The Social Customer Manifesto

Rhymes With "Mitch Frog"

Comcast hits a new low. (And that's saying something.) The Chicago Tribune is reporting:

"Until recently, LaChania Govan's complaints about Comcast's service seemed relatively tame. The 25-year-old Elgin mother of two said she was put on hold, disconnected, even transferred to the Spanish language line.

But after persistent problems with her digital recording system forced her to make dozens of calls to the cable company in July, her August bill came with a change really worth complaining about: In place of her name were the words 'Bitch Dog.'"

"We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone cable company."

(hat tip: Jeff Jarvis, who just wrote a great letter to Michael Dell, BTW)

ZDNet UK Apologizes to Google (Sort Of...)

As you may have seen, the San Francisco Chronicle has reported the Google has banned its representatives from speaking with reporters from CNet News.com for a period of one year, on the heels of a CNet article that used Google CEO Eric Schmidt as a example of the extent and type of personal information that can be found using Google itself.

Now, News.com sister publication ZDNet UK has issued a scathing...well, I guess you could call it an "apology"...for the actions of News.com. From ZDNet UK:

"Acting under the mistaken impression that Google's search engine was intended to help research public data, we have in the past enthusiastically abused the system to conduct exactly the kind of journalism that Google finds so objectionable.

Clearly, there is no place in modern reporting for this kind of unregulated, unprotected access to readily available facts, let alone in capriciously using them to illustrate areas of concern."

As Jay writes, blogs are the little First Amendment machines that could. Although in the case above there were two organizations of substantial size involved, the same voice and reach are available across the board to all (ref: let's do a search on, say, "horrible service") and it becomes quickly apparent that the mean time to worldwide visibility of an issue can be literally measured in minutes -- from incident, to impact, to (in this case) snarky response.

Others talking:

Alan Wexelblat at Corante
Matt Marshall at SiliconBeat
John Battelle at Searchblog
Dan Gillmor at Bayosphere

UHaul: Never Again

So, currently in the process of moving a houseful of stuff from Point A to Point B. Went online at http://www.uhaul.com to reserve a truck. Easy! Found a location 15min away, booked everything out with their website, and printed out my confirmation.

Here ends the chipper part of our story.

So, first, the confirmation page says "if you have not received a call from your local office by 5pm tomorrow, please call our regional office to schedule pickup of your vehicle."

The next day arrives and departs, no call from "my local office." So I call the regional office.

20 minutes of hold spiel. Wieux-hieux. Finally get through to a person.

"You need to call the local office directly, they're now in charge of your reservation." Grrr.

I call the local office. "No, sir, sorry...we don't have a 24' truck available. Here's the number for [the next town over] that might have one."

I call the U-haul in the next town over. I get someone on the phone who "transfers the reservation" to their office. They think they'll have a 24' truck available on the date it's needed. Cool. "So, we're all confirmed?" I ask, innocently.

"Um, no sir. We'll call you back by 5pm tomorrow to confirm pickup." Can't you confirm it now? "No."

Okay. At this point, my confidence is flagging, and I call two other companies in the area to put a backup in place, as U-Haul is not filling me with the warm fuzzies. A backup reservation is made, just in case UHaul doesn't come through.

The next day, U-haul calls, they leave a message and...surprise!...they have no trucks available for the date I have a reservation for. Backup is confirmed at this point.

To ensure that I'm not charged for the non-existent reservation for the non-existent truck with UHaul, I call up again, this time to cancel. 30 minutes on hold, and NEVER get a person to pick up the phone. I hang up, and will be checking next month's credit card statements even more diligently than normal to ensure that they didn't charge anything for the non-existent truck on the non-existent reservation.

On the other hand, if you're in the Bay Area and need a truck, I highly recommend either:

Condon and Sons (Penske rentals) in San Mateo

or

Hengehold Trucks in Palo Alto

Addendum:

BTW, talk about identifying a market, getting inside of it, and showing that you understand a customer...while most truck rental outfits in the Bay Area seem to have a strict "we will not rent to you" policy for that thing in the desert, check out what Hengehold does instead. How much incremental revenue do you think Hengehold gets each year because they trust their customers?

Dell Loses Another Sale

First, the Jeff Jarvis snowball.

Then Dell threatens to close, and then closes, its customer forums.

Now this, from Desirable Roasted Coffee.

"Dell Denmark approached me a half-dozen times over the summer, at least. At minor expense, to be sure, but it adds up. But the hum started by a guy 4000 miles away, whom I don't even know, who had a bad experience with a Dell subsidiary I'll never have to deal with, was enough to wave me off. The hum got into my subconscious. And Dell Denmark could do nothing to get back into the front of my brain."

Still think that interactions between members of a customer community don't matter?

"Podcast" Added To The OED: Is This A Record?

28Sept2004: The term "podcasts" returns 24 pages on Google

10Aug2005: "Podcast" is added to the Oxford English Dictionary

(hat tip: Steve Rubel)

wheeeeeeeee!

Offtopic shiny thing: Crayola rockets (cool!)

The Reach Of Great Customer Service

Evelyn Rodriguez pulls out the stops and writes a gorgeous piece on her recent experience at The Market Grill in The Pike Place Market in Seattle. Here's a taste:

"I'm reminded of chado, the Japanese tea ceremony, in the way he slides open the drawers, turns over the salmon, and deliberately spreads every inch of the bread evenly with the rosemary mayonnaise. His companion worker's movements are just as fluid...Everything is fresh. And they let you know it if the time is right. Slicing the bread: 'We baked it this morning.' The emphasis wouldn't work if every bite didn't salivate wholesomeness..."

No one on the planet would connect with that description of The Market Grill if it were written by a copywriter, and pushed out through the traditional channels. It has to be external, unsolicited, authentic to ring as truly as it does.

Although a great deal of attention is cast on the less-than-perfect customer experiences that can be highlighted through blogs, it's also true that happy customers blog, too. Shel Holtz points out the RedRoomChronicles, Marriott hotel stories as they are told by Rob Safuto (who has racked up over 350,000 awards points in their perks program). Safuto writes:

"For all the time we spend in these hotels it’s important that we’re in on every perk possible that might make our business travel just a bit more tolerable."

These aren't just blogs. They are links to active, vocal, social communities.

When Customers Blog

Susan Getgood has a great, two-part post on customer blogs (that is, enterprise-sponsored blogs that are written by customers of that organization). Here they are:

Customer Blogs: What type of company should do one? and
Customer Blogs: What you need to do to make it work.

Good stuff, read the whole thing, etc.

Some tidbits, to help stack the deck in favor of success. Susan says consider a customer blog if...

• Customers love the product
  
• Customers are already talking in some fashion
  
• Others can learn from the customers' conversations (Susan calls this "exploting an information gap," but isn't it more about conversation and learning, rather than "exploitation?")
  
• The hosting company is willing to give up control

The last one's the biggie, isn't it? It goes back to trusting the customer, I suppose...

tag: newvoices
(what's this?)

PRWeek: Podcasts Open New Doors For Customer Relationships

Keith O'Brien gets it right in this article: Podcasting: Podcasts open new doors for customer relationships. Jason Calacanis has a great quote:

"I think it's a great channel for companies to go direct to the consumer. I love JetBlue, and if they had a travel show that incorporated where it goes, what you can find at its destinations, and travel tips, I would certainly download it. If you're a Flash designer and could listen to a podcast each week on Flash design produced by Macromedia, that would be of high value, as well. Just like blogs can engage customers in a conversation, [podcasts] can, as well."

Additionally, although I normally try to avoid The Mouse at all costs, Disney's Duncan Wardle also makes a good point:

"Say a single mother from San Francisco is thinking of coming to Disneyland. When she's planning her trip, what if she listened to a podcast of a single mother talking about what's good and [bad] at Disneyland? Right now, consumers are in the marketing mix, as they should be. There's a huge change of focus where you will not be marketing at consumers; you will be marketing with them."

http://www.prweek.com/news/news_story_free.cfm?ID=239677&site=3

(disclosure: I was interviewed for the article)

Would The Last Customer Service Person Out Of Round Rock Please Turn Off The Lights?

As threatened, Dell has shut down their non-technical Customer Service Forums. The little locks on all the threads really punctuates the message, don't you think?

click to enlarge

All About DELL - The Social Customer Manifesto Podcast 7JUL2005

click here to subscribe

Welcome iTunes subscribers! Today's conversation topics include thoughts on Dell's current customer service and support woes, news on the shuttering of a portion of Dell's online customer community, and (unrelated to Dell) some upcoming conferences where I hope we can get together in person.

Dell "support" stories

The original Jeff Jarvis post: Dell Hell (more here, here, here, here, here, etc.)
Steve Rubel's post (with the now-infamous "A-lister" comment)
Technorati tracking
Blogpulse tracking
Blog Business Summit is running a Dell ClueWatch
Forbes: Dell Slashing Customer Service [Costs]
Jory puts Dell on the CSL

Motherboard Chronicles (brilliant writing, in 7 parts...highly recommended)

Dell to terminate their Community Forums tomorrow, July 8

Dell Customer Support Forum (link likely to be inactive after 8JUL2005)

SocialCustomer: I may have missed this in another thread, but has Dell given a reason *why* they are shuttering the non-technical customer service boards?

rickmktg: No reason was stated. One can conclude that Dell continues it's business focus combined with reducing its expenses. The moderators were expenses. The support and help they gave wasn't measured, and therefore to the big corporation has no value. And with the India support willing to take the calls real cheap and recommend formatting for every solution, all is well in the Dell corporate world...

Why is Dell killing the forums, after being open for years?

Let's go straight to Dell and ask, shall we?

Welcome to Dell Chat. Please wait for an available agent. You will be notified when your chat is accepted by an agent.
The session has been accepted.
{Pooja 12:29:21 PM} Thank you for contacting Dell Customer Care chat. My name is Pooja, how may I assist you today?
{CFC 12:29:58 PM} Hi. I noticed that it appears the Dell Customer Service forums are being retired tomorrow. I was wondering why?
{Pooja 12:30:46 PM} Please give me a moment to review your question.
{Pooja 12:32:54 PM} Christopher, as of now there is no information in this regard.
{CFC 12:33:18 PM} Any idea of who within Dell might have the answer?
{Pooja 12:33:27 PM} May I know from where did you get this information?
{CFC 12:33:53 PM} Sure. Let me find the URL.
{Pooja 12:34:10 PM} All right Christopher.
{CFC 12:34:21 PM} link
{CFC 12:34:38 PM} "The Customer Service boards on the Dell Community Forum will be retiring at 3:30pm this Friday, July 8th. Customer Service FAQs will still be available to help answer your questions. If you need further assistance, you may contact our customer service team via Chat or e-mail for any non-technical issue you may have. Thank you."
{Pooja 12:36:08 PM} Christopher, I did go through the URL you provided me. Please allow me 4-5 minutes so that I can provide you with further information in this regard.
{CFC 12:36:39 PM} Thank you. I'll wait.
{Pooja 12:41:02 PM} Thank you for your time.
{Pooja 12:41:55 PM} Christopher, we are closing the Customer Service boards on the Dell Community Forum for the time being as there certain updates which needs to be taken care of.
{CFC 12:42:31 PM} I see. When are they expected to be available again?
{Pooja 12:42:41 PM} Once the board starts the function again their would be a notification on the web site.
{CFC 12:42:59 PM} Do you have a list of the updates that are being made?
{Pooja 12:43:25 PM} No Christopher.
{CFC 12:43:38 PM} Ok. Thank you for your help.
{Pooja 12:43:40 PM} Meanwhile, you may contact our customer service team via Chat or e-mail for any non-technical issue you may have.
{Pooja 12:43:45 PM} You are welcome.

In Other News: Upcoming Conferences

AlwaysOn (July 19-21, Palo Alto CA)
BlogHer (July 30, Santa Clara CA)
GO! (Sept. 18-20, Leesburg VA)