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Adventures in Laptop LandOne of the payoffs for me doing this newsletter is that I get to rant once in a while about my experiences interacting with computer, software and networking vendors. This is gonna be one of those times. It is time to buy a new laptop. After a moderate amount of research, and in consideration of the fact that Kate gets an employee discount through her employer, I decided on a Acme. No, there isn't a well known computer company by that name. But I didn't want the specific brand to get in the way of the message of this column. And I didn't want the REAL company's lawyers to contact me. So we'll call this paragon of a computer company "Acme." Let's talk about the various ways that Acme screwed up my day. This should be an object lesson in customer service on the Internet. One would have thought that Acme would be better at this sort of thing. One would have thought.... The story starts with Kate emailing me the URL, ID and password so that I could access the special page for buying through the employee purchase program. I dutifully typed in the URL, pressed return and got "The site is currently unavailable while we perform system maintenance." I certainly hope this was not a planned outage. I'd hate to think that the folks in the systems department think that Monday morning would be a jim-dandy time to take the system down. In any case, I called the 800 number. The automated attendant insisted on telling me that Acme wanted to make it as easy as possible for me to get what I needed, then proceeded to give me 43 menu options. After selecting what I thought was appropriate, I got a real person who said I needed to talk to corporate accounts and transferred me. The next person asked for the name of Kate's company so they could look up the account. When he found it in the database, he said, "Wow. They buy a LOT. That's major accounts. Let me transfer you to them." Whereupon I sat on hold for 20 minutes (I know...I timed it.) Luckily, I had other things to do while really bad classical music played, and I heard multiple blurbs about how sorry they were to make me wait. They repeatedly assured me that an operator would be right with me. They also told me how wonderful Acme was. At the end of this time, a live operator came on, and transferred me AGAIN! Another 20 minute wait ensued. I kept thinking to myself: "I'm on the "drop dead line" but I don't want tech support, I want to BUY something!" However, it WAS going to be a pretty significant discount, so I held on. Besides, I figured I would be able to get a column out of it. Finally I got a very nice representative. While she was not terribly knowledgeable about the product, at least she had people handy who DID know what they were talking about. So, dear reader. What's the point? Aside from giving me the opportunity to get this little day-ruiner off my chest, there are some real lessons to be learned here. Acme made some serious mistakes, which we all can learn from. 1. EVERY computer manufacturer insists, when you hit their Web site, that you classify yourself into home-office/personal, small business, medium business, and large business, or some similar categorization. I get nervous about this because I hate to be pigeon-holed - what products are they NOT showing me because I select small business? Do I get more options, or more selection if I say I'm a big business? Your site should make it EASY for your visitors to find the information they need. When I log into a Web site, the first thing I want to do is click on "laptops." I don't want to have to agonize over what market segment to assign myself to. Acme designed their opening page to cater to the aimless browser who isn't quite sure what he or she wants. But they make it difficult for the person who simply wants to buy a dang laptop. 2. They overdid the marketing-speak. All computer vendors seem to have built up very complex product lines full of different lines and models. NOWHERE on Acme's site (or on any other vendor's site that I looked at) was there a reliable and useful chart that would give me some guidance to the right computer. The Web pages were full of so much marketing babble, that I didn't trust them. Your site should provide reliable and trust-building information. One of the benefits of buying from a Web site should be the opportunity to bypass the sales rep who's been with the company for a week or so, and doesn't even know how much memory the computer will hold. Instead, the sites that I visited made it difficult and confusing to settle on the best option for my particular needs. They didn't provide me with useful information. 3. The specs on the site were wrong. Acme's page indicated that rewrite-able CD_ROMS were available for their laptops. I wanted one. But the page where you configure the laptop didn't offer that option. When I talked to the rep, it came out that the units were no longer available, except as external add-ons. So the Web page was wrong. The lesson is that one of the major benefits of the Web is to provide current and accurate information. Your credibility can be damaged if your site has incorrect information. Set up systems, procedures and communications so that your site truly reflects reality - not what the marketing department said six months ago. 4. And of course, they had a serious problem that affected the access to their site - the part of the site where their biggest customers buy stuff. This can't be a good thing. This could of course, be an accident. But this is the kind of thing that a sophisticated ecommerce player like Acme ought to be able to avoid. That's kind of why they HAVE a systems department. And if this was actually a PLANNED outage? Well let's not go there. That kind of incompetence would boggle the mind. Your lesson is that, if your ecommerce site goes down, you lose money. It ain't just an inconvenience for the systems people and the Webmaster. Your company is losing money, credibility and goodwill. And maybe you'll have the bad luck to have some writer desperately trying to buy something. This is the kind of press you don't want. So when all is said and done, I supposedly have a spiffy new notebook coming to me in a week. Or so they say. Wait until next Monday to see what happens in the further adventures of Jim and his new computer.
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