I’ve not written a post like this in a while!

I’ve had a couple of experiences over the last few days that reinforces how customer service and service are not mutually exclusive

You need to get them both right if you want your business to stand out from the rest. This sort of thing is highlighted to me when dealing with larger companies

In my last post I talked about my shiny new HTC Touch 2 Windows Phone. Well guess what, it’s broken

I was out watching my Sunday football team at the weekend (watching is all I’m doing at the moment as I need a knee operation) and I’d forgotten to charge my phone. By the time I got home the battery was dead so I hooked it up to the charger and left it

When I checked on it few hours later the phone started up and shortly after the home screen was displayed the whole thing locked up. None of the buttons worked nor did the touch screen. I couldn’t even power it off and had to either pop the battery out or press the soft reset button

I performed a hard reset (press both the volume buttons and turn it on) but it was still the same

So the following morning I called T-Mobile and braved their telephone menu system

I spoke to a customer service agent who asked what the problem was

I explained the problem, told her that I’d tried a hard reset and said that the phone was unusable

She asked if the problem occurred in specific menus on the phone or all menus. I said that I couldn’t get into ANY menus. The phone locks up before then

She said ordering a new one shouldn’t be a problem and it would arrive tomorrow. So far so good I thought but it turns out there wasn’t any stock. Service delivery fail!

I needed to know where this put me as I was now without a phone

She seemed surprised at this

“Are you not calling from the phone?”, she said

my perplexed reply was, “No. I’ve already said the phone is unusable”

“You said that the problem only occurred in certain menus”

“No. I said that I couldn’t even get into ANY menus, the phone is unusable”

Customer service fail! You really need to listen to the customer when they are describing a problem

She basically then said I had two options, wait for stock or take it my nearest service centre

I asked where the nearest centre was and she gave me the address before adding,

“If you take it there the repair could take up to 28 days”

Multiple fail! This isn’t doing anything to solve my problem. I have phone I’m paying for and can’t use. Waiting 28 days isn’t really an option I want

She then told me that she would monitor the stock and call me the following day to let me know the phone was dispatched so I’d get it the following day

That was Monday, I didn’t receive a phone call at all on Tuesday so I’m not expecting any phone to show up today.

Yet more fail! If you promise to do something for your customer, make sure you actually do it. If they hadn’t received any stock so I wouldn’t have been getting a phone today, at least keep me informed to that fact!

In contrast I had to take my car to the garage recently. It’s something I always dread as you hear lots of horror stories about people getting ripped off for work that doesn’t need doing.

However, the garage I go to have really good customer service, they did the exactly the work they said they were going to at a reasonable price and even sorted out a problem with car they probably should have charged me extra for

In their reception area they have a notice board full of letters of thanks from previous customers. Recommendations from happy customers are always a good thing to see

What’s the difference between these two companies?

Size

As a small business it’s really something that’s critical. There are tons of garages I could have taken my car to so by making me into a happy customer they get my repeat business. It’s a real differentiator

For big business it’s difficult to keep a high level of service across your whole company, there is also less competition and they all have similar problems

So now I’m off to ring T-Mobile again..that’ll be fun

I briefly mentioned in my last post I was off for a holiday

I got back yesterday, a few days later than originally planned

We went to Puerto Rico in Gran Canaria and had a great time

Halfway through the holiday we noticed our youngest daughter Evie, had a couple of spots on her body. Having already been through chickenpox with our other daughter Alice, we took her straight to the doctors

They confirmed what we thought and promptly cancelled our flight back (which should have been on the Saturday)

After various discussions with the insurance company their original plan was to fly myself and Alice back and leave Bryony and Evie there. I pleaded exceptional circumstances as Bryony’s deafness means she can’t understand English speaking Spanish people (it’s the accents and it’s sometimes hard enough for me!) and they kindly agreed to let us all stay.

What originally sounds like a free extended holiday isn’t quite what it seems. Evie obviously couldn’t be in contact with anyone who hadn’t already had chicken pox (mainly children) so she was effectively confined to the hotel room. No swimming pool, beach, taxis, buses, etc, etc. We also were only expecting to stay for a week so had only taken enough clothes, money, etc to last that amount of time

Once we finally got the all clear on the Wednesday we got flights back to Gatwick (instead of Birmingham where we originally flew from) and were then driven back home. Our flight landed just after midnight and we opened our front door around 4:30am

I popped into the office yesterday afternoon and today is my first full day back. I’ve got a lot to catch up on!

We had a great holiday and tried not to let it ruin things but at the end we were just hanging around and all wanted to come home. My geek cold turkey was in full effect since my mobile phone was the only bit of tech I took with me and I’m dreading my next bill!

Never one to miss an opportunity though I made several observations while I was away that I may be able to apply to the business!

You can stop reading now if you were just interested about my holiday

Sales

Qualifying your prospects is important.

I saw lots of guys trying to get people into their restaurants and the most common opening line was

“Hello, have you had breakfast (lunch/dinner) yet?”

They then didn’t waste any more time on people who had eaten

Obviously they didn’t give up that easily so the next line usually was to ask if they were thirsty!

Pestering people will just piss them off

I don’t like to name and shame (much!) but this is a classic example.

On our first day we walked into the village and were immediately stopped by someone promising us free event tickets, drinks, etc, etc as long as we had a look at their facilities. He told us the idea was that we’d take a look and if we liked when if came back next we’d book with them.

It was quite a hard sell but I declined explaining it was just our first day.

We were stopped several times other people doing the same thing and on one day we walked from our hotel to the beach and were stopped nine times and they really don’t take no for an answer. It’s hard to be polite after a while

The company they were representing was Anfi (I’m not linking to them!)  and we were told by our holiday rep it’s a timeshare thing. The guys actually stopping people claim it isn’t which they are technically correct on. The website says it’s “membership”

Why is ‘Vacation Membership’ different to ‘Timeshare’?

Genuine timeshare is a potentially fantastic concept because it offers flexibility and affordability. However, Vacation Membership goes beyond this by filling in the gaps, expanding on the overall concept, and setting new standards you deserve and that only Anfi can achieve. Vacation Membership is what, in an ideal world, timeshare should have been.

That’s still time share in my book but even if it’s not the constant pressing just got on my nerves in the end and even if they were giving away free money I wouldn’t listen to them

If you are lucky enough to have a captive market you can charge what you like

Once you have checked into the airport and moved into the departure longue you HAVE to buy from their shops. Obviously their are security aspects to this but is it really an excuse to pick a prices out of the air?

I paid for 3 soft drinks, and 3 sandwiches and it cost £20. I wouldn’t mind if the food was high quality but it really wasn’t.

Service Delivery

Our insurance company fell down pretty hard in this area. While I agree they fulfilled their obligations to us the way they did it wasn’t great from our perspective.

Communicate

Several times I called and was told someone would call back. That’s fine as long as you actually do it. There were lots of times we were waiting for news that never came and I had to chase it down.

We were scheduled to check out of the hotel on Saturday morning yet when we were eating dinner on Friday night I had no idea if the insurance company had arranged for us to stay in the same hotel or if we needed to go elsewhere.

Empower your staff with good systems

The insurance company obviously run a 24 hour operation in case of emergencies so I understand that I’m unlikely to be able to speak to the same person every time. If this is the case you need to give them the tools that anyone deal with issues. I called lots of times and had to wait while our file was hunted down. It was obviously a paper file sitting on the desk of whoever had it last!

Communicate better!

It was arranged that a car would pick us up from Gatwick airport and take us home. I made it clear we’d need a car seat for Evie as she’s only five months old. Our car seat was several hundred miles away in my parents car as they were originally picking us up from Birmingham

When the driver arrived he had a booster cushion and a child booster seat. Evie can’t even sit up on her own yet so how was she expected to sit in a booster seat for the three hour trip back? Legally in a private hire vehicle she could sit unrestrained – on Bryony’s lap, but from a parents perspective we didn’t want that. Especially when it could have been easily communicated to the hire company

Go the extra mile

The places went to eat got our repeat business when they went that extra mile. In one place Alice got a free ice cream as encouragement to eat her main meal. A lot of the staff were extra friendly and helpful and made a fuss of the kids. All these people got our repeat business

Our hotel came under this too. The staff were great with us even after news broke of Evie’s chickenpox. I lost count of the amount of times someone asked me

“Is the baby ok?”

If I ever go back to Puerto Rico I’d more than likely use the same hotel

The insurance company did get some plus points too. They could have been insistent and made myself and Alice fly back so I was very appreciative of that. They also paid extra for EasyJet’s “speedy boarding” on our flight back which brings me onto our next point

Being organised is key to a smooth running operation

Our boarding experience was what can only be described as shambolic and at one point I actually worried for my children’s safety. I’ll post about this separately though as I think it deserves a post all of it’s own but at this point in time if i need to fly anywhere EasyJet won’t be the first name on my list

I’ll stop there as I’ve wittered on long enough

I’ve enjoyed my time off but I did miss my tech, though it did give me lots of time to reflect on where I am from a personal and professional perspective and I’m looking forward to the weeks ahead

We learnt quite a lot on the last SBS install we did recently

Normally when we’re putting in a network we try to ensure we’re only working with equipment we know and trust. Normally this isn’t a problem as we recommend certain hardware to the client they just decide which specific items they want

On this particular install there was an IT person in-house who was looking after the day-to-day running of system and was in charge of managing the new server installation project

He decided that he wouldn’t need the UPS we had quoted for as they already had one and it was “fairly new”

We also know the in-house IT manager well as we’ve worked closely with him on various other projects for other companies so we had to trust him on this one

So towards the end of the install we wanted to make sure the UPS (of a brand I’d never heard of!) behaved as expected so we performed a simulated power failure (I pulled the plug out!)

Normally we’d expect the server to stay on and the software to shut the server down safely when needed

This isn’t what happened

The server stayed on for about two seconds and then restarted. Not good

Worried we had too much load on the UPS we took everything else off and tried again with just the server connected. Same thing and we also noticed a weird clicking noise coming from the back of the rack

As this was a UPS we didn’t trust we decided it best to replace it. The in-house IT guy disappeared and returned with a price for an APC UPS from one of his other suppliers at price he was happy with

Though we’d have preferred him to use the model of UPS we usually recommend the “customer is always right” (and he had budget he wanted to work to) so he ordered the UPS (APC Part number – SC1500I)

It arrived the next day and we tried again. Exactly the same problem!

We couldn’t possibly have two faulty UPS’s could we? So we thought it must be the power supply. What else could it be? We’d also determined the weird clicking noise (like a relay constant switching) was coming from the power supply so this seemed to make sense

After getting the power supply changed we tried again and had exactly the same issue

This was getting frustrating so went back to the UPS. We were getting some odd communication issues between the UPS and the server so maybe we were really unlucky and have been sent a faulty UPS so we sent that back and asked for replacement

The UPS arrived and once again we had the same issue

We had some dealings with HP support and they were pushing us in the direction of UPS (though at the time we felt like they were doing this as it wasn’t a HP component and they weren’t exactly confident about it)

Now we’ve got other ML350 G5 servers with APC UPS’s that are working just fine so we pulled one of our UPS’s out of the office so we knew we were working with equipment we knew and trusted

The problem went away!

After a bit more digging we think we’ve found out why

When using APC we usually use this part code : SUA1500I (the part number varies slightly depending on the load we’re expecting and if we need it rack mounted but it’s still the SMART UPS range)

The APC website allows you to do comparison between products which illustrates what we think is the problem

Look at the last entry

The UPS we normally use has a true sine wave output, the other UPS doesn’t (I’m guessing the first UPS didn’t either – it was so obscure I struggled to find out anything about it)

This website gives a decent explanation of the difference between the two waveform types

I’ve since been back with a brand new UPS (of the type we normally use) and there are no power issues. I did full calibration via the APC software and the system stayed on battery for about twenty minutes and a manual test (pulling the plug out!) gave similar results

So what did we learn?

Be very wary of components you don’t know. This is a great example of why we work with a specific group of products as it makes support easier and we don’t have to stayed trained on several different products that do the same thing (that doesn’t mean we stay fixed on specific items and push clients into products they don’t need or not give them any choice, for example, we work with Leibert UPS’s too).

We possibly should have brought in a trusted component earlier. We ended up chasing after the server power supply when this had nothing to do with the problem

Also be careful of how you "manage" the in-house IT guy. While we knew this particular person very well I think we could have been a little more insistent to try a product we knew and trusted once we’d decided the original UPS was to be replaced

The best way to deal with any mistake or set back is to learn from it and i think we certainly have here

How long is reasonable to be put on hold for?

I called my account manager at one of our suppliers today and when the phone was answered i heard

“Hello, company x, i’ll be with you in a minute” and i was put on hold

I understand that i’m not the only customer in the world so i sit patiently listening to the hold music.

13 minutes later i decide to hang up (even though i felt like i was being rude)

I called back ten minutes later and i was dealt with straight away

I called for a third time and i got put on hold again.

After six minutes i hung up, so my “internal waiting threshold” was cut in half

If i ring enough times will i just put the phone down as soon as the call is picked up?

I’m not going to name and shame this time but was a little disappointed at a recent response i got to a query

Basically “Company X” had a hosted service i was interested in. I wanted to know how their management tools worked on a day-to-day basis. I’m already a customer with them so i sent an email to ask if they had a demo account, or trial period on which i could test their service to see how it performed with the view to purchasing if all was well

As of now, we do not have a demonstration site.

However, after you have purchased the package, you can cancel it within 60 days and avail our refund policy.

Company X offers a 60-day Money Back Guarantee. You’ll receive a complete refund if you cancel a package within 60 days from the date of your initial order.

So i have to agree to buy it before i decide if i like it? Then if i don’t like it after all i have to go through all the hassle of cancelling and getting a refund?

Lots of online  service providers are happy to let you try their products out before you sign on the dotted line

Surely from a business perspective free trials are like having an extra member of staff in the sales team. If your confident enough of your product once the prospect has had a taste they’ll become a paying customer before long?

If i were in sales i’d say the prospects qualify themselves (did i get away with that?)

Or am i expecting to much as a potential customer?

I wasn’t going to post about this but this post from Richard Tubb and the email i got that went with it convinced me otherwise as he makes a good point

It’s really easy to complain about poor customer service but it’s far to easy forget when it works out really well

We put a new HP server in for customer the week before Christmas. I finished on the Friday and thought that was it till the new year

Yet another customer service rant..i hate posting about it to be honest but if no-one complains then it’ll never get sorted!

I decided to treat myself to a new gadget this week. I wanted to get the HD-DVD add-on for the XBox. Having a quick look around and PC World have a “web only offer” thats cheaper than anywhere else as far as i can tell

They also have a slight loophole on their site that means you can order online but go collect it yourself so no delivery charge

The PC World branch is the other side of Coventry so a slight detour on the way home but no problem, go in, pick it up, go home? Wrong!

The reservation confirmation i got told me to go to the “Collect @ Store” desk so thats where i went. In this particular store “The Tech Guys” service desk is next to the collection desk

So there are two people waiting already, one at each desk so i join the queue for the collection point. No staff around to help us and we all stand around looking at each other. After about ten minues somone finally turns up and helps out the first person (who is in my queue). He then moves onto the person waiting at repair desk (One person for two desks?)

She has a faulty laptop so they are trying to sort that out so i just have to wait. Forty minutes later i’m finally seen to.

I give the guy my confirmation note and he disappears out the back. He comes out looking puzzled so disappears again. Finally he comes back to me and says

“We do have these in stock but you’ll need to go and find a member of staff on the shop floor and they’ll fetch it for you”

ARGH!!!!

So i’ve been there for fifty minutes already when i could have just grabbed somebody when i walk in

I then try and find someone and in typically there is not enough staff and too many people. It took me another fifteen minutes to get someone to actually help me.

I explained what i needed and she said

“Just wait here and i’ll go get it”

So i stood and waited. Ten minues later she finally came back with the item so we trotted off to the till

It took another ten minutes to pay as she couldn’t get her head around the fact i’d reserved it online for one price but the store price was different

All i wanted to do was go in and collect an item i had reserved.

Why should it take an hour and twenty five minutes?