Dec 27
While my own Verizon horror story
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Oct 13
One time I called Time Warner customer service because the internet was out in my apartment. The man I spoke to was friendly. He had information about an outage in my area. He had an estimate of how long it would be before service was restored. And he was allowed to tell me that estimate.
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Oct 12
We’ve all done tech support for family members
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Aug 21
You know cable companies are unpopular. ISPs are, generally, too. But seeing just how unpopular is just too funny. As in: pretty much the entire bottom end of the list was made up of cable and internet companies.
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Jan 25
What’s a reasonable time to be put on hold when you call customer service? A few minutes? Five? Ten? Well all those minutes add up because over a course of a lifetime, the average person will be on hold for 43 days. Yeah. Forty. Three. Days. More »
Nov 22
Swearing at the customer service recording might put you ahead of the queue
Posted in: Today's Chili
If you’ve ever tried calling the customer service helpline of a major company, chances are you might be placed in their call queue and you could be waiting for anywhere between 20 minutes to an hour before someone finally gets to you. Some people have the patience to stay on the line, while others start getting frustrated at the 5 minute mark, and if you’re wondering if it is possible for you to skip the queue, you might want to try swearing into the phone the next time you find yourself waiting. One Reddit user discovered this when placing a call to Apple Support and decided to swear at the machine while on hold.
Surprisingly the call got cut and a few seconds later he was transferred to a live human being where he managed describe his problem to. Now this particular feature isn’t limited to Apple’s customer service helpline and many other companies use it too. Dubbed the Interactive Voice Response system, this is a system installed by companies in their helpline that monitors and looks for keywords or stress in voices to determine if a call needs to be answered and dealt with immediately to prevent further unnecessary stress or frustration. Most of the time the call will be transferred to someone who might not be able to help you, but simply apologize as a real human being as opposed to a machine, before placing you back into queue. Pretty interesting and something you might be interested in trying next time you find yourself waiting too long.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: iPhone 5 coming to O2 21st October?, Rovio’s Angry Birds soda drink outsells Coke and Pepsi in Finland,
Nov 02
The iPad Mini’s Huge Potential For Retail, Customer Service And Industrial Applications
Posted in: Today's Chili
The iPad mini hit store shelves today, and I got the chance to get one for myself. The device is a terrific consumer tablet, but it has a lot of potential to be an even more impressive player in retail, restaurant and industrial applications. The iPad mini’s big brother has done a good job of making headway in businesses and customer service, but the iPad mini has a strong chance to help drive those accomplishments even further.
Why? Simple: it’s cheaper, it’s lighter and yet it can run all the same software that the original iPad can. $70 (the gap between iPad mini and iPad 2) might not be that much of a difference for a single purchase, but tallied over a whole fleet of devices, it definitely adds up. For volume purchasers, the difference between the iPad mini and the iPad in price could be the difference between getting a budget item approved or denied. Weight and portability are also huge factors; the 3rd generation actually dialed the needle back in this regard, so the iPad mini feels that much lighter by comparison, and professionals who will be spending most of their day carrying this thing around will really appreciate a device that’s half the weight.
But the big bonus is that it plugs into the existing software ecosystem without modification required from developers. That means that retailers can take advantage of existing software from providers like Revel and Square, as well as custom-created apps for sales staff distributed via enterprise deployment. Developing a business case, preparing a change management plan, training staff on the iPad mini’s use – all of the above requires only minimal changes for the thousands of businesses already using or testing iPad deployment.
In a survey released today that seems ironically weighted towards promoting Windows 8, a study found that 31 percent of small businesses were already using the iPad for various tasks. The penetration it has managed over the past two years is like a two-lap head start for the iPad mini, and recently analysts have suggested it will be a big hit with business users, and for many of the same reasons it’ll likely take the service industry by storm as well.
While other similar devices like the Nexus 7 are cheaper, Apple’s existing tablet market lead is what gives the iPad mini more potential for commercial use. Almost every company in the Fortune 500 is either testing or deploying the iPad, according to Tim Cook, which means a rich enterprise software ecosystem already exists, and more solutions for businesses big and small will continue to roll out. The wide availability of software vendor choice and shops with iOS development expertise is likely more than enough to offset the differences in the cost of hardware between the iPad mini and other small tablets on the market, even though Amazon appears to be stepping up and attempting to sell harder to business customers with its Whispercast provisioning service.
The iPad mini is a near ideal device for inconspicuous installation in kiosk and self-serve terminal applications, and one enterprising company has already leveraged it to create an in-dash entertainment system for cars. When you pick one up and handle it, you think about how easy it would be for a doctor to use it to replace a clipboard, or a salesperson to ditch a bag of product samples and carry a digital portfolio instead. In other words, it feels like it could have the impact of the iPad on small business, but multiplied and amplified all over again.
Sep 24
The extremes of technology customer service: how common sense and empathy create unmatched loyalty
Posted in: Today's Chili 
Allow me to explain how two discussions started off in very similar ways, and ended… shall we say, differently. This is me, attempting to muster any sort of pleasantness in my voice at some ungodly hour of the morning on a Google Voice connection from Dubai back to the US:
“Hey! I’m having to cut a trip short due to an emergency back home. I actually purchased a trip protection plan when I checked out online — would it be possible to provide a refund for this flight now that I need to cancel it?”
From here, I was told that this was too vague. That I would need medical proof of an injury or illness, and that if it were a pre-existing condition — something like reoccurring cancer — that simply wouldn’t do. Oh, and if it’s a home emergency, you’ll need proof from your home insurance company that your abode is “uninhabitable.”
“So… I’m basically hosed here? This trip protection plan doesn’t really protect very much, does it?”
“… Do you want to file the claim?”
“No. That’s okay. Thanks for your time.”
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Filed under: Misc
The extremes of technology customer service: how common sense and empathy create unmatched loyalty originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Sep 2012 12:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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