Dominic Shadbolt

Cooper Avon – you rock. Bikezone – you don’t

/ Dominic / 1 Comment

A day of two halves on the customer service front. Firstly, I was killing time in Zappi’s Bike Cafe which makes the most  excellent coffee in Oxford. It is inside Bike Zone and I meandered into the bike store part with both time to kill and the rarest of animals – cash in my pocket. There isn’t a riper time to relieve me of cash for bike ephemera  that when I am a bit bored and am holding the folding. So…I am standing in the middle of a small shop floor. There are the usual spanner jockeys behind the counter but walking around in front of me is someone who is clearly the boss, he knows it and doesn’t deal with trivia like customers standing there in front of him. He was stepping around me fer gawdsake… I was feeling rather silly actually as I was obviously getting in the way of him making scathing remarks to the spanner jockeys about their pathetic efforts to fill the shelves with stock.


On the other hand I was blown away by a call I received from the Sales Director of Avon Tyres. I had rung Avon to query why my new winter tyres, despite being stickered as Avon Ice Touring ST, were all saying Cooper Weathermaster on the sides. Odd. We agreed that as Cooper owns the Avon brand that although the labelling was wrong the items were essentially the same. Despite being offered the opportunity to have them changed I declined saying it was a lot of hassle and that why didn’t he just organise a voucher or something. Kevin replied that I was to call him when I was changing back to summer tyres and he’d organise the Avon’s of my choice to be delivered to Merit Tyre in Witney at 50% off. Wow! Who can say fairer than that. That simple gesture has just secured me as an Avon customer for good.

Avon Tyres Logo

Of Free Healthcare and Exercise (benefits of)

/ Dominic / 2 Comments

On 27th May 2012 I crashed my bicycle all by myself resulting in a snapped femur, a rather badly broken collarbone and numerous scrapes etc. I was rapidly scooped off the road by an ambulance crew (there were 3 ambos in total, but that is a story for another day) and delivered to the John Radcliffe A+E which, rather fortuitously it happens, is a designated trauma Centre for SE England. I then had a 6 hour operation performed by the President of  the British Trauma Society no less. Isn’t the NHS a great thing? Nye Bevin, you rocked. Net result; one shiny new Dynamic Hip Screw and a chunk of temporary metal in the shoulder. Only down side is that DHS isn’t titanium. Still, it was ALL FREE. Even the morphine. Now there is a drug I could happily develop an addiction too. Gosh, it didn’t hurt and I remember very little. Government supplied pharmaceutical grade heroin. What’s not to like about that? Overall I am a pretty happy customer.

Oh yeah, I was a shocking state when I left the hospital. I had a four-footed cane, had lost 3/4 stone, couldn’t even lift my leg up from the floor and could barely do anything for myself and was forced to be waited on hand and foot. Sounds cool but like international business travel it wears thin pretty quickly. I like to do things for myself. It’s a control thing. In the interests of completeness I also have pretty mild MS – doesn’t really bug me so I don’t count it. Nor should you.

Soooo, much physio (thank you BUPA – the NHS is not so hot on follow-up) etc and I am getting better. I still walk with a roll though it is getting slowly better. I am terrible at doing the exact exercises instead preferring to “do stuff” that works the muscles in question.

Yesterday was my best expression of that yet. I cycled an entire and very hilly 65 mile sportive w. no stopping, walking or any other form of wimping out. The words of a pretty hardcore friend kept running through my head. To whit: “Dry your eyes, Princess”. The last third was pretty heavy going as the most exercise I had done in the preceding time was a couple of short (12 mile) rides into Oxford from home. Zappi’s Gran (Medio in my case) Fondo was the event I took part in. Not only are the benefits physical but the mental rush upon completion and even now is pretty powerful. I want more. Gimme more. Indeed, it’s hands down better than morphine.

I reckon that more people would have better lives if they got up off their backsides and indulged in a little activity that pushed them. They’d be pleasantly surprise. How much taxpayers money is wasted on our wonderful NHS because some people don’t, in the words of my mate, “Dry your eyes, Princess” and push themselves just a tiny bit, once even?

Please Talk to Me – Wiggle

/ Dominic

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?

/ Dominic

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

/ Dominic

Fifth Ave., Easter, 1914 (LOC)

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

/ Dominic / 1 Comment

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

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…

/ Dominic

…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…

_MG_2413 Moment of reflection (Royal Canadian ...

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…

/ Dominic

…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

Volvo FMX-Logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Context is Everything

/ Dominic

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

Learn from CostCo

/ Dominic

I am a member and was perusing the latest free magazine. Whether it’s a promo puff or not there was a very enlightening article. Long before it was fashionable CostCo had a customer centric philosophy. Still does.

This is a logo for Costco.

 

People make a big deal about transformation, customer-centricity (language mangling that only a management consultant could love and perpetuate), customer centred organisations, customer first blah, blah, etc, etc, etc.

The theory isn’t hard. Start with a respect for your customer and ensure that no matter how big the organisation grows that that respect remains. Alone that will shape your growth appropriately.

The learning from this? The respect for the customer starts at the beginning and the focus should never waver.