Customer Service - From Promise to Performance

It's a topsy-turvy world when it comes to customer service. I've written before about the subversive shifts in business/customer relationships. For example, I wrote about what it implies when a business stops calling a customer a customer and instead calls him a "guest." Social norms say customers are always right, but guests should be acommodating and grateful. I'd rather be a customer.

Today, I'm offering another report from upside-down world. This is the Alice in Wonderland world in which landlords agree to rent their property through a third party (broker) who holds auctions for the lease but won't tell the landlord what the winning rent bid is or what percentage of the rent the broker is charging as a fee. In addition, the landlords must agree that they won't share the statistical information they get from the broker that might provide insight into how their cut of the rent is being determined. They let the broker unilaterally determine how much money has to accrue in the landlord's account before the broker has to release the money to the landlord. And, last but not least, the broker doesn't have to retain that money in an interest bearing account for the landlord's benefit; the broker can invest the money and reap the benefit.

Perhaps it's just because I've been exposed to the laws that regulate real estate brokers for physical property that I find all this quite odd. These sorts of practices are generally not permitted in the United States if the real estate in question is physical real estate (real land, real buildings). But, it appears to be the norm in the Wild West of the internet. Owners of websites are owners of virtual real estate. Allowing other people to place ads on their website's pages is essentially granting an incredibly short-term lease (a fraction of a second to a few seconds). Why, then, are those landlords agreeing to rent through a broker who won't tell them what rent tenants will pay, are paying, or the size of the broker's cut? As I understand it, that's what Google Ad Sense does. Here's what they tell a landlord (a website owner considering renting out space through Ad Sense):

"How much do I get paid?
How much you earn depends on a number of factors including how much an advertiser bids on your site -- you'll receive a portion of what the advertiser pays. The best way to find out how much you'll earn is to sign up and start showing ads on your web pages."

(https://www.google.com/adsense/login/en_US/)

Google says nothing in particular about what they're earning or what the landlord will earn despite Google's significant influence over how many potential "tenants" bid on the lease and some of the best analytics around. Interestingly, Google goes even farther than not telling the landlord what they know; they prohibit others from providing some of the most telling information (see the confidentialy section of the terms & conditions).

Don't get me wrong. There are a lot of things I love about Google. I regularly use all their basic services - search, maps, map search, news, images - and some of their mobile services - .mobi, 411, my location, etc. Against my own best judgment, I even let them data mine my gmail account. I admire much about their technical prowess and even their hiring decisions -- they've hired two of my favorite people.

All the happy stuff said, I understand that Google makes the vast majority of its revenue from advertising. And, I understand why they'd want to use their dominant market position to take the highest advantage of both buyers and sellers. What I don't understand is why people let them.

Just a short while ago, I wrote about the great job DreamHost had done in quickly self-identifying and correcting it's own billing error.  This week, I've got to take back a few of their gold stars. 

PROBLEM #1:

DreamHost is in the business of providing web hosting services, but last week it had delays and outages that make clear it shouldn't host stream-of-commerce businesses.  On the same day that I sent out announcements that I was making my new business site available for testing, it was essentially impossible to get to it.  It took more than five minutes for the homepage to load.  

The DreamHost team tried to help, but needed to have done a lot more.  Apparently, they knew that they had reached some scaling limits and had planned to spread the load in a new facility.  They ultimately sent a note to users that they were planning to have a twelve hour outage to address the problem. 

SOLUTIONS:

First and foremost, you can't be a webhost if you need to have twelve hour outages; they needed to have a backup or fail-over facility. 

Second, if you are having an emergency (both your operating and fail-over facility are hit by simultaneous tornados), you need to know exactly what the damage is.  DreamHost has a status page that was supposed to report system problems.  Prior to the scheduled expansion, it was reporting occasional serious system delays and outages.  However, more often than not, they were listed as resolved while a string of user-submitted comments indicated they were not or had been supplanted by new problems.  If you're posting notices to your customers and allowing them to write back, you need to read what they write, and hold a responsive dialogue.  Things would have gone more smoothly if DreamHost had replied to all the posted comments and explained why they weren't part of the same problem, how they were being addressed, etc.

PROBLEM #2:

While all of this mini-mayhem was going on, I discovered a problem unique to my site and went to pull the back-up copies of files.  They didn't seem to be there, so I sent a note to customer support and signed up for the enhanced call-back-by-phone support.  The new phone support required me to provide a number and a multi-hour preferred calling window.  Later in the day, I discovered that they had called while I was handling some other business responsibility.  The support person left a message that he had made the attempt to call and would now be sending me an email (with no opportunity for interaction).  No return number was offered nor any explanation for why not.  Needless to say, I don't consider that phone support and canceled the service. 

SOLUTION:

If DreamHost wants to offer fee paid phone support it's got to have a method that takes into account that the customer may not be free at the moment DreamHost decides to call.

ONE THING DONE RIGHT:

I'll give them credit for one thing.  When I canceled the phone support, they didn't whine, wheedle, or attempt to cajole.  They just politely informed me that they'd credit my charge card. 

It's a busy day, but this fabulous email was too good not to post right away.  FYI, their email was perfect.  I redacted the personal information.

"Hi K Krasnow!

Ack. Through a COMPLETE bumbling on our part, we've accidentally attempted to charge you for the ENTIRE year of 2008 (and probably 2009!) ALREADY (it was all due to a fat finger)!

We're really really realllly embarassed about this, but you have nothing to worry about. Please ignore any confusing billing messages you may have received recently; we've already removed all those bum future charges on your account (#...) and already refunded the $... charge on your credit card.

You should get the money back on almost immediately, within a day or two max, and there's no need to contact your credit card company or bank for the refund.

Thank you very very much for your patience with this.. we PROMISE this won't happen again. There's no need to reply to this message unless of course you have any other questions at all!

Sincerely,
The Foolish DreamHost Billing Team!"

I'm changing the focus of this customer service blog. In earlier blogs, I focused on highlighting the sort of things that have gone wrong, trying to show corporations how their policies are perceived from by the customers. Since my fundamental nature is to fix problems not just identify them, from now on each blog will contain at least one suggestion for how the company could achieve higher customer satisfaction in the situation.

Today, I'm looking at telephone service, an industry of tremendous competition. One article I read estimated that, in 2003, 30-40% of cell phone customers were changing cariers in a single year. And, the Census reported that 40 million Americans move each year; most of them will be getting new phone service, too. So, phone companies should know that, even as you're leaving them now, they could be competing for your business again soon. With that in mind, why aren't they nicer to departing customers?

Here are some examples of the sorts of things that make their customers unhappy:

Time-Warner:

PROBLEM: When I cancelled my business' land service, they sent a bill showing a credit balance. I had paid more than I owed but after several months T-W had made no move to send a refund. When I called and pointed out that they owed me money, I was advised that I would have to go through a series of hurdles lasting 30 days or more (call another number, wait for a form to arrive, fill out the form, mail it back, wait for it to be processed) in order to get the money that the bill indicated was clearly mine. Adding insult to injury, I next got a bill indicating that an "adjustment" had been made resulting in a zero balance; T-W had simply removed the credit from the balance (i.e., taken my money).

SOLUTION: T-W should create a feed to its billing system from its service system; the billing system should know when service has been cancelled. The billing system should be modified to note when 90 days have passed since cancellation (allowing time for proper credits or debits) and then issue a refund. Under no circumstances, should an "adjustment" be made which takes the client's credit and assigns it to T-W.

SPRINT:

PROBLEM: When I switched long-distance services away from SPRINT on my home phone, I had about a $100 credit balance. And, again, although I was no longer a customer, they continued to send monthly bills showing they knew they had my money. At least when I called them, they promised to send a refund and the check arrived within a week or ten days.

SOLUTION: This is certainly the "least worst" situation. SPRINT didn't act on its own to return my money and I think they should have. Their billing system, too, should be programmed to wait after cancellation (just to ensure that the account wasn't the victim of "slamming") and then send a refund.

VERIZON:

PROBLEM #1: My husband and I had gotten cell phones together and the account had randomly been placed in his name. This turned out to be a huge problem, because when I called to ask a question (like how many minutes had been used during the month or when the contract ends) I was informed I needed his permission to receive an answer. Even after he told them multiple times to stop doing that, they still insisted there were questions they couldn't answer without his permission ("oh, that's an exception"). Verizon doesn't acknowledge that the service is provided in a state with community property laws (where the legal default is that married couples jointly hold assets and jointly owe debts).

SOLUTION #1: Verizon should align with the law and make community property the default for married couples with "family plan" phones (one for each) in community propety states. In order to account for married couples who are legally maintaining separate finances (which requires some careful action and is rarely successfully done), Verizon could ask at the time of establishing service if only one spouse will be responsible.

PROBLEM #2: Since I'm the heavier user of cell phone service, we finally switched the account to my name. This involved multiple phone calls, nearly two hours in a Verizon store, and additional charges of more than $500. Interestingly, after paying all of the money, I've now received a credit of nearly $250 on the last bill with my husband's name. Now, we have to try to either get a refund check or get the credit applied to the bill (for the same two numbers) that's now in my name.

SOLUTION #2: In situations in which a bill is overpaid and there is no possibility for additional billing (as here, where future service bills are the responability of another party), the billing system should automatically issue a refund check.

PROBLEM #3: This one is incredible. One of my colleagues informed Verizon in writing that he was moving and wanted his service cancelled. After he moved, he continued to receive bills, pay them, and send responding letters (each month for the six following months) reminding them that he had moved and requested termination of service. On the seventh month, he refused to pay and got a termination notice. He (a lawyer) wrote to their legal department explaining the entire history and got a letter back indicating that they didn't accept letters and that he would have to phone Verizon to effectuate cancellation. He sent a certified letter again asserting that he had paid more than was fair and wanted the service terminated. In response he got a letter indicating that they would send his account to collection. He then spent several hours on the phone and spoke to multiple operators before finding one (who gave him the understanding that she is a contractor and not a regular employee) who retroactively cancelled his account back to the proper move-out date. After this was completed, he recieved a letter from a Verizon customer service representative asserting that the representative had "been trying to reach" him; this was a complete mystery since Verizon had been provided both his new phone number and address.

SOLUTION #3: Apply common sense. If Verizon can send bills, notices of termination, letters threatening collection, and letters from customer service, it stands to reason that it recognizes the effectiveness as well as the legal and evidentiary value of written correspondence. It should immediately cease and desist from telling any customer that it does not accept letters. And, of course, it should cease the actual practice of ignoring customer correspondence.

It's hard to believe that businesses have taken the position that they will simply hold your money unless, until, and sometimes even after you ask for it back. However, this is not the only industry in which I've seen the practice. Doctors' offices and hospitals seem to do this routinely, for example. I haven't had the opportunity to research the case law on the subject, but I have a hard time imagining the legal theory under which you're entitled to keep (and invest and earn returns on) money you haven't earned. While any one customer's credit may not be that large, the aggregate across thousands or millions of customers is tremendous. If the practice doesn't change soon, I expect to see some big class actions in the near future.

Can't say I'm surprised by the Dell battery recall. 

I've had two Dells overheat.  Over the course of about a year, I had a Latitude overheat to the point that I could feel the heat through a stack of rolled up Wall Street Journals and it began to discolor the underside of my wrists.  Then, I bought an X1 which essentially fried its harddrive. 

To its credit, between the two computers, Dell replaced a fan, a motherboard, an entire laptop, and a hard drive. 

To its discredit, customer service was a nightmare.  Having paid for "gold" tech support didn't preclude:

-         being placed on interminable hold (more than 30 minutes in some cases);

-         dealing with a “voice recognition” system that could not “hear” me using any tone except shouting;

-         technicians who didn't know the products (i.e., couldn’t agree among themselves whether the X1 has a fan or is passively cooled);

-         leaving customers in the lurch (although replacement parts are sent express for “gold” contract holders, there’s no loaner or other option when the part is out of stock);

-         the assumption that customers who had bought laptops with operating systems and software pre-installed would manage to install those items on their own when Dell replaces the hard drive or computer; and

-         foreign techs with unintelligible accents (as someone spending the year with foreign nationals, I feel particularly qualified to say that these techs could not be understood).