But what you might not have known is that my car already gets 33MPG and I seriously considered a Smart car a while back to even improve on that.

So, when I saw (and actually drove) the Nissan Leaf in Las Vegas in January I had a feeling it might be my next car. Trouble is, after pinging them on Twitter and getting them to agree to call me to set up the purchase of a car here in Boston, all communication stopped.

I don’t know about you, but if you were buying a TV and asked for salespeople to give you a call, you’d be pretty irked if they didn’t. For something larger – that requires a bit more of an investment in time and energy (ironically) – you’d think the company would be more receptive.

Especially as our society has become one where communication can be done anywhere and with any device. In fact, today I’ve written 11 blog posts – half of which were done on my iPhone using a BlueTooth keyboard. So if you can’t reach me with the technology that’s around today, there’s probably another reason I haven’t heard from you. What about it Nissan?

Nothing about Nissan and nothing against the car. I just wonder if the reason they haven’t contacted me is because the car isn’t ready to survive a winter in the Boston area. I’ll wait and see what happens.

© Jeff Cutler for Jeff Cutler - columns, essays and opinions, 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Boston, communication, customer service, nissan, scooter, twitter

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After a very pleasant exchange with the head Genius at Derby Street, we got my mother’s computer back and her new 13-Inch Macbook Air AND got the service we fully expected when she dropped $1800 at the store last Friday.

What occurs to me is that somebody at the store should be paying more attention to customer service and the backroom scheduling. There’s no reason we should have to wait 72 hours to move 4GB of data from one computer to another.

Your thoughts?

****************************

4:30PM – Apple Store – Derby Street Shoppes

I’m just going to ask a few questions and then let you answer them. They’re based on a recent – and by recent I mean CURRENT – experience I had at the Apple Store Derby Street. I’m sitting at a Personal Setup bar at the Apple Store typing this on a 13-inch Macbook Air. Not the same Macbook Air I’m picking up for my mother, but one that is happily sitting here for people to use.

So, here are my questions?

1 – Would you continue to do business with a company that promised your computer in 24-48 hours and then kept you waiting nearly 72 hours for a product you purchased?

2 – Would you voice your displeasure to the person answering the phone when they had trouble spelling the name JEFF three times?

3 – Would you tell two friends and let them tell two friends about your experience with an Apple Genius staff that was unfamiliar with using “sneaker net” to move files from an older laptop to the new laptop?

4 – Would you be surprised that they dealt with my mother far differently than they dealt with me? Both on the phone and in person.

Have you any Apple devices? Does the sleek, amazing design and capability make up for sometimes poor and boorish customer service?

I wait for your comments.

© Jeff Cutler for Jeff Cutler - columns, essays and opinions, 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: annoyed, Apple, customer service, derby street, hingham, Jeff Cutler, macbook air

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I got some crap the other day because I called out a business for not being accessible via social media. I was looking for a particular product and I wanted – in my familiar instant-gratification style – an answer immediately. The product and the brand aren’t important, but I didn’t hesitate to shout about how they had left their customers high and dry.

(Image copyright Jim Benton – Jim Benton dot com)

Turns out, the social media representative for that company was away on vacation in a region that had minimal cell coverage or Wifi. That meant any interaction, requests, concerns or engagement would have to lie dormant for a week while this human enjoyed well-earned vacation time.

I said things that probably made the brand look bad. I wondered aloud why they had abandoned social media and where should I go now with my service. I also made some overtures about other brands that really had abandoned their Twitter stream – examples include Burton’s Restaurant of Hingham (last tweet was in April), Summer Shack (last Tweet in July) and Fat Cat Restaurant in Quincy (last tweet was NEVER, but they pimped their Twitter presence on their Website and urged people to interact with them).

So what’s the reality? Are people just dipping their toes in and running away?

Are people at companies so overwhelmed and busy selling products that they don’t have time to market?

Have businesses gotten into social media for the wrong reasons?

And am I, and you and you and you and you, harboring unrealistic expectations of how companies should be using social media tools to communicate and serve us?

Leave a comment. Let me know what you think.

© Jeff Cutler for Jeff Cutler - columns, essays and opinions, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Burtons, customer service, Fat Cat Quincy, Jeff Cutler, Jim Benton, listening, social media

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but it’s appropriate today because of the following…

1 – Turner Fisheries – one of my favorite places – is having difficulty responding to their messages on Twitter. I’ve been trying to DM them, but as you know a direct message can only be sent to the people who are following you. I’m judiciously waiting for this snafu, technical or operator-error related, to be resolved. What’s the urgency? Well, I was at Turner’s last week and the service in the bar area left me wanting to share some comments with management. Sharing is hard when people aren’t listening. It’s taken me two days just to get Turners to respond to messages sent to them via social media.

2 – Zoom Products specifically the Zoom H2 I currently use have failed me. Not completely. Not in a malicious way. But in a way that made me want to finally share the story here. It’s in two parts. Hold on, I’ll give the short versions of each part.

a – I tried to contact the company last fall for review products and was roundly ignored. Never mind that I’m a professional journalist who covers the consumer tech industry and that other devices are making inroads on Zoom’s turf. They obviously didn’t hear me. (To the company’s credit, their agency of record was responsive…to a degree, but I still don’t have an eval unit in front of me.)

b - While doing an interview yesterday, my formerly trusty Zoom H2 (not a review unit, bought because it seriously is the best recorder for the money on the market) didn’t do as good a job recording my interview subject as I had hoped. I still sound glorious, but the guy I’m interviewing sounds like he’s doing a Houdini trick in a closet, with a gag on, in a neighboring town. I may have had my levels too low. Or I may have not held the mic close enough to his mouth. Or maybe he’s one of those low-talkers. Whatever the case, it’s just some more ‘hear-me-now’ pain.

So what can I do about these two things? Especially given that I’m swimming in a fishbowl of social media and technical detritus that often compels me to be stubborn about how I contact people? Do I break down and dig for the Turner Fisheries phone number and give them a call? Do I do the same with Zoom’s people?

Or do I hope they’re better at listening for their own name out in the ether than they are at addressing specific consumer issues? If I link to their sites one would presume that Google Alerts would alert them to this article. To me it’s a puzzle.

So many companies are hot to get into social media. They fret about having a Facebook page or reaching out to people on Twitter. But if your customers are elsewhere, then there’s no need for you to pretend to be here. And if you do forge a path into a social media space – you’d better be there when people reach out to you with social-media tools.

Just my opinion, but 21 years of communicating with readers, colleagues and clients—with tools as varied as construction paper, hand signals and Tweets—has given me a little understanding into what consumers/customers are looking for.

It also doesn’t hurt that I’m a customer too and putting on that hat suits me just fine too.

What do you think about how people communicate these days? And what would you advise based on my simple descriptions above? Do I call Turners? Do I write a complete blog post on the details of that day?

What about Zoom? Do I give them another chance or vow never to write about any product they have until the end of time? For Zoom it might not matter. While I might only be writing for NPR, Technology Review, the New York Post and MobileMag.com, it might make sense for them to sit up and pay attention.

Makes me wonder.

© Jeff Cutler for Jeff Cutler - columns, essays and opinions, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Boston, CEA, CES, customer service, Jeff Cutler, technology review, zoom

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The next time I have to mail a package I guess I’m going to have to take it to its destination myself.

Why?

Because UPS blows large hairy chunks. Well, UPS blows chunks by extension because they allow their franchise stores to adopt policies that alienate customers and undermine the very fabric with which the company was founded – efficient customer service.

Perhaps that’s not the only fabric used, and whatever the fabric was it was certainly brown. But I digress.

What’s my beef with the UPS Store? Simple. They don’t stock Waybills.

Let me explain.

As a technology correspondent, I’m frequently shipped large packages of hard drives and electronic gadgets. I get to spend some quality time with these devices so that I can write about them for various publications.

When I’m finished with these products I am given the choice of shipping them back to the manufacturer or donating them to worthy recipients.

Lately I was shipped a few external hard drives by mistake. Instead of getting two 2TB drives from Seagate, I got four. So I alerted the company and packed up the extras to ship back.

Then the fun begins.

When I took the box to the Cohasset UPS Store I brought with me the Seagate shipping account number and address. I planned to fill out the form at the store and have them ship my package back to the company.

No go. When I arrived, I was informed that they don’t carry Waybills so there was no way they could take my package.

I asked if I could read them the number and have them input it.

They said no.

I asked why.

They said it was company policy.

I said ‘seriously?’ and walked out the door.

Two days later I dashed around Hingham looking for a UPS drop box. When I found one, I saw it was chock-full of Waybills so I took a few.

Then I took a Waybill and my package to the same Cohasset UPS Store. Luckily for me, the manager/store owner was working. Our conversation went like this…

“So you don’t stock Waybills?”

“No.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s inconvenient.”

“Not for us.”

“Why don’t you? You’re a UPS Store.”

“We’re a franchise.”

“So do you not stock Waybills because there’s no money in it for you?”

- no comment -

“Do you make any money on packages that get dropped off?”

“Very little.”

“So it’s not worth your time.”

“Right.”

“That’s stupid. Thanks for your time.”

Now readers, answer me this. If you were the only shipping outlet locally – aside from the US Post Office – wouldn’t you do your darndest to get more potential customers in the door?

Wouldn’t you make yourself wide open to accepting UPS packages to increase the likelihood that someone dropping off a package might buy something else while visiting your stores?

Wouldn’t you be smarter than the short-sighted UPS Store owners in Cohasset?

Right now, unless I hear from the people at UPS or the people at that UPS Store, I will ONLY ship prepaid boxes from that location. I will never consider them for any other shipping service. And I will tell everyone I know – include you readers – that they totally blow chunks.

Got thoughts? Share them in the comments.

Keep reading!

© Jeff Cutler for Jeff Cutler - columns, essays and opinions, 2009. | Permalink | 43 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: customer service, Jeff Cutler, package, shipping, United Parcel Service, ups

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