clicking on the $1.99 link pictured shown showed a price at the merchant of $6.99.

Data errors like this aren’t unusal in large databases, but I suspect will improve over time.

SnapTell is an interesting tool for research. And with access to location information, they could build a nice database of what people are searching for and from where.

That’s assuming that stores like Borders improve service to the point that I’ve got other reasons to come in than “I can’t wait for shipping.”

Disclosure: I work for Tellme, a company that makes speech recognition systems for many large companies. I have a bias against poorly implemented telephone systems.

September 19, 2008

For English, press 1. For a human, try Fonolo.

Filed under: customer service, fun — Tags: — Rakesh Agrawal @ 12:38 am

After telemarketers, the most excruciating phone experience is dealing with interactive voice response systems. That’s what the industry calls those things that I call phone mazes and most people just call damned annoying. Unlike telemarketers, IVRs are hard to avoid.

Enter Fonolo, which won top prize at Om Malik’s Mobilize 08 conference. Fonolo “crawls” these systems and provides a visual interface to them. Go to the Fonolo Web site (or iPhone app), select the business you want and visually browse through the interface until you find the menu option you want. (My bet is on “agent.”)

Fonolo then calls the business and listens through each prompt, entering the appropriate tones. When it reaches the right prompt, it calls you.

It’s unclear whether Fonolo will also wait on hold until an agent comes on the line before connecting you. That would be the killer app for me — I never again want to hear a recording tell me that I’m a “valued customer” and that they “know your time is valuable” while they keep me on hold for 20 minutes.

Fonolo allows you to keep a log of your calls, record the calls and even take notes. Perfect for when the agent tells you one thing and does something else.

The service drew a lot of admiration from the crowd at Mobilize. Of the demos I saw, this is the one that had me saying “I want! I want!” The judges agreed: Fonolo’s was the only demo to get a 10. One VC on the panel was ready to open his checkbook. Ryan Block, editor of GDGT.com, said it best: “I want to give that guy a hug.”

The business model is unclear. You could sell switch ads: “Fed up with your current bank? Try Bailey Building & Loan.” Or use the data gleaned from calls and sell it to companies that actually care about improving customer service.

Fonolo is in closed beta right now. I’m looking forward to seeing it in action. Actually, no, I don’t want to have to use it. But it has the potential to make a really painful task a lot easier. In the meantime, I’ll have to rely on Get Human for any customer service needs.

September 1, 2008

Your customers are Twits

Filed under: advertising, customer service, lbs, local search, marketing, social networking, twitter — Rakesh Agrawal @ 3:58 pm

Last year, I blogged about how local businesses could use Twitter to reach their customers. In that hypothetical example, a street vendor would let regulars know whether he was working or not.

A number of large companies, including Zappos, Comcast and jetBlue are already using Twitter to engage with their customers. As Twitter’s popularity grows, it will cease to be a tenable channel for customer service.

But for local businesses, it’ll be a great opportunity. Witness this exchange between Twitter developer Alex Payne and 21st Amendment Brewery.

Twitter exchange between Alex Payne and 21st Amendment brewery

Twitter exchange between Alex Payne and 21st Amendment brewery

Three of the big challenges in getting local business online are that it’s too expensive, too complicated and too hard to prove the return. A Twitter presence can address all three:

  • It’s free.
  • It’s easy. You don’t have to create a Web site to reach your customers. If you don’t have one, your Web presence can be your Twitter page. Not ideal, but better than nothing — at least it’ll get you into search engines. If you do have one, you can autoflow Twitter updates to your Web page making it easy to keep your Web presence fresh.
  • It’s easier to prove return on investment. Twitter can improve both the “R” and the “I”. You can see who’s following your business, showing return. Because there is no cost and the effort is lower, the investment is lower.

There are a number of ways businesses can use Twitter:

  • Specials of the day. “Soup of the day: tomato basil”
  • Special events. “Windsor Cooley book signing Friday night” “Closed for private party”
  • New products. “Transcontinental IPA on tap at the 21A”
  • Problems. “Closed due to broken water pipe”

The immediacy of Twitter also offers a way to do real-time inventory management. Have an especially slow night and food going to waste? Send out a tweet with a special discount.

More on: Twitter

May 14, 2008

From chits to bits

Filed under: customer service, wireless — Rakesh Agrawal @ 8:42 pm

I was meeting some colleagues and partners last night for the Pistons playoff game. As we sat down for drinks, we realized that we’d left the tickets at our hotel – more than an hour away from the Palace. Six small pieces of paper were tucked in a blue backpack and there was no way to get there and back without missing most of the game.

We could get the hotel staff to find the tickets and send them to us by cab, but that would take at least an hour and we’d have to count on the cab driver not taking off with the prized tickets. (Which were worth a lot more than the $100 cab fare.)

A quick call to the box office and we found a solution: if we could fax the tickets to the box office, they would reprint them. A fax glitch later, we had three of our tickets. (Only one page went through.) Fortunately, I had a digital image of the fax in my email account and the Palace box office also does email.

As this experience illustrates, sports and entertainment venues are rapidly coming into the digital world. Being able to handle situations like this dramatically improves the guest experience and reduces costs for the venue:

  • Tickets purchased directly from the venue can often be reprinted with just a credit card.
  • Print-at-home ticketing eliminates mailing costs and reduces the number of people needed to staff will call windows. (Note that this doesn’t mean reduced costs for you, because the ticketing companies charge for this service.)
  • The San Francisco Giants Ticket Relay allows you to transfer tickets electronically to someone else. If you decide at the last minute that you can’t go to a game, you can transfer the tickets by email and your friend can pick them up at a kiosk.
  • The Washington Nationals are experimenting with mobile phone ticketing that sends a scannable 2-D bar code to your phone.The current technology is too kludgy to be useful, but it will get better.

Digital ticketing also allows venues to generate additional revenue. At the Boston Symphony, season subscribers can electronically return tickets for a tax deduction. Those tickets are then resold.

Major League Baseball’s deal with StubHub allows ticket resales even on the day of the game. (For StubHub tickets that can’t be transferred digitally the market dries up based on FedEx’s schedule.) And, of course, MLB gets a cut. Those extra butts in seats also help to pad concession revenues.

There’s an additional benefit to the venues: digital ticketing increases the risk of buying tickets from scalpers. An “authentic” ticket could have been invalidated electronically.

I expect that we’ll also see more last minute deals offered by email and mobile phone to fill seats at underperforming events.

Pistons Ticket

Pistons vs. Magic, Game 5

December 29, 2007

Weekly Reader – Dec. 29, 2007 – TV, coffee, patents and Branson

Filed under: apple, customer service, environment, television, weekly reader — Rakesh Agrawal @ 8:38 am

This week’s interesting reads:

  • Futurist: Digital TV’s Mixed Signals (CQ) – Congressional Quarterly takes a look at the impact of government action/inaction on the development and adoption of technology. As we near the Feb. 2009 date when analog broadcasting in the United States will cease, CQ looks back at what happened when television first came in to being. Similar blame/credit could be assigned to the government for the division in the United States between two incompatible wireless technologies. via Mark Stencel
  • Don’t Fear Starbucks (Slate) – What happens to mom and pop coffeehouses when Starbucks moves in to town? According to the piece from Slate, business increases. As Starbucks educates local audiences on the value of high-priced coffee, independent coffeehouses benefit. I prefer independents because, unlike Starbucks, many of them have free WiFi. via Robert Franklin
  • Apple’s Piping Hot Innovation (Forbes) – In related coffee news, a recent Apple patent filing describes a “wireless system that would allow customers to place an order at a store using a wireless device such as a media player, a wireless personal digital assistant or a cellphone.” In theory, you’d be able to tap a button on your iPhone as you’re driving to Starbucks to place your order. If only it would tap into the nav system on your car to know that you’re headed to the Starbucks and save you that button click. Hmm… where’s my patent attorney?
  • 10 Questions for Richard Branson (TIME) – One of my favorite billionaires talks about global warming, risk taking, the state of the music market and dyslexia. “Life is a helluva lot more fun if you say yes rather than no,” Branson says. The podcast of the interview is worth a listen.
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