Have you ever had bad customer service? Of course you have! We all have. So you can understand how valuable good customer service can be. It's rare and hard to find and in fact, it's the burden of large business.

The worst customer service usually are for big companies. The reason for this is because the people answering the phones are normally about 10 rungs on the ladder below the CEO. In fact, customer service is usually in a different city, or in a different country! "My names is Pragnesh, can I helps you with your cell phone service today sir? Did you perform a hard boot de phone?"

For me, the best customer service is no customer service. If you can't get it done right, do it yourself. I do not like to talk to people because normally, the people can't help me with what I want; they aren't authorized to. For this reason, I love the internet. I love having full control of things and being able to do things myself. As a result, I LOVE DirecTV. I really really do. I can do everything online. Buy a new receiver? Sure! Schedule a move? Why not!? How about turn on and off HBO and Shotime? Of course. Yeah, you heard me, I can add and turn off premium channels without talking to some ass hole in India. I won't recieve a call on why i should keep it, i won't have to say no. All I have to do is click "cancel" and because it's a computer, it automatically does the math then pro-rate my account for the month. Awesome!

Now, let's flip a bitch. I recently received a new store card from Express. I spend a shit load of money there and now they upgraded my card from the normal card to the "A-list" card. Okay, it's more than just a marketing gimick. I do get better percent off and i get a lot of $10/$20 off in the mail. Literally monthly. It's nice because when i actually want to shop, i get around $50 off of whatever plus a percent off for using the card... which i go home and pay online right away.

Anyway, It says on the card "Call to Activate." So I call. As soon as i hear "this call may be recorded" I know two things: 1) This is not automated and 2) I'm going to have to say no a lot. I have been through enough of these calls to know that everything is a number and It can be automated via a phone or internet, it has before. This must be a marketing sales ploy. I am immediately on the defensive.   

 "Express Card Customer service how can i help you?" I explain the deal, and we exchange all the nice pleasantries. After everything has been exchanged, the nice lady says "Ok, your card is being activated now and while we wait, let me explain something else you can consider." So the nice lady does her best to tell me for $7 a month I can have protection on my card. Just in case it's stolen, I go over the limit, late payment forgiveness, etc... and I say "Nope not interested today" to which she has obviously heard before because she starts to say "No problem but let me also remind you this can benefit blah blah blah..." to which i really don't care. I say again i don't care and no and she says that's okay the card is active and to have a nice day and that was that.

So here is my question, if something is so fucking important, why the hell is it an option and not standard? I mean, if i lose a lot with out it, why the hell would i ever want your damn card in the first place unless this came with it?

I understand that this upselling must make money, but at what cost? How much more could you make if you include that value and the current price? How many more customers could you have? How much more could toy make? The moral of this story, don't nickel and dime and make sure the people interfacing with the customers have as much authority as you do. If they don't, they are worthless. 

Walhalla

-PZ

Ten years ago, web sites were easy. Anyone could make them for you. In fact, only one guy did make them for you. He was your "internet guy." Hell, I was that guy once upon a time.

Today, you don't have a guy, you have an army of guys, and they all specialize in one thing and think they specialize in the others. Your SEO wants to edit content, your developer want to design, your designer wants to develop, IT wants to run the whole damn thing, and your marketing guy who came from some random marketing firm who has never worked with hte internet before is trying to tell everybody you're wrong and he's right even though he's never done this before and you have. 

Welcome to the modern age of complication. Everyone is a critic, everyone is write, no one is wrong, and everyone wants a say. You have to balance the needs of 20 people, work with 20 different people who disagree with the needs of the 20 people, and you're in the middle. What to do oh what to do.

I've seen a lot of conferences and trade shows come across my desk. I don't go to these. Conferences, trade shows, anything like that, are nothing more than people who have no idea what they are talking about trying to sell an "idea" to someone who has no idea what they are talking about.

My personal favorite ones are the ones were you get to learn how to make money on the internet. Or perhaps the ones that are seminars that discuss using web 2.0 to increase your site's customer interactions. Right! Like there is a silver bullet with this shit. C'mon people. I've been saying it a lot recently, if you don't know how to run a web site, all the fucking conferences and seminars in the world won't show you.

Another point is that when i got into this game 10 years ago, if you wanted a web site, an e-commerce site, or anything, you went to a guy. One fucking guy. That guy, knew everything. He could code, do graphic design, internet marketing, the whole nine yards. Now, there isn't one guy. There are like, 10 guys. All those guys don't take into account the other guys and marketing just gets fucked up. Marketers today have no web experience but think it's like any other media. How much they have to learn.

I'm not sayin, i'm just sayin....... Chris Anderson is a douche bag. If you are wonder who this giants sac of whatever the fuck a douche is used for is, he's the ass hole who invented the Longtail. Really, he's the asshole who said "You know, I bet you could make a lot of money by selling small quantities of a bunch of different shit."He wrote a whole book about it and had a tour and is touted as some world famous economist and all that bullshit.

You know, if i realized walking inside a Wal-Mart and figuring out how they made money made me a world famous economist, then tap dancing christ, hand me my Nobel Prize now. In fact, find a time machine and go back to when I was in 8th grade and hand me a Nobel Prize..... Christ this guy makes John Edwards and Oprah look like dildos instead of douches.

Well, now Capitan Obvious has a new theory. Well, okay, it's not new, he said it last summer, but still. He's in the process of writing a new book and making people who can't think for themselves salivate over the thought of another product of capitan obvious. The theory? Apparently, people like free shit. Really? You're kidding! Free? Apparently, not charging for non-tangible goods online is the wave of the future. Like not charging for video feeds on CNN.com or CBS.com . This guy is awesome at coming to the table with an "Idea" after everyone has adopted it and I called it. Well now that Chris Anderson has declared that free shit is good and has stolen what I said back when I was 5 and didn't have any money but really wanted a pony, I suppose you should give the guy another fucking medal.