Author: Dominic
Sharing
I love Marmite but never really gave it much thought as something other than a yummy start to the day. Sometime ago I idly “Liked” the Marmite page on FB as it was funny and well written. In my sidebar I just noticed a Marmite post on the small ticker and actually clicked on it.
My Sticky Mistress
The Marmarati – how funny. I actually found myself sharing details and engaging as it tickled me. I know it is just clever tricks to capture info and profile etc. I get all that. What made me write this was standing outside my body and observing my – normally grumpy and obstructive self when it comes to the “who are you” questions – merrily filling in, accurately, all the info capture to become one of The Marmarati. I intellectualise this sharing by viewing it as my rewarding wit, effort and creativity – sadly lacking in most online stuff – with accurate personal data. The question on age had a genius addendum. I normally lie extravagantly and try to make myself at least a Centurion, but didn’t.
Marmite has just secured the holy grail of customer info and I was a willing participant in the process. Who’da thunk it?
Getting motivated
I have been spurred back into action by reading a funny and thought provoking blog. If you want a neat blog to follow then www.musingsfromthesofa.wordpress.com . I blame RC 100% for my poorly written return to the blog-o-sphere. Given that I am now actively house searching (for me) then if dealing with banks, a 10y old daughter and estate agents ought to provide me a rich seam to talk about under the heading of What About The Customer. I will post separately but I have had a fantastic experience w. my bank – First Direct – and pretty predictable and disappointing experiences w. Estate Agents. My brother has a good expression about them; “lying *bastards* (my substitution on the grounds of taste) with wide-angle lenses”.
Please Talk to Me – Wiggle
The big British internet retailing success story – Wiggle – has sold me an item that is faulty. Not their fault that it failed. It is their responsibility to deal with me as their customer. Where I choose to shop for bike bits is suddenly now up for grabs.
I bought a pair of very expensive tires as I know from prior experience that they are nearly puncture proof and v. well made. Unfortunately one suffered a catastrophic and very obvious failure due to a manufacturing fault. This means I can no longer ride my bike as I don’t have any other tires as I was counting on these. Check out the picture to see. It was a bit of a hairy moment as it was on the front and I was descending and braking on my fixie.
However, when I try to contact Wiggle and upon looking on their site they expressly state that they DO NOT take calls. Odd – people need to talk sometimes. Especially those pesky customers with all their pre and post sale nonsense enquiries.So much for personal customer service. I chat with an agent online who swears they are not a machine but a person (I am unsure) and get real vanilla cookie cutter replies. Despite being in the middle of some serious training and having sent high res photos of the blown kevlar bead in a £40 tire they insist on having it back before they do anything to help me out.
I don’t expect them to refund me without examining it but I do expect a replacement to be dispatched asap upon the proviso that if the warranty claim doesn’t hold up then I will be further billed for the replacement item. No…they expect me to wait a week and a half for the wheels to turn slowly before issuing a replacement. They have a way of making it sound like they are doing you a favour when all they are doing is meeting their minimum legal obligations under the Sale of Goods Act 1989. I am grateful and loyal if they go a little bit above and beyond, not the bare minimum.
A couple of points to internet retailers: – have a phone number (Amazon do, Chain Reaction do); empower your staff to make common sense decisions; don’t take the default position that customers are just shysters trying to get one over on you.
Why do some retailers use the internet to hide away from their customers? It seems Wiggle view this method of transacting as absolving them from treating you in the same way as a high street retailer. It has cemented one thing in my head though. I’ll never buy from Wiggle again. I have a choice and anything that requires technical advice I buy from Beeline as I value the personal service and their expertise. Commodity items like tires get bought online for the lowest price as I have 30 years experience of fitting them.
Here is the text from the Human called “Josh”. You decide. If Josh is a human then he is relying almost entirely on pre-written scripts.
>>
Please wait for a site operator to respond.
Hello my name is ‘Josh’. How can I help you today?
Josh: Hello, how can I help you today? Please could you enter your registered wiggle email address to help us locate your account?
Dominic: Morning. Are you a machine or a human being?
Dominic: Josh, I had a “chat” once w. a machine that was v. unhelpful so excuse me asking
Josh: I am a human
Dominic: 🙂
Dominic: good
Dominic: can you see my order number?
Josh: How may I help?
Dominic: I have just sent an email w pics. I wanted to know how Wiggle handled obvious warranty issues?
Josh: One moment please while I find that information for you.
Dominic: I am mid-training for an event and bought v. expensive tires and now the tire has failed catastrophically (the kevlar bead went BANG yesterday) so I need a rapid replacement of one tire even though they were bought as a pair
Josh: Apologies for the problems with this item. Please send it back to us using the returns system found on our website and we will refund your returns carriage if found to be faulty. If the product is out of warranty we may only be able to offer a repair service which may incur a fixing charge. http://www.wiggle.co.uk/h/option/ReturnsProcedure#Items Let me know if there are any further issues with this and sorry for any inconvenience caused.
Dominic: Josh, If I understand this the onus is on me to package at post it at my expense and in the meantime be without a specific tire? The pics aren’t sufficient?
Dominic: It is not out of warranty as you will be able to see from the order date.
Josh: I can confirm that we will need the tyre back to get a warranty claim processed for you
Josh: I apologise for the inconvenience.
Dominic: Whilst not holding Wiggle responsible for the faulty Continental product I was hoping for a more flexible and responsive reply.
Dominic: Will Wiggle sent me a single Continental GP400 All Season 700×28 in the meaNTIME SO I CAN GET RIDING AGAIN?
Josh: I do apologise but we do need all faulty item back to get a warranty claim processed for as they do all need to be inspected and deemed faulty
Dominic: sorry about the caps – I hit the caps lock by accident
Dominic: you are saying that the pictures accompanying the email are insufficient?
Josh: These are helpful but we do required faulty item to be returned so that we can get a warranty claim raised for you
Josh: I apologise for the inconvenience.
Josh: I can confirm that as this is a folding tyre you can return this to us using the collect+ service.
Dominic: So in the meantime it is tough luck for me? How long does this take?
Josh: Returned parcels through collect+ must have specific dimensions of no larger than 50cm x 30cm x 30cm.
Dominic: Collect+ – so it will be 4-5 days before it even makes it you guys?
Josh: I can confirm that once we have received this back this shhould be processed the same or next working days for you we will then be in contact by email.
Josh: If you would rather return by an alternative method for quicker return time to us please do this and we will cover the return postage costs for you
Dominic: So what you arte saying is that I will be at least a week and a half w/out a tire. I only have a pair. Thank you Wiggle. Way to lose a customer.
Dominic: I’ll post it back and stick to Chain Reaction in future.
Josh: I do apologise for the inconvenience and we will get this resolved as soon as possible
Josh: I have not heard from you for a few moments. Are you still with me?
Josh: Sorry we were not able to continue our chat. Since I have not heard from you for some time, I am going to close this chat. If you need any help in the future, please do not hesitate to chat with us again.
Chat session has been terminated by the site operator.
<<
Seriously?
On the phone looking out of my window and I see this brand new Toyota Rav 4. Notice the rear windscreen wiper and how it is off centre to the left? It has cleaned the rear view for the passenger a treat. However, the driver gets to look through a semi-dirty piece of glass as UK cars are RHD (right hand drive).
Toyota obviously doesn’t value the RHD customers enough to move the wiper over along with the wheel and pedals. This is cost cutting gone a bit too far IMHO. It certainly demonstrates a contempt for the customer.
It’s All Gone Quiet
Because it is the Easter Holiday and for 3 weeks I am nearly always doing childcare, being the stay-at-home-dad. I keep having these deep and insightful thoughts about the customer, data, publishing etc etc and by the time it is time to commit it to a post my brain has emptied.
Normal service resumes in a week.
Decisions Decisions
I ride a Fixie (Kona Paddy Wagon) and it is my only bike. Not sure why I started – I blame Warren Edwards mostly – but the more I ride it the more I love it. I guess it’s the simplicity. I also have a supremely comfortable Brooks saddle on it that looks pretty retro mixed in with a sprinkling of carbon on a modern frame
Nonetheless, I can’t decide if I have left it too late – training wise – to enter the London to Brussels 24h ride with David Newton. A triathlete that i swim with told me that as long as I can endure 8h in the saddle then the rest is mental. It’s not a race win but a finish that I am after.
I think the mere act of writing this post is a sort of displacement activity as if I say yes then some pretty serious training needs to be undertaken in the next 145 days. I will also need new cycle clothing (was 4st heavier the last time I bought stuff so it hangs from me now in a comical way), a proper bike fit to stop from being too easily crippled, 700c x 28 tires and some more bits of carbon (seatpost, stem and possibly bars) as it damps road vibes beautifully. Actually, looking on the bright side I get way more bike bling!
Any thoughts?
Henri Desgrange on a bicycle (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I still feel that variable gears are only for people over forty-five.
Isn’t it better to triumph by the strength of your muscles than by the artifice of a derailer?
We are getting soft…As for me, give me a fixed gear!
—Henri Desgrange, L’Équipe article of 1902
If Only…
…all arrested drunks were this talented. My experience was that they wanted to just fight. I think it is a testament to the RCMP officer that he wasn’t automatically cuffed. Being a Canadian my money is on the Hipster being a teensy bit stoned as well. Bob and Doug woulda bin proud…
Queen's Cowboy
Great drum solo on the safety screen at the end.
PS: I realise it’s a bit off topic but I laughed and laughed. Thanks to Guy Kawasaki at #Alltop for the “find”.
New Media is Definitely Mainstream…
…when Volvo are on it.
A friend – David Newton from Photopositive fame – and I were talking about how to address the lousy service from his dealer. I won’t go into detail but it sounds they were treading well into the grey area between conscientiousness for the good of the customer and downright money grubbing dishonesty. They seemed to have more than a hint of dodgy used car dealer in their business genes.
My advice was to go to the brand owner in this case the UK arm of Volvo as the dealer is just a franchisee at the end of the day. Dave went one better and made a general Tweet about his dissatisfaction and used relevant hashtags. Volvo UK picked up on the Tweet and were straight in touch with him. Eventually I suspect Volvo UK applied shoe leather to the dealers tender areas and that along with a £200.00 Volvo voucher saw Dave a very happy man again.
In fact, They have taken the classic opportunity presented by a problem and turned Mr Newton into a very loyal and impressed customer. It wasn’t the £200.00 (that is nice) but the fact that someone was listening and took ownership of the problem until it was solved that was the real emotional winner. Brand Building 101?
Many people talk a good war with new media. Nice to see that #insidevolvouk is so on the ball.
Volvo FMX-Logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Context is Everything
Contextualising data with software is making me ponder. Doing this well has got to be the Holy Grail at the moment and I have yet to see someone shout from the rooftops that they have a good algorithm for doing so. If I had sussed it I’d be keeping schtum as well though.
“You’ve taken my remark out of context” is an often heard device used when arguing. By making this challenge you are implying that whomever is challenging your statement fails to understand the fundamentals, making it a powerful form of rebuttal. By taking a piece of data out of context when the user is web browsing or shopping is an opportunity that has been wasted forever. It feels intrusive and annoying and at best is just ignored. Just imagine being able to get it right more often than not. £££
When serving ads or upselling to people by using an offering that is timely, relevant and not intrusive , by accurately contextualising the data you hold, is a very tricky process because there is more than one type of context. Personal, cultural, political, social and so on and so forth. it’s a minefield. Presently this is a practise in it’s infancy and what the end user gets is pretty generic. I don’t think it’ll be that long before we see software trying to address the challenge of determining how to contextualise a piece of data by using one or a combination of the types of context.
Trying to do some research using – what else? – Google I typed in “software for contextualising data and serving ads” and was just presented with Ad’s for ad serving software and “experts” to help you (spend your hard earned I daresay). The interesting thing was the images that lead me further in. The point is that w. Google dominating the search market (65% of all searches apparently) then Google are big influencers of context. Cultural, political, social etc. I know of the famous Do No Evil statement. What about unconscious bias thought? This is an interesting paper by Christian Fuchs in Fast Capitalism – albeit a bit too Marxist for me it raises some interesting points.
Now that’s got me wondering about something entirely different. Hmm, my brain is aching.
Related articles
- Google to serve ads, come shine or rain (geeksaresexy.net)
- Facebook tests new action ads using Open Graph (econsultancy.com)
- Contextualisation – the Known Knowns & the Known Unknowns (dominicshadbolt.com)
- Google Closing The Loop With New “Offer Rewards” Program (marketingland.com)
- How Google’s Cookie Monster Determines Which Display Ads You See (socialmediacommando.com)
- Google To Listen To Calls To Serve Ads (webguild.org)
- Data in a human context (flowingdata.com)
theMSguide.com blog 