Customer (Dis)Service

There’s a formula that is used in the business world. Now, if you’re an MBA and you went to business school, you’ve probably never heard it. You were too busy learning other “valuable” skills like:

1. Chapter 3: Which Doughnuts and Coffee Your Secretary Should Order for the 9:00 Meeting
   
2. Lecture: Proper Etiquette for Public Blackberry Use (No handhelds in the lecture hall, please)
   
3. Advancement 202: How To Simultaneously Pat Someone On, and Stab Them In, the Back
   
4. Symposium (billable and tax deductable): Designing Effective PowerPoint Slide Shows
   
5. Delegation Exercise: Choosing the Right Team of Consultants
   

And you probably spent at least a week learning how to hide the Jamaica “conference” expenses in your operating budget. There just wasn’t enough time to teach you anything useful or relevant.

In case you haven’t been to business school and you don’t have $100K to throw around, I’ll save you the time and money. Here are the answers.

1. Krispy Kreme doughnuts and Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. Never the other way around. That’s just silly. What were you thinking? Fire your secretary immediately.
   
2. There are no rules. You have a Blackberry; that makes you more important than everyone else. Screw them. Text away, whenever you want. If anyone says anything to you, use “The Glare” that you learned in your first semester and go back to your conversation or your email.
   
3. Smile a lot and shake hands. The smile lulls them into a false sense of security, and the handshake holds them so they can’t escape.
   
4. Who cares? Nobody’s watching anyway. Besides, it’s not your problem, because your admin assistant is going to do all the work. Let her figure it out. She’ll have it all tested, edited, and spell-checked before she hands it to you to present to the Board. (Of course, you get to take all the credit.)
   
5. The “right” team is the cheapest team. They’re all equally useless. Consultants are the IT equivalent of MBAs.

Anyway, here’s the formula:
If a customer has a bad customer experience, they will tell 10 people. If they have a good customer experience, they will tell 2 people.
Don’t look at me, I didn’t come up with it. But I’m going to bust the curve right here. I’ve had one very bad customer experience and one very good one in the past couple of weeks, and I’m going to post both of them here. Hopefully at least 10 people will read it. If not, I'm pretty much wasting my time typing all this, aren't I?

First the bad. (Then we can end on a positive note, or maybe just because I want to bitch about someone first.)

I have Comcast cable Internet, and the service comes with McAfee Security Center free. Yeah, that should tip you off right there; free. A few weeks ago I was prompted to upgrade it to the newest version. The installation seemed to go all right, but then I started getting errors a few days later. The automatic update of the virus definitions wasn’t working. I kept getting a popup message telling me to reinstall the whole thing. I tried to reinstall it a few times and it would time out, saying that the site was unavailable.

First I tried the online help for McAfee, no luck there. I tried the online chat and they told me that they don’t support Comcast customers and that I had to contact Comcast. OK, fine. I’m not actually paying for it, so I understand that they don’t want to waste their time on freebies. So I called Comcast. They told me that I’m supposed to call McAfee. Now, I wasn’t born yesterday. This appears to be “the runaround.”

This time I called McAfee on the phone and got transferred to about five different people. Finally I got to the customer service people and they told me that I can’t download the updates because my account had expired in 2006. Ummm, no. Nice try, thanks for playing, but no. Like I said before (and to every person on the phone) I am a Comcast customer and McAfee is free with my Internet service. It doesn’t expire. But they said that I couldn’t do anything until Comcast “renewed” my license. OK, Comcast’s turn. Tag, you’re it.

I called Comcast back again and told them what McAfee had told me. The guy started laughing. I said, yeah, that’s what I said. It doesn’t expire. He said he can’t do anything for me, because I need to deal with McAfee. They pay a special license fee so that Comcast customers have it, but they don’t do support. OK, back to McAfee. Tag, you’re it.

I explained to the McAfee tech that there must be something wrong with McAfee’s download site, because I’m not able to access it either by the Update feature in my software or manually through the link on the website. The tech at Comcast couldn’t access it either. He got the same error I did, so I figured it must be on McAfee’s end. The McAfee tech said that he could access it just fine. I asked him, how are you getting to it? Are you on your own network (LAN) or are you going from an external connection? He said he was on his LAN, so I said maybe that’s the problem. That’s why you haven’t noticed it, because all of you can get to it internally.

He said no, that wasn’t it. He said the reason I couldn’t run the update or reinstall the software was because I had to uninstall it first, then reinstall it. Now think about that for a minute. It’s not letting me install the software from the website, and now he wants me to completely uninstall the anti-virus software that is still protecting my computer from hackers and viruses. It’s not up to date, but it is still protecting me at this point. What if I can’t reinstall it? Then I’m wide open to attacks. He said not to worry, I would be able to install it. So, like an idiot, I believed him. You guessed it.

Cut to three days later. By this time, I’m not even talking to anyone. As soon as the first person answers the phone I just ask for a supervisor. I’ve spent the better part of a Thursday and Friday evening and an entire Saturday morning screwing around with this. My computer is disconnected from the Internet because I’m afraid to connect. Finally, finally, I get in touch with someone at Comcast that knows what they are talking about. She puts me in contact with a McAfee tech who is dedicated to the Comcast account. My question is, why wasn’t I given this other phone number three days ago?

It turns out that when I upgraded to the new version, it was supposed to have updated my “hosts” file, which is a Windows system file in a hidden directory (oops, I mean folder). It didn’t update the file on the Comcast version of the software, so it had to be updated manually. Since I am in the IT business and consider myself a professional nerd, I could edit this file and include the IP address of McAfee’s download site. Luckily I know what I’m doing, because it could have been a nightmare if I was computer illiterate as many people I know are. It worked, and I got back online, downloaded the software and reinstalled it.

I have no problem with Comcast, because they were limited on what they could do. But I will never buy anything from McAfee ever again. Since I still get the product for free, I will continue to use it, but they will never see a dime of my money. They could have earned my business very easily. All I had to hear was that one person was going to take ownership of the issue and escalate it and follow through. That didn't happen. Everyone I spoke to gave me the "sorry, not my table" treatment and passed me around to someone else.

My other experience happened at about the same time. My company has some pretty cool perks. Even though I need to go into an office in downtown Chicago every day, I am listed as “home-based.” As such, I get to order office supplies for my home office and other things I need for my commute, like my monthly train pass. Recently I ordered a new laptop case. I have a bicycle now and I can ride it to the train station when the weather is nice. The problem is that my stock Dell bag only has a shoulder strap. I need a backpack to ride my bike or I either choke myself or the bag falls off my shoulder.

I saw exactly what I needed in the Office Max online catalog. It was a combination bag, with a shoulder strap and backpack straps that hide away in a pocket. Pretty cool. And it has more space inside than my old bag, but takes up less space under my seat on the train. It’s exactly what I was looking for. There was only one small problem.

The clips on the over-the-shoulder strap are metal and strong, but the ones for the shoulder (backpack) straps are plastic. The first time I rode to the train station and unclipped them to stow the straps away in their pocket, one of them snapped right off. Bummer.

I went to Kensington’s website to see if they sold spare parts. I couldn’t find any. I saw that the case carried a warranty, but it said you needed a proof of purchase to make a warranty claim. Since I didn’t pay for it myself, I didn’t have a receipt or anything. I emailed the customer service contact anyway and asked if I could buy a set of replacement clips.

Within five minutes I had a response in my inbox. It wasn’t a form email, either. It was a personal response. He asked me for the serial number on the bag. I replied back and within another five minutes he emailed back and asked for my shipping address so they could send me a replacement free of charge. About two weeks later, I had a package with a brand new laptop case. I’m being more careful with this one knowing that those plastic clips can snap easily. But the next time that I’m in the market for a laptop bag, I will go out of my way to look for the Kensington brand.

Two free things, two customer service experiences. Neither of them got any money from me, but one of them will probably get my business in the future, and one never will. There’s your last business lesson for the day: Not all customers are paying customers. But treating the non-paying customers well may bring you more business later. By the same token, treating the non-paying customers like crap will surely guarantee that they will never be paying customers. Questions?

Summertime (And the Screenwriting is Easy)

As you may or may not know, my wife and I write books and screenplays. We’ve completed a novel, a self-help workbook, and two screenplays. There’s a third screenplay that’s been in the works for a few years, but we haven’t been able to get it where we want it yet. Both completed screenplays are excellent. They have action, drama, well thought-out characters, and interesting plots. They are both movies that I would personally like to go and see. What better reason is there to write a screenplay? Well, apparently, the best reason in Hollywood is to make the most money for the least amount of effort. Just take a look at the summer lineup for 2008 and you see a large collection of remakes, sequels, and TV shows or comic books adapted for the big screen. I’m not saying that all (or any) of these movies are bad, just that Hollywood has gotten very lazy.

Comic Books / Cartoons

• The Dark Knight – The newest Batman movie. I went to see it on its opening weekend, and yes, it is just as good as everyone says. It’s definitely the best Batman movie yet, Heath Ledger is amazing as the Joker, and the city of Chicago takes a starring role in the movie. Great movie, but as far as Hollywood laziness goes, it gets the trifecta. Is it a sequel to Batman Begins, a remake of the first Batman movie, or a comic book adapted for the big screen? It’s all three, so this one gets listed first.
  
  
• Iron Man – Yawn, another comic book. And not even a good comic book like Batman (although the idea of a billionaire who builds a super-suit to make himself a superhero sounds kind of familiar). This guy isn’t even his own main character. He was part of “The Avengers” along with Thor, Hulk, and Captain America (just wait, that movie is coming soon). And besides, I find it hard to picture Robert Downey, Jr. as a hero of any sort. I personally boycotted this movie, because I’d prefer not to contribute to Downey’s drug/rehab fund (whichever end of the cycle he happens to be in now).
  
  
• The Incredible Hulk – This has to be the most annoying of the summer comic book movies, because they just did it a few years ago! How bad was “Hulk” if they had to “reboot the franchise” just five years later? By the way, how lame is the phrase “reboot the franchise” anyway? That’s what they’ve called it with James Bond (Casino Royale), Superman (Superman Returns), Batman (Batman Begins), and even Friday the 13th. This is the height of Hollywood laziness when you are so out of ideas that you just take a franchise and start it over at the beginning instead of coming up with a new one.
  
  
• Hellboy II: The Golden Army – Yeah, it looks cute, but in addition to being yet another comic book character (at least it’s not Marvel Comics this time) it’s also a sequel. Is it that Hollywood is lazy for making all these comic book movies, or is it that the moviegoers are so lazy that they’d rather pay $10 to watch it than read it?
  
  
• Speed Racer – Ha ha! OK, I admit, I was never a fan of the cartoon in the first place. I hated that Japanese animation and still do. So obviously I’m not about to go and see a live-action version of the cartoon. Although, I am interested to see if they were able to not match up the actor’s mouths with the words. Ha ha!
  

TV Shows

• Sex and the City – God help us all. I thought we were done with all this. I remember drinking a toast to the last episode of “Sluts in the City” a few years ago. Now I have to listen to every woman and gay man between 20-40 talk about this piece of trash in the elevator. Will Carrie and “Mr. Big” get married? Who cares? And hey, what would the N.O.W. say if I created a female TV character named “Super Juggs?”
  
  
• Get Smart – Nice idea, because we’ve already exhausted most of the 1970s TV shows. It’s high time we started ripping off the 1960s shows. And since Don Adams died a couple of years ago and wouldn’t come looking for a piece of the pie, it’s a perfect time to have a second-rate hack (Steve Carell) rip off his Maxwell Smart character. Nice try, Chief, but you missed it by that much.
  
  
• The X-Files: I Want to Believe – Can we please let this lame TV show rest in peace? Oh, wait, it’s the X Files. It’ll always raise itself from the dead or be resurrected by aliens or some other dumb-ass plot. At least Gillian Anderson still looks hot. Nothing like a sexy redhead to save the franchise. Just don’t reboot it with someone else, OK?
  

Sequels

• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – I’ve always been a big fan of Indiana Jones, but this one was just a disappointment for me. You can only keep going back to the well a few times, then it’s just not working anymore. Honestly, they should have stopped after Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. That was an amazing movie, and Sean Connery made it special. This one had too much of a “20th anniversary reunion” feel to it. Let it go, George Lucas. This one is played out. You might want to start thinking about something new.
  
  
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars – George, are you still listening? Yes, I’m saying it again. Think of something new! The Star Wars franchise has done well, especially Episodes IV, V, and VI. Now you’re just being greedy, and yes, lazy. Come on, an animated Star Wars movie? I saw the previews for this one before The Dark Knight, and I almost started laughing. I mean, who would actually pay $10 to see a Star Wars cartoon?
  
  
• The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor – Huh? Is anyone still watching any of these stupid “Mummy” movies? I haven’t seen either of the other two, and there’s a reason for that. They looked idiotic then, and this one looks pretty stupid too. Helpful tip to Hollywood: you are still required to include a plot in your scripts. You are not allowed to think up cool special effects and then insert a plot around them!
  
  
• The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian – This is the second in the “Narnia” franchise of movies. I’ll give this one a pass because, although I am not personally interested in seeing any of these movies, it may get children to go back and read the books upon which they are based. I’m all for enticing kids to read more books. A quick Internet search shows that this is the second of seven books, and they are planning to make movies based on all seven books. As I said earlier, I’m not saying that all sequels or novel adaptations are bad. This series (and the Harry Potter series) can be good if they are getting kids to read more books.
  
  
• The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 – As with the “Narnia” series above, I’m going to give this one a pass. This movie is based on the second in the “Sisterhood” series of four books, so maybe the kids will enjoy the movie and go back to read the books. If they can put down their iPods, cell phones, and video games long enough to pick up a book, I’m all for it.
  

Remakes

• Prom Night – This is a remake of the 1980 cult classic horror movie of the same name. There’s a reason why the first one was a classic. It starred Jamie Lee Curtis, the original “scream queen.” Here’s a tip for the lazy Hollywood film makers: if you’re going to rip off a classic, don’t name your production company “Original Film.” Lame.
  
  
• Journey to the Center of the Earth – This is the latest remake of Jules Verne’s classic novel about traveling to the center of the Earth. The only problem is, when Verne wrote the book, we didn’t know about the physical makeup of the planet. Now we know that traveling through the mantle into the Earth’s core is not possible. But the makers of this movie ignored all that and decided, “Hey, let’s remake this movie, but let’s throw in a bunch of special effects and make it in 3-D!” The last time we had a “center of the Earth” theme was the movie The Core, and at least it was somewhat believable. This isn’t. Maybe Brendon Fraser expects to find another mummy down there.
  
  
• Death Race – Ah, you thought you could slip one by us, didn’t you? Nice try, but I know this is a remake. Death Race 2000 was released in the mid 70s and starred David Carradine in the role of “Frankenstein.” (Sylvester Stallone was in the original too!) I can understand why Hollywood is remaking this movie, apart from their eternal laziness. This movie became a cult classic, and some even prefer it to the futuristic sports movie Rollerball, which came out at about the same time. (I personally am a big fan of Rollerball and Jonathan E. and I was disgusted when they remade that one a few years ago.) But the movie didn’t make a lot at the box office, and only gained cult fame later. With a small budget, it made a large profit on video and DVD releases years later, so hey, how about we get a big star (Jason Statham of The Transporter fame) and a big budget and a lot of special effects? Last helpful tip for you, Hollywood: good stories and good scripts make good movies. Throwing a bunch of money and special effects at a camera isn’t the solution.
  
  
• Mamma Mia! – Does this count as a remake or an adaptation? I’m not sure, but I’m putting it in here anyway. Mamma Mia! is part of the “jukebox musical” fad of Broadway and London musicals. This genre takes the music of an artist (in this case, Abba) and creates a story that uses their songs throughout. Other “jukebox musicals” have included Movin’ Out (Billy Joel), We Will Rock You (Queen), Lennon (John Lennon), and Jersey Boys (Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons). This is the first of those musicals to be adapted to the big screen. Considering the laziness of Hollywood, I’m sure it’s not the last.
  

I’m planning to go and see Hancock, starring Will Smith as an alcoholic superhero who is, shall we say, less than an ideal role model for the children. This was the one movie I saw on the list with an original plot that actually looked interesting. I read some reviews on it, and the critics didn’t like it very much (that’s my first clue that it’s probably a good movie). One critic actually said, “It’s too original.” What? Too original? Yeah, that’s what he said. He said that the American moviegoing public isn’t ready for this type of story, because it doesn’t follow the tried-and-true Hollywood formula. Which formula is that?

[(Rehashed plot + special effects – creativity) * big name star] / big budget = profit

Oh, that formula. Too bad “well-developed characters,” “strong script,” or “enjoyable experience for the audience” aren’t included. Now I know why nobody wants to buy our scripts. They don’t fit the formula.