Friday, July 25, 2008

Another Classic "I don't care' Customer Care Experience.

So, I noticed that the channel programming guide on the cable TV had an error that didn't get fixed after a few days, so I thought I would do the cable company (Who I have high regard for until now) a favour by informing them.
As I don't want to wait on the phone while listening to how important my call is to them, I chose the contact form on the website, and here is the email result, together with my original text:
Hello Mr. xxxxxxxxxxx

Thank you for taking the time to send us your email. We apologize for
the
recent issues you have in countered with your cable service. We will be
happy
to look further into the issues for you if you are still experiencing
the
problems. Please call our cable support department available to assist
you 24
hours a day, by calling 1-888-xxx-xxxx option 4 then option 2.

Thank you,
xxxxxxxxx Customer Care
"It's That Easy"


Please do not reply to this message. If you require further assistance
please click here and you
will be taken back to our main web contact page.

Original Message Details:

First Name: John
Last Name: xxxxxxxxxxx
Email: xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Comment
Comment: Hi, Just to let you know that your digital cable guide is
incorrect for listings of South Park on the Comedy Network - the
descriptions lately do not match the content. Also, the Men channel
breaks up all the time, losing sound and picture so badly that it is
unwatchable. Do I contact the Men TV for this? The problem is perhaps
theirs? My other channels work fine. Have a great day, John
Now, let me translate what they are actually saying:
Dear Mr xxxxxxxx,
I have not fully read your contact form text that you submitted from our website, and so am ignoring that you asked a question.
I am actually trying to just find a way to respond that will not generate further emails that I have to reply to, as I am the email person assigned this week, and I really hate my job. So I have decided to use a template referring you to the phone-in customer care we have. I do it with all the incoming contact form messages, and most customers like yourself are so brain dead that they put up with it.
I have detected from the brief look I gave your text that you are also having technical issues, so, despite you filling out a silly load of personal info text boxes just to submit the contact text (one of which was an alternative phone number that was not marked as being essential to fill out until after trying to submit the form) that actually gives us your full contact information, I prefer for you as a customer to go through the mindless process that you were trying to avoid, namely, phone us and be put on hold and get annoyed by our stupid eternally repeating message telling you a pack of lies about how we value your business, whereas, as you can tell, we don't.
Anyway, this email to you is done, and I am well within my handle time for replying - obviously if I don't actually do any thinking before replying, it makes my job of keeping good personal statistics a lot easier.
Further, by failing to actually respond to what you wrote, I am avoiding a bad personal evaluation that might occur if I made an error in what I advised, this being a likely probability due to me actually knowing nothing at all about the subject in hand.
It was annoying having to write all of this, I prefer to use templates like are used for form letters.
And no, I am not going to contact someone within our company who can actually help - it is up to you to work at contacting us.

Thank you,
Anon Customer Care Person

And finally, here is my response:
Hi, Thanks, but that's Ok, all the info I can give you is in the original note I sent. Your choice what you do with it.
According to my son, the guide has been incorrect for a while now, and as for the Men channel, I just have to not watch it if it has breaking up sound and picture. I will take it up with the Men channel.
Thanks,
John

It came back at me as the address was a noreply one.
So, I have been converted from liking this company and being reasonably satisfied with the service, to being pissed off.
I cannot for the life of me know why they bother having an online contact form if they are not supporting it.
Anyway, screw them. They can boil their heads for all I care. I have better things to do than endlessly chase them to assist them in correcting errors that are probably caused by their own incompetence.
As they say, "It's That Easy"

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Here's Proof That Corporate CEO's Are Idiots!

Here's some proof that corporate CEO's are idiots!
Any company is ultimately run by the CEO and his/her team, and so if the members of the team, or for that matter, anyone in the organisation, fails to perform, then it ultimately rests on the shoulders of the CEO.

Let's take advertising.
Say a person in the organisation decides to advertise the product of say, landscaping services, in say, a child's comic, then we all would agree that this might be a stupid move, because the ad will not likely reach those who might want to purchase landscaping services. The advertising budget would be wasted.

So, it follows that the end media of advertising must reach the expected prospective customers of the advertiser, right?

Television is fairly good for this, as there are many programs that will suit various products. For instance, put a beer ad on during a ball game. Put a childs toy ad on during a morning cartoon.
Put a female product ad on during 'The View'!

So, if a company places an ad in an incorrect slot where it would not be seen or heard by the target audience, it would be just the same as the childs comic example - the advertising budget would be simply wasted.
And the CEO would ultimately be responsible because they are employing idiots who would do such a thing.

Stay with me here, I WILL get to the point eventually!

Say I was responsible for placing my company's advertising onto a TV station, then all I would have to worry about is that the time slot was appropriate for the product involved, right? WRONG!

No Sound On TV?
Say I placed an ad with a TV station where the sound was switched off, would that be good placing for the advertising budget? Obviously not. It would limit my advert to being visual only, with no sound. And yet it is happening every day.
And if I was the guy who had the job of deciding where the budget is spent, then I would not, in that last case with the sound off, be doing my job, right?

And if I continued to do this incompetent work over a long term and it went unnoticed by those higher in the organisation, then they would not be doing their jobs, am I right?

Viewers Have TO Use Mute Button
So, WHY , OH WHY, OH WHY, are advertisers doing just what is written above, namely wasting their advertising budgets, or at least not maximising the budgets.
How are they doing this? Simple, by not watching the darn TV after they placed the ads.
No doubt all people in the advertisers organisation are all patting themselves on the back, saying how great things are, or no doubt these days wringing their hands in worry wondering how to increase market share in a folding market, and all they have to do is PAY ATTENTION TO DETAIL!

Here Is The Actual Example
The TV Station is MuchMusic, out of, I believe, Toronto Canada.
The Programming is generally excellent.
The sound control is pathetic, however.
The sound on this station during some programming is so loud during the ads that it forces the viewer to either abandon watching, or hit the mute as soon as the ads come on.

CEO's Don't Watch TV?
This means that the CEO of MuchMusic is not watching his/her own station. The feature is so annoying that if he/she did, then the problem would get resolved post-haste.
It is even more interesting than that though.
Not only is there incompetence in the MuchMusic TV station, but also in the advertisers corporate structures.

The Advertisers Don't Watch TV?
The advertisers agents who are paying out their company's budgets are obviously not checking on the quality of service they are getting.
And their supervisors are not checking that those individuals are doing their jobs. And the CEO's of the advertising companies are not monitoring what is going on below them. They probably depend upon what they are told by the stool-pigeons below them rather than do proper checking, or even set up procedures for accurate checking by those below.

MuchMusic Stinks From Top Down - it never used to!
So, MuchMusic, your organisation appears to now stink from the top down.
So, those who advertise on the Muchmusic TV station, your organisations appear to stink from the top down as well.
And while the upper echelons are confident in the way they are doing things, the people below are probably going to work each day wondering how they can put up with the stupidity above them for years on end.

As for me, I am considering contacting all the companies who advertise on these badly engineered TV stations, and let them know that I am considering a "Don't Buy This" blog, listing all the moronic companies who are financially supporting badly engineered TV stations, in order to try to get the TV stations funding reduced until they fix their internal sound engineering issues.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Morons With Noise Pollution In Cars

We have new neighbours.
There was an empty lot next door, and it was purchased by a builder who had a house moved onto a basement he built there.
He spent the whole of last summer with a little farm tractor trying to bulldoze the mud around to level it out. He would choose days when it was raining, so he could get it stuck, and then presumably have fun shunting backwards and forwards to free it up again.
This would start at 6am and sometimes end at 10 pm. Just when I would settle down to watch TV, he would fire it up again. Then after about an hour, would stop for an hour or two.
All summer long.
Then he eventually finished, and the house, which is a large one, was sold, apparently to a young guy who rents out rooms to his buddies, so I am told.
No problem there.
The problem is with the idiotic, mentally insecure fools who frequent the place.
One in particular appears to need driving lessons, as he seems completely incapable of pulling away in his Mazda Protege (Ohhhhh, I am impressed!) without screaming the engine so that it develops enough power to make the tires chirp as he dumps the clutch and the car starts to move.

Now, I have a 1966 Mercury with a 390 cubic inch V8 that I purchased for the sole reason of having similar fun, except in my case, I can actually have the smoke rolling off the tires for quite a while. The difference is that I choose not to do it at 2.30 am.

Added to this, there appears to be deafness in the clan somewhere, as they seem to need a car stereo that is cranked to about 200 watts in order to hear it.

I know, I have it wrong.
Let's have a look at the REAL reason these effing useless piece of crap morons crank their car stereos - it is because it is the ultimate in "eff you" to the rest of the world, which in this case, as I live next door, is me.

Well, I have a plan. I still have access to my old DJ gear that I gave to my eldest son recently as he is doing some jamming with other guys, maybe to start a band.

But, I can get it back here in a flash. And I can have parties here at 1 am through to 4 am during the week, with enough power to setup a sound system for an auditorium (I had about 3 DJ rigs total) Or, maybe 3 am through to 4.30 am might be better.

It is amazing how youth always rebels against the older generation. We had Elvis, then there was the 'drug bands', then the heavy metal crowd. More recently it is the rappers.
I have no problem with it, because they grow up after a while, and in the past it has been a general thing to ignore it. But the noise pollution, they have a classic there. It cannot be ignored. The sub bass sound can be heard by whales in the sea over 12,000 miles away.

I keep getting asked by more established residents than I am (I have only lived here about 10 years) "Who are the people next door to you?" I have no answer. "They use the road like a race track" is the next comment.
They are as you find them. I find them to be un-neighbourly idiots who have a circle of similar idiot friends who have no consideration for others.

But I have a great plan.
I will let them have their tunes cranked, and will say nothing.
Then, as they get older, their deafness, which is already started (when I was DJ'ing if I was ever asked to crank it up, it was always by a club-type dude or a thump-thump car person, because those are the ones who have already damaged their hearing)
I will have the last laugh, because as I lay on my deathbed, I will think of those pinheads in their later years, asking for stuff to be repeated all the time.
And it will look good on them.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Primus Phone Service ! NEVER, EVER!

Here is an email I received from Primus, it was sent on the third, about a week after my email to them. Before reading it, bear in mind that I stressed in my first email that I had been asked to assist a friend with their account, and that Primus might prefer to obtain confirmation of that from the account holder. Anyway, here is the text of the email, my conclusions are below it:

Good Morning Mr. John XXXXXXXX,
Ref: account of XXXXXX XXXXXXXX
We apologize for the delay in answering your below message.

This refers to your recent inquiry regarding account number with Primus Canada.

Due to our privacy act policy, we are unable to answer your inquiry, as your name does not appear in the above-mentioned account. The account holder will need to call us at 1-800-806-3273 in order to have your name added to the account as extra contact before we are able to address y
our concerns. Although we apologize for the inconvenience, this is done for your security. As a leader in the telecommunications industry, we strive to maintain a high level of integrity in all our business practices. We can assure you we are committed to quality and processes.

To view the Policy, please go to the Primus Canada web site at http://www.primustel.ca/en/residential/legal/privacypolicy.html

Once you are authorized to have access to the account and have further questions, let us know.

Sincerely yours,

Jamie

Customer Service Associate

Primus Telecommunications Canada

customer.care@primustel.ca

Primus web site information: www.primustel.ca

Toll Free customer service number: 1-800-806-3273

Our Terms and Conditions which can be found at http://www.primus.ca/en/residential/legal/termsofuse.html

And here are my conclusion:
Primus customer care appear to have a focus on what in the call-center industry is known as 'handle-time". This is basically the ability to get rid of the caller as quickly as possible.
They are insulting me by ignoring my email to them.
They are using a template for the text of this latest email, and cannot even be bothered to change it to be appropriate, relative to the account number.
In short, this leaves me with the feeling that if I was a customer, I can expect nothing except a runaround from them.
They have failed to react in any way to the level of this complaint, as I have sent several emails together with links to my various blog entries about Primus in several different blogs.
The level of poor behaviour amazes me, as if I was working for them and received such emails as I sent, then the alarm bells for damage control would be ringing loudly.
The final analysis has to be that Primus are such a poorly run concern that they really do not care at any level, even about their own continued existence.
Remember now, this all arises from their initializing action to attempt a sale - it was not anything to do with anything that the account holder did (other than believe the Primus salesperson!)

Not being an ignorant person, I always respond to emails. Believe me, my response to this one will be extremely brief, as I just don't have the time to waste dealing with morons. The friend is changing away from Primus to other carriers due to Primus's inability to adjust even the simplest of their errors. The matter is now closed.