By David Sims
[email protected]
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music
is the BBC Philharmonic’s broadcast version of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6:
Happy birthday, and thanks for all the great columns, Ann Coulter.
…
It’s great to write about the theory of CRM, how companies
should be treating their customers better, and to praise companies who do it
well, but we here at First CoffeeSM think it’s also appropriate to
kick a little butt when somebody clearly despises their customers. This usually
happens in the online world, since anybody
who treated customer as badly as Caiman.com treats their customers wouldn’t
last from one Christmas season to the next on a street corner shop somewhere.
First CoffeeSM printed an account of a terrible
customer experience he had buying a CD via the online vendor through Amazon.com, more as an object lesson
than anything else, and was astounded at how many other e-mails that provoked
from customers feeling similarly ill-used, lied to and otherwise treated like a
whiny ATM.
This led to another entry, “Terrible Service Costs Caiman.com Another Customer,”
printed back in April, and the responses to that one are still rolling in. On the
day before Thanksgiving Day “Eric” wrote in to post “Caiman.com is absolutely
the worst customer service experience ever!,” and yesterday, Pearl Harbor Day –
it must be a day of great moment to post on First CoffeeSM, folks – “Brett”
echoed what others have written:
I ordered a DVD from
Caiman from Amazon on 11/05/05. I received an email from them saying it has
shipped. On 12/07/05 it is still not here. I emailed “Claire” in customer
service. She said the USPS can take up to 21 days to deliver a package. This is
total fabrication. I then asked for the tracking number for the package. She
replied, “The USPS does not provide us with tracking numbers.” Once again, I
believe such a statement is a total fabrication. They’re the worst. SOMEBODY
SHUT THEM DOWN.
That so many people have written in to complain about
Caiman.com’s terrible customer service tells us that a) this isn’t First CoffeeSM
griping about a one-off mistake somebody at an otherwise fine company made, and
b) it’s a lot easier for companies
providing bad service like Caiman.com to thrive online, where they’re
virtually anonymous and, parasite-like, cling to their host sites like
Amazon.com.
What can be done about this? Not just about Caiman.com’s
awful treatment of customers, but to improve customer service online in
general? Do people not read the customer opinions on Amazon.com? First CoffeeSM
didn’t, or else he would’ve taken his business elsewhere. My bad, okay, but it’s
a mistake not to be made twice.
Some posters to the entry above have contacted the Better
Business Bureau to complain about Caiman.com, some have written the Florida
Attorney General’s office. That’s upsetting your customers in a big way, when
they take the time and effort to track down that sort of recourse. The problem
there is that enforcement action rarely filters down in a meaningful way to
company headquarters.
First CoffeeSM’s recommendation? When you find
someone who couldn’t care less about providing you with good customer service,
who you think isn’t shooting 100% straight with you, who tries to slough you
off with obviously canned e-mails providing information you know to be
incorrect, in other words a company which can’t be bothered to even pretend to
give a rip about you as long as you simply hand over the money, give ‘em the ol’
Nancy Reagan treatment and just buy a complete set of new china after
consulting your astrologer.
Uh, rather, just say no. The only thing that’ll get such
scofflaws off the Internet is loss of revenue. It’s the only power we have to
improve the quality and reliability of customer service, so let’s use it.
…
Motorola, Inc. has announced that the
company deployed its commercial UMTS on Taiwan,
within nine months of contract signing, to let VIBO Telecom launch 3G
commercial service on December 6, 2005.
Motorola provided VIBO with a complete 3G network including
Motorola’s UMTS system and exclusive 3G handsets, so VIBO could launch the latest
3G multimedia services this week to customers across Taiwan. A system upgrade
to HSDPA via a simple software download will be carried out at a future time,
when VIBO opts for a 3G network enhancement, Motorola officials say.
With Motorola’s UMTS network, VIBO was able to provide its initial 1.5 million
subscribers with 3G services. Subscribers now can access VIBO’s 3G multi-media
services, which generally provide a greater variety of quality voice and data
services than previously available with 2/2.5G.
…
Pactolus Communications Software Corporation,
a developer of Class 4/5 SIP-based IP voice services, and Convedia Corporation, a supplier
of IP media servers, have announced that the two companies are collaborating to offer service provider deployment of SIP-based,
IMS-compliant services.
The partnership, Pactolus officials say, will enable “rapid,
economical deployment of media-rich services and features for applications
based on Pactolus’ RapidFLEX Service Creation Environment and its SIPwar Carrier
Services Suite, using Convedia’s IP multimedia processing.”
Over the last four years, the two companies’ products have
been used in numerous service provider networks, such as that of Primus Canada.
Officials from both companies say the collaboration is to help simplify both
media-rich features, and the delivery of services of all types of fixed and
mobile network topologies, in the hopes of driving increased subscriber usage
and retention. The emerging IMS cross-network service model, they believe, fosters
subscriber adoption of advanced calling features, customizations, unified
contact databases and calling groups, which extends the usability of carrier
services and promotes subscriber loyalty.
…
We’re settled into
our apartment in Istanbul now, which actually has a view of
Bosphorus if you stand on the roof and jump. Here’s how First
CoffeeSM explained the experience to a friend in an e-mail:
Arrange for the truck to pick up our stuff in Antalya at
nine in the morning Friday. Truck shows up at 10:30, so early by Turkish
standards we’re lucky we’re dressed. We’d agreed to pay 500 lira ($370) for the
guy to do the move, truck and all, he gets there and doesn’t have any helpers.
Where are the helpers? Oh, helpers, yeah, that’ll be 300 lira, I can have a
couple guys here in ten minutes (upon which he’ll pay them 15 lira each and pocket
270). Forget it, we’ll do it ourselves. Um, 150 lira? Sorry, Charlie. It’s
mostly boxes anyway, not much furniture, a friend’s staying with us so he helps.
Truck’s all packed, locked, the guy says you’re going to
Cengelkoy in Istanbul, right? Right, like we told you a couple weeks ago. Sorry,
can’t take you there, streets are too narrow, the guy says. (You think this is
an exaggeration? After the truck is locked he says this.) Much
phone-calling back and forth with the woman who lives in the apartment we’re
moving into, assures him yes, it’s fine, the truck can make it no problem. No
bribe, sorry. Grumpy, he says he’ll have it in Istanbul Saturday morning,
leaves.
We fly to Istanbul Friday night, call the truck guy, who
says sure, I’ll have a couple helpers to unload tomorrow morning, no problem.
Saturday comes and goes. Sunday morning he calls, says he’s “in
Istanbul” somewhere. Fine, we say, we’ll be at church, you can come to the flat
after two. Guy calls at 11:30 saying he’s at the apartment. This is still Swiss
timing for Turkey, mind you. We get home at two, he’s there, where are the guys
to help? Oh, you wanted helpers? Makes some calls, in five minutes two guys
show up asking 100 lira each.
Paying 25 lira for a day’s work is a lot, this job’ll take a
couple hours, max. Friend and I start unpacking. Um, 60 lira? Get lost. Security
guard hails a couple gardeners thrilled to pieces to get 30 each for a couple
hours’ work and who are Our Good Friends now.
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