The 24/7 Customer Evangelist by Lynette Chiang
July 7, 2008
12:44 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
DONATE TO DR DOUGLAS MEYER'S FAVORITE CHARITY
Douglas' family would like to create a functional memorial in his
honor. In lieu of flowers, the family would appreciate donations made
in his name, Douglas F. Meyer MD, to the "Friends of Sagamore" as he
loved children so much, sent
can be sent to the following address:
Sagamore Childrens Psychatric Center
"In Memory of Douglas Meyer, MD"
Friends of Sagamore
c/o Sagamore Children's Center
197 Half Hollow Road
Dicks Hills, NY 11746
+++
WHEN a customer in New York sent me a short email saying, "Google NY Post. Enter Dr Douglas Meyer", I admit I filed it in the "do much later if at all" box (and who's got time to click on all these endless FaceBook/LinkedIn etc emails?)
It was only when another customer blipped me a more informative email did the tragedy hit home, and I've been thinking about it ever since.
The kind, shy and gentle man I'd met a couple of times had jumped 17 floors to his death. Dr Doug Meyer was 44, had only just started dating someone, adored kids and was, according to his pal and colleague Steve Chang, a brilliant gastroenterologist.
"Doug was one of my closest friends," said Steve. "He was an academic gastroenterologist-liver transplant physician. He had the highest board scores in our residency class, and won the Muschel Award at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center (where we did our Internal Medicine Residencies), which is given to the most compassionate resident-physician."
Compassion! An award for compassion!
"Doug was more selfless than most doctors," said Steve. "As you read in the NY Post and other local
papers, he cried whenever his patients suffered; he sang when he was
treating them; he took his nurses out for dinners and evenings out, and
on a personal note, he was one of the best friends we all could have
ever had. Though he could afford a Mercedes, as he was a millionaire,
Doug was quite humble and drove a little Chevrolet Metro. He was
hardly flamboyant and quite grounded."
If ever there was a Customer Evangelist in the medical world, it would perhaps be called a "Patient Evangelist". And it would look, cry and sing like Doug Meyer.
My sad face momentarily brightened a notch with this thought - now why isn't an award for compassion offered in other areas of business?
We're obsessed with awards like "The Richest", "The Most Beautiful", "The Best Dressed", "The Worst Dressed" – all wonderfully superficial accolades in the scheme of things, but hardly contributory to world peace, loove and understanding. In truth, they generate the snatch-and-grab polar opposite by promoting envy, dissatisfaction and greed.
I have yet to see "The Most Compassionate Boss", "The Most Thoughtful Co-worker", "The Most Cheerful Janitor" grace the front of mags like Forbes, Fortune and … Fastcompany.
OK, why bother with such a sentimental, soppy award?
Think about it. Think of someone who, in your average working waking day, makes you smile – that cheery coffee shop owner who whistles Clair de Lune while pulling your macchiato even though you hate whistling; the delivery boy with the startled hair and impeccable manners; the CEO who pops his head around the door to tell his workaholic staff to go home before he does or they're in trouble; the encouraging MD with an ego no bigger than his mousepad and who always catches people doing something right.
There's got to be someone at the office who doesn't give you hell.
These individuals are a kind of workaday angel. They flutter about sprinkling invisible fairy dust in your in-tray and you don't even know it. Neither do they. They bolster productivity in kind and in doing so contribute indirectly but surely to the bottom line. For this they deserve an award, if for nothing more than helping stave off the onset of gray hair for co-workers.
The NY Post makes suggestions about Meyer being the victim of a tyrannical boss. Rather than believe tabloids, I started thinking separately about bosses and co-workers from hell.
There are laws against physical assault and abuse. But when it comes to emotional abuse, the law goes AWOL except for the recent landmark case of the Missouri Cyber Bully mom
Sadly, it was all too late to save that young defendant. And it involved a child - one wonders if the law would ever jump to the defence of a fully grown man cowering beside the water cooler from a ballistic boss. I've seen this happen in real life. I've experienced it first hand. I have the recurrent rashes to prove it. Yet, as adults we're all expected tough it out, right? That's like saying to someone who's bashed in the street, "You should have had a black belt in karate," and throwing the case out.
Not everyone is "lucky" enough to have had a sufficiently abusive upbringing as prep for emotional abuse.
Does the medical profession offer training on how to be a good boss-doctor? Does the curriculum include reading "The 1 Minute Registrar", "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff Outside the Operating Theater", "Who Moved My Stethoscope?" and other books encouraging you to "catch your nurses doing something right"?
"Not at all," lamented Steve. "We really should take leadership developmental classes, but no such luck. I had the fortune, personally, to be groomed through college as I was a Scholar-Leader at my university. But only about 10 or 12 of us were chosen per class."
10 or 12. Lucky are the understudies of those 10 or 12 doctors.
Are there unsung angels and evangelists like the late Doug Meyer in you work/life? Please, applaud them here.
The Galfromdownunder notes that a search for the word "evangelist" on career websites brings up a long list of positions in a diverse fields, from combine harvesting to multimedia technologies – but not yet medicine. Dr Pamela Wible is one doctor out to change that.
June 6, 2008
11:49 pm | 0 recommendations | 2 comments
Spotted downunder during "Seniors Week".
This billboard
What's the first thought that enters your head?
Compare it with the reaction from three of my customers, all in their 60's and 70's:
1. "Shoot me please."
2. "That is so uninspiring."
3. "If that's a Senior Moment, just put me down now."
Now none of us, least of all me, have anything against the heroine in the photo, Helen Grantley, nor oversized polo shots, polyester pants or large vinyl totes, though we'd probably prefer to see something more like this
But we agree on one thing – we're frustrated by yet another example of lazy advertising hard at work. There was ample opportunity to think beyond the obvious and resonate below the surface. This campaign is just slavish and uninspired stereotyping, leading to a continuing marginalization of seniors by a society that "worships a youth we all lose".
I'm not advocating political correctness here, which is just a poor excuse for counter stereotyping and just as unmotivating. I just don't quite understand what a poster campaign like this is trying to achieve, other than bury people while they're still blinking.
As with all lazy advertising hard at work, the poster reveals the following mentaiity by whoever put it together:
Underthinking – It's seniors week … quick, let's raid Best & Less for threads and a schlumpfy vinyl bag because that's what seniors look like.
Patronizing – They can't afford to look stylish or impressive on their pension. And if we depart too much from our beloved stereotype of a senior the poor old fogies won't get it. Oh yes, and we better not be funny either because they might not get it. The last movie they saw was "Gone With the Wind" and "Grumpy Old Men".
Lazy – let's use trite and hollow phrases like "What keeps me fabulous" even though most seniors facing normal issues of aging would probably describe their feelings with more nuance, if you'd only give them the time of day
Fearful – we better not put someone who looks genuinely "fabulous" because it might not be politically correct.
It gets worse. I switched on the teev here downunder and surfed across an elderly couple featured as a regular item on a daytime talk show. Their slot, "Grey Nomad Adventures" showed them getting up to all kinds of mischief including being taught to DJ at a night club.
The youthful and airbrushed hosts made all the usual patronizing jokes about the couple's music selection being Englebert Humperdink, about the danger (not) of groupies whisking away her old hubby, about whether they were able to "get the beat" or did they keep lapsing into the Viennese Waltz breakbeat and so forth. The nice enough couple were obliged to play right along for the benefit of the cliché. Frankly, the hosts made themselves look the bigger, duller, drearier cliché.
I've always wondered … where are the nightclubs for older people? Does Tina Turner or Mick Jagger sit about with their feet in a heated bootie watching Days of Our Lives just because they've been on the planet slightly longer than their fans?
My 70-year old mother loves my obscure acid trance and techno collection, along with jazz, blues, old movies, French movies, Cirque du Soleil, poledancing, the $7.50 seniors buffet at the local Vet's club, Isamu Noguchi sofas, wry humor, and remembers dancing for 8 hours straight with a half hour break in the chill out room at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras not so long ago. She once sent me a note once, saying "if it's too loud, you're too old."
As she heads over the rise marked 70, her tastes just get wider and more diverse. Why shouldn't they? We continue to grow because that’s what cells do, even if they start making mistakes. If seniors become forgetful, they're just forgetting stuff that just doesn't matter anymore and making room for new experiences, if we'd all just hold off toe-tagging them before they're good and ready.
So before you overthink or underthink your next interaction with a senior, be it an ad campaign, interaction at a bus stop or marketing your next reverse mortgage package (which, incidentally you should be marketing to single, childless adventurous misfits like me), put yourself in those white lace up sneakers and imagine how YOU would like your world to treat you when you're 64, 74, 84.
Start now. Resist clichés, you can always fall back on them, they're dime a dozen. There's no escaping your senior years – they'll be shaped by how you regard your living forebears already.
The Galfromdownunder admits to having a twisted view of seniors having been surrounded by adventurettes like 70-something Margaret Day, who rode across Australia's Nullabor Desert on her Bike Friday. Yup, here's how she'd probably like to be depicted in that poster.
May 5, 2008
12:34 pm | 0 recommendations | 5 comments
Undeleted email of the day … View PDF
In a nutshell: a company called REMO asking you to help them with their cash flow problem by buying stuff.
In the fuming pile of spam I pooper scoop each morning, this got momentarily retrieved, because I saw "SOS" in the subject line. It could be a friend in need, or my employer yanking me back to the office, and it doesn't sound like the Treasurer of a Nigerian Bank either.
But as I read on, I notice myself getting squeamish.
The company, a hip, urban purveyor of quirky t-shirts and other stylish stufforama, is telling me in the nicest, chattiest way, it has a slight cash flow problem. It's inviting me to be part of the solution – just stockpile their groovy t-shirts by the laundry basketful.
I don't doubt their honesty - I got it in the first sentence. I even got it in the second. By the third, the cool green eggs and ham motif on that t-shirt I'm admiring has now slipped to the chin of the store itself, and all I'm seeing is egg.
The owner steps up to the till, so you can look deep into its empty compartments. He says:
Q: So, what's happening on the business front? A: We're low on cash ... and we need some in fairly short order. We're not due to receive any more investment money until July, and an extended bank overdraft (how most retailers would generally trade through the quieter part of the year) is not an option for REMO until it's strongly profitable.
OK, please close the till, just lemme look at those t-shirts …
Q: When will REMO be profitable? A: Soon. We're still growing into our business model. There's a minimum cost of doing business and a level of expense below which we can't deliver the sort of CustOMER experience that we're committed to deliver. Our backers understand this. In any event, see the chart. Last year our sales grew by 85% ... but our expenses for the year only increased by 29%. It's not hard to see that we're on the right track. The trend line is strongly positive. We're projecting 60% to 70% growth for 2008 (year to date, it's tracking at 65%). That would actually deliver us a small maiden profit for the calendar year. Of course, most of the action happens in October, November & December, and we need to manage our cash carefully until then.
Wait, you're kidding me - I'm not in a store at all … I'm a fly-on-the-wall at your shareholder meeting, right? And what's this? Baring their bar charts to show break-even and historical sales data?
Q: What would you like to say in summary?: Growing this business without access to significant capital continues to challenge all involved ... BUT we're heading to a happier place. We firmly believe that. … Back in 2005 when we last turned to CustOMERs for help with our cash flow, some of you obliged with very large orders indeed. THAT FELT GREAT.
Clearly, this strategy worked, or at least they told me so. I received this email the next day:
REMO | SOS SALE | You took advantage ... and we had a server meltdown!
29 May 2008
How ironic. Such was the CustOMER response to this week's emailed announcement of our 25% to 50% SOS SALE, that our server went into a tailspin, ultimately melting down ... and denying MOST of you access to the website and its bargains for much of the day. Ironic because the CustOMER response to our SOS triggered a real technology SOS! Anyway, we learned something about ourselves ... and our capacity to accommodate many browsers and orderers simultaneously. Despite this, plenty of you are managing to get your orders into our system ... lots of BIG ones from all over the world. THANK YOU! For the others of you who were less successful with your response, please come back and try again ... NOW and/or over the weekend. This follow up email is being sent out in dribs & drabs over the next couple of days. So, hopefully you won't crash into each other this time around. Meanwhile, we're on the case with our IT service providers to upgrade our systems.
What do you think of all this? Would you buy? What does it leave you thinking about the REMO brand?
Building community, rather than just counting customers, has clear advantages. When you show your vulnerability, you bring people closer, and have them cut you slack when the planets just aren't aligned for you that week. They'll forgive your unavoidable goofups, your inexcusable moments of tardiness, and rally to make sure you stay in business. You can garner their sympathy vote when you need it.
But it's not a given. People selling stuff have a much harder time being convincing than bonafide charities and politicians; evangelists (religious or otherwise) have the hardest time of all. It's even harder on the web, where you can be a legitimate con artist, and where a mere homepage typo psychologically translates to "your product is junk."
In the case of this REMO email, I noticed myself recoiling rather than rallying … and I'm searching for why.
Perhaps it's the ever-so-slightly affected way the copy is ever-so-slightly overwritten, like this sentence.
Perhaps it's the undertone of studied guilelessness, intentional or otherwise.
Perhaps subconsciously, no one likes to be associated with failure or struggle. As Tony Robbins said, "When things are good people party, when things are bad they ponder." I want to buy the t-shirt with the green eggs and ham without being blatantly told if I don't, there'll be no tofu tonight for Tabitha.
Now if I knew my purchase would give a Chinese sweatshop laborer a day off rather than half a smoke after his 17th hour behind the Brother surger, I'd buy ten of them. Has anyone been game enough to take that angle on? It works for fair trade coffee and chocolate, what about threads?
I once saw an ad by a company which, by their own admission, botched their bottom line for many years running. The mea culpa to their shareholders was a page tabling their year-by-year snafu's, each "year" splattered with a 3-D photo overripe tomato. Fortunately, the final year was spattered with a noise maker. It was pitched exactly right, down to the not-too-stylish choice of typeface.
Just after 911, Bike Friday had to do a similar thing. When you make a travel bicycle that goes in an airline checkable suitcase, and planes start crashing and burning courtesy of sheer human insanity, customers are bound to get cold cleats. We issued a little email thanking customers for their support over the years, and somewhere mentioned that "if you've been twisting the arm of someone in your family to get a Bike Friday, now's a good time to do a Full Nelson." I can't say it was Booker-Prize winning, but we didn't have to lay anyone off that year.
Thanks REMO for giving me food for thought today, I'm glad so many customers rallied to put green eggs and ham on your table. I may not have bought, but it made me think again about how to commune with my community.
How would I have done it different? Maybe like a teaser email:
We need you to buy a bunch of t-shirts from us right now, so we're making you an offer too good to refuse. Click here.
We'd rather not overshare the reasons why, but if you r-e-a-l-l-y must know, click here.
Here's more eggs and ham for thought on Honesty and Authenticity, thank you Taylor Ellword: http://imagineyourreality.wordpress.com/2008/03/18/honesty-and-authentic...
That's all from the wide, wide world of wordsmithing ...
Cannes-award winning copywriter and Customer Evangelist the Galfromdownunder has been known to hang out her dirty CoolMax from time to time in the name of authenticity – she's since removed the multimedia link to the poledancing course she did with her 70 something mother. You'll just have to go Google it yourself.
April 4, 2008
01:01 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
Last post I detailed my 24-hour worryfest over a TurboTax glitch.
It turned out no more sinister than a doh! from deep in the bowels Intuit HQ.
The TurboTax damage control unit are all over me now.
Someone saw my mayday on FastCompany and hit DEFCON 10.
The "Turbo Tax Customer Care Specialist Supervisor", Jodie, jumped on my
advertised offer to phone or email me in Australia and
come to my rescue.
Jodie is the Customer Evangelist (CE) you have when you don't have a customer evangelist.
She's eager to help but naturally, speaks from the stance of we,
Intuit, and you, the customer. No crime in that, but no CE points just
yet.
I'd saved them a lot of angst, she said. After a cue from me ("I would
LOVE you to upgrade my Quicken 2004"), she asked what Intuit could do
for me. I'm no freebie hound, but noted the opportunity for CE points:
Offer reparations first, and let the customer refuse.
It was pretty simple - I need my tax done.
It so happens Intuit offer a service called Personal Pro, the
flagship product in their fleet of tax preparation services. It involves a
human being, hopefully with a CPA sticker, processing your return at the other end, for a
hundred or so bucks.
So I'm going to test drive Personal Pro from a customer point of view, and see how a big, successful corp handles an untrained monkey pushing a button and saying "what
does this one do?"
This is less about being a free ad for Intuit, and more about what makes for a great online customer experience.
TurboTax's online presence is attractive and well written – it hooked me:
http://turbotax.intuit.com/personal-taxes/online/personal-pro/
And here's the rub: I can't say the same for their offline communications.
I received a
couple of emails from another part of their damage control unit which
bore little relevance to my experience. This is like a large
company not having a decent note recording system – you've just
finished telling them your life story and the next time you call they say 'que?'
So Copy-Right It!
Here's the email, with suggested CE-style tweaking in []'s.
Dear Lynette Chiang, [Why not just "Dear Lynette"?]
Thank you for contacting TurboTax Office of the President. I do
apologize for the inconvenience, but we were unable to reach you by
phone with our first contact attempt.
[Thank you for letting us know about a possible TurboTax problem. We tried calling you but weren't able to track you down.]
After researching the issue that you are experiencing with TurboTax, I
have found that the e-mail you received was for the Extension Express
program provided by TurboTax. The program is designed to help a
customer e-file a Form 4868 Application for Automatic Extension of Time
to File a U.S. Individual Income Tax Return.
If you would like more information on this program and its features,
please go to Turbotax.com/Support and type in "6004" in the search
menu. That will bring up the Support Article: Use the New TurboTax
Extension Express to Apply for an Extension of Time. Please use that
article to gain more information on the program and its features.
[I see you've tried to use our Extension Express program. You'll
find the instructions at this link: www.Turbotax.com/Support. Just type
in "6004" to display the article 'Extension Express: Apply for an
Extension of Time.' We've tried to explain how this works as best we
can - please let us know if we can make clearer.]
Your willingness to help Intuit improve by taking the time to provide
suggestions and feedback is greatly appreciated. Below you will find a
link to a survey asking you about my performance on today's contact, as
well as any additional comments you may have in regards to the TurboTax
product. Your help will allow us to understand where we can improve .
So we can continue with our promise to provide our customers with the
best support available, please take a few minutes to complete the
survey. Please accept our sincere gratitude for any feedback you choose
to provide.
https://survey.turbotax.intuit.com/TTSurvey/Survey.aspx?s=fb81963f73484fc1b79f5b14d470cbd9&ForceNew=true
[Why isn't this a more digestible URL?]
[One more thing. There's a link to a brief survey below. Can you spare
a moment to fill it in? It will help make TurboTax a better and
smoother experience for all of us. If you need to contact me at any
time, go to this link: www.turbotax.com/feedback]
If you have any additional concerns, please contact me at any time by
calling me at (866) 373-7829, Monday - Friday 8 AM -5 PM PST. Either
myself or another member of my team will be happy to assist you.
Thank you for your time in this matter.
Respectfully,
Anthony C
Customer Care Specialist
Consumer Tax Group
**Please do not reply to this message. This e-mail was sent from a
notification-only address that cannot accept incoming e-mail.
Please note:
If you are in further need of Service or Support please visit us here:
http://support.turbotax.intuit.com.
[The sign-off is important – leave people feeling heard and confident. A full name inspires that trust.
Call me on (866) 373-7829, Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm Pacific
Standard Time. I, or someone I've briefed, will be here to help you.
Thank you for trusting us with your tax return.
Anthony Conran
Your TurboTax Customer Care Specialist
PS: Don't hit 'reply' on this message, it's a notice for you only -
call us instead. If you need more help, visit Service and Support here:
http://support.turbotax.intuit.com.
]
Thus, "damage control" English = English as a first, or very proficient second language.
To borrow an advertising dictum: say it straight, then say it great.
Words can mean the difference between 1 "unsubscribe" or 1000; between
being forgiven and being sued.
Former Saatchi & Saatchi copywriter the Galfromdownunder says, a picture may paint a thousand words, but a dozen great words can save you.
06:07 pm | 0 recommendations | 1 comment
April 9: See UPDATE at the end of this article.
+++
With tax time approaching, spammers, scammers and phishermen are kicking it up a notch - with kid leather toecaps. Not only are their fake phishing sites getting slicker and sexier, they've even got customer service departments to respond to your cries for help.
Recently I looked up from wherever I had my head buried to note the looming tax return D-Day. Despite attempting each year to do my own taxes, I've caved in to H&R Block, running to sit beside one of their certified caftan wearing grandmothers or MG restoration experts, leaving relieved that someone with a certificate ok'd my number crunching. This year I thought, if millions of others can do it themselves, why not save my $300 and do likewise?
Of course, the task sank immediately to the bottom of my to-do tray.
No problem, just file an extension, right? Except that I'm on the road Downunder.
Well, surely I can do the modern thing and file this unremarkable form online?
Googling about suggests no – one needs to print it out and mail it in. Wait, the IRS says yes … via some "partner" sites. I find it a little disturbing that more and more sites, including the IRS, are directing you away to someone else's cyber-backyard – feels a bit like pulling away from the mother ship in a patched rubber dinghy with the mist closing in …
I thus landed on (what I thought was) the Intuit TurboTax site
http://turbotax.intuit.com/support/kb/general-program-issues/tax-essentials/605.html
which seemed to offer what I was looking for - "TurboTax Extension Express" .
Clicking on the rather obscure link leads you to a promising page:
http://turbotax.intuit.com/lp/ty07/extensionexpress/
then to a page with a strange, lonely box, asking for your login and user id.
https://www.turbotax-extension.com/ExtensionExpress/extFiling.html?prioritycode=4510900000
Something doesn't seem right. The license agreement and privacy policy links didn't work. All headers are missing. You can't even mail the page contents to yourself, the contents disappear in an email. Hmmmmm.
Like a fool I soldiered on, not thinking for a moment that perhaps, being Downunder, someone might have gotten in between me and the real Intuit. The technical term for this is "link-jacking".
I filled out the form.
It asked me for my social security number, which doh! I duly supplied.
I submitted the form, and soon received a suspicious "receipt" in my junk mailbox.
Who was this LYNETTE CHIANG, living in 1000 Main Street San Diego, a few thousand miles from where I live in the USA? Here's the receipt.
The system told me the request had been submitted, but strangely, I wasn't asked for any money. I rationalized they'd get me when I resumed my online filing.
On attempting to save the receipt as a PDF, I ended up with a blank page. I got uncomfortable, and wrote to Intuit via their Contact screen.
At least I thought it was Intuit.
From: support@turbotax.com
Subject: RE: Customer Service (#6565-98874206-9263)
Date: April 7, 2008 9:22:27 PM GMT+10:00
To: lynchiang@yahoo.com
Reply-To: support@turbotax.com
Dear Lynette Chiang ,
Thank you for contacting TurboTax Customer Service & Support.
Lynette, I understand that you have followed a link from our web site to file an extension. And it asked your SSN. Also you received an confirmation email. However you feel that this was not a right one.
Lynette, please do not worry. I will surely help you to resolve your issue. I checked with the order number you have provided and found that you have file an Online federal Extension for 2007. So Please do not worry. The link you have provided is the right one to file an Extension. So I kindly request you not to worry about this.
I am glad that we have resolved your issue today. You may receive a survey from us through e-mail in approximately 24 hours asking you about my performance on today's contact,
as well as comments you may have in regards to the TurboTax product. So we can continue with our promise to provide our customers with the best support available, please take a few minutes to complete the survey.
Respectfully,
Geetha
TurboTax Customer Service & Support
Have a great day!
Here's what it looked like
Oh woe is me. The above email raises several flags, for sloppy language, punctuation and the fact that the email comes from "turbotax" rather than Intuit - they say in several places on their site, "all our correcpondence will come from Intuit". But since I've been on the line for three days to a fairly helpful Call Center in India about a separate problem - trying to get my wireless USB modem working - how can I say anything negative about Geetha and not sound xenophobic?
Net scammers could well be rejoicing that their giveaway bad spelling and grammar might now be their best weapon, given that customer service is increasingly farmed out to foreign language call centers.
Feeling concerned, I told Geetha that I was going to report this to the IRS, but … the email bounced.
Slightly panicking, I decided to try and place a 90 day fraud alert on my credit report.
Via the (hopefully) trustworthy Federal Trade Commission Site, I navigated over to Equifax.com, one of the three credit reporting agencies.
Lo and behold, another online link, with a smiling woman also asking you for your social security number. Doggedly I filled it in and was dismayed when "nothing happened" on hitting enter – another telltale sign of something phishy.
https://www.alerts.equifax.com/AutoFraud_Online/jsp/fraudAlert.jsp#
I tried to call Equifax but was led around a phone labyrinth – the kind that say "good bye" at the end and hangs up.
Even the FTC site looked suspicious, asking for a barrage of info to be typed into a rather rudimentary HTML page:
https://rn.ftc.gov/pls/dod/widtpubl$.startup?Z_ORG_CODE=PU03
And then I read with dismay that fake credit card agencies are now the vogue:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/fakealrt.shtm
Not to mention Turbotax admitting to being a target itself for internet fraud:
http://turbotax.intuit.com/support/kb/tax-content/tax-tips/6113.html
Now why didn't they tell me this is big bold letters on their homepage?
Finally, I thought I'd appeal to the Intuit/Turbotax community. I tried to go onto the TurboTax forum and ask the rabble for their smarts, but despite being logged in, it kept asking me to log in.
There was nothing about any of this under www.snopes.com either.
I really don't know what to do or what make of all this – calling anyone leads to endless phone menus. I've either been phished, scammed and spammed, or web designers are just getting sloppy – I'd normally berate them for that crime, but they'll get a stay of execution this one time.
Exhuming my long lost skills as a former software tester, I went back into the extension request site to repeat the steps using dummy data, and this time a brand new screen popped up asking me to pay $9.95 and enter credit card details. Hello Intuit, is that you?
I'll be damned if I'm going to stick in any more personal data!
Now if Intuit had a Customer Evangelist she'd be on the phone calling me right now on my Australian mobile 0420 968 967 or emailing me at my address lynettec at bikefriday dot com to solve my problem before I did any more PR damage – rather than have me scrambling about trying to contact them with no success. And the whole tax community would rise up and squash the scammers, like when our community recovered a stolen Bike Friday in Berkeley last year.
Remember, a community needs to be fed and watered – a slew of forums full of unanswered pleas does not a community make.
I really hope, for my sake, that Intuit/Turbotax Extension Express page is no more sinister than a bit of sloppy programming and mismanaged feature release. I've already experienced this in Australia lsat week - Vodafone's "check your balance" number simply told you to hang up and call that number. What ever happened to system testing?
I'm a child of the electronic age, but after this, I'm going to start championing pencil and paper again. Make that a wax pencil, the kind the Russian astronauts adopted – rather one that writes upside down in a vat of honey
Bike Friday Customer Evangelist the Galfromdownunder hopes she's utterly misguided on this and welcomes opinions from others. Now, is the H&R Block granny in the caftan available this afternoon?
+++
UPDATE April 9: After 2 days of frustration, I was rescued by some tech-savvy and CPA customers in the Bike Friday community who jumped onto this and the end result, after Intuit initially thought it was a scam, is daft but innocent. Thank you to Fred W in California and Bjorn in Seattle for the sleuthing:
Lynette,
Good News -- it was not a scam. I finally trickled down to the
department involved and here is what happened:
1) The Intuit programmer in San Diego when out an personally reserved
the website when the idea came up (so nobody else could take it).
That was against all company policy (but having worked for a large
corporation I can understand the desired to just "do something")
2) They also are not very happy about the email that was sent to you
-- the security person I talked to (Glee, her info is below) said to
tell you "we really aren't idiots" and that the matter is being
addressed.
So if nothing else, we've given the people at Intuit and interesting afternoon.
Cheers,
Fred.
Later, after customers fingered Intuit's location, office, and helplines using whois.com and gethuman.com, I received a note from a human being called Glee, who sounded a little like Intuit's cyber-brunette:
I accept this message on behalf of Intuit. You will receive additional information directly from Intuit’s TurboTax Support. (Twice)
Before softening up:
Well, Lynette, we are indeed human. Some times we are so fast we trip over our own feet. J I’ve sent your note on to our wonderful director of Assisted Support and you will no doubt hear from him soon.
Good luck with your taxes and hope your time down under is fun.
/glee
Well, Glee it hasn't been fun thanks to you folks, but it brings a little smile to my face: Big Corp brought down a few notches to sit eye to eye with our fallible selves. It does make Intuit seem human, something I've been championing all along in this Work/Life blog. Now if they could just do it without frustrating their entrepreneurial staff and scaring the hell out of us. Consider this a case study in the dire importance of clear and present customer communication, from web to woe.
Later ... I still haven't heard from their director of Assisted Support, and my one remaining concern: has my application for extension to do my taxes been received by the IRS, or hasn't it? I did not sign up to be your beta tester, Intuit!
I guess it's time to take a trip to the post office with an airmail envelope and a stamp ... - LC
March 3, 2008
10:24 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
We've been talking about rigid rules and policies and when it's prudent to nuke 'em with a sprinkle of water and a paper towel.
A related example is what I call copyright overprotection : when protecting one's own turf protects you from attracting people and their purses into your lair. Rather like having a pit bull at the front gate and wondering why you don't get any fan mail.
I blogged about a friend's play on my personal blog and said:
I was lucky to get this shot - a minder came up and told me not to take pictures.
Even the Guggenheim now realizes that to get butts back on seats you gotta let
people bottle memories with their Nikon Coolpixes!
Yes, I had taken a rather blurry shot of the stage plus a small clip to illustrate my review. I received this comment:
I am the Stage Manager (not sure what a "minder" is) who asked you to stop
illegally taking pictures of an Equity production. Members of the Actors' Equity
Association (the union of professional actors and stage managers)own the rights
to their own images. These people aren't paintings! They make their livings getting paid for people to see them. Therefore any unauthorized pictures of them are infringements on protected material. For more information on the union and rules about photographing and taping, please visit www.actorsequity.org
Emily
As I told Emily, rules are fine and good, except:
They make their livings getting paid for people to see them ...
Sure, if they dodge rain, traffic and a reversing garbage disposal truck to make it to the velvet rope. And if they home in on this tiny 1-act play from the 1-inch thick catalog of options in the NY TIME OUT landing on the doorstep. Every time I open that tome I get overwhelmed and have to go lie down and it's "not tonight, I now have a headache".
Small indie productions can be fresh and unique, but should freely plagiarize mainstream publicity techniques - movie trailers, sneak peeks, photo galleries - and other people's commentary. It's dead easy with your cheap digital camera in movie mode, and a computer.
The cast and playwright Karl Greenberg could theoretically stand to make some serious lunch money from my review in the long run, and she might stay gainfully employed in the field she loves. Me? I stand to make nothing other than the pleasure of attending and enthusiasm to share it with the world.
The world has moved - viral and word of mouth marketing such as blogging, podcasting and YouTubing gets butts on seats and e-shopping carts filled. Actors Equity needs to protect what needs to be protected, and otherwise, wake up and smell the free publicity. Unless they're Circ de Soliel or Lloyd Webber I suspect they could use it. Even Pavarotti thought he could do no wrong ...
Multimedia: An anti-ad for an ad is an ad in itself - for my appalling acting, Craft cycling undershirts, YouTube and Federal Premium muscovy missiles. Everyone say ... ka-ching!
February 2, 2008
12:29 am | 0 recommendations | 2 comments
Last post I talked about a young tour company director hell bent on enforcing the P(olicy)-word, even at the risk of sending despondent customers away, so they could tell ten others how sad they were.
To his credit, he eventually relented, but insisted I was out of line for going in to bat for them. He called me some names and ordered me to cease and desist from telling him "how to run his business". Note to self: you will always be accused of this if you open your mouth to talk about anything other than the weather.
I wondered why he was so adamant that he was right and I was so wrong. Then I remembered how old he was - 25-ish. Now let me state at the outset I am duly awed by brilliant young entrepreneurs of the Google epoch, heading up companies at an age when I was still huddled in a carpeted cubicle shuffling papers in an intray and keeping track of my flextime. Yes, they probably own the McMansion shadowing my walkup. They probably worked out how this new FastCompany blog site works where it's taken me two weeks.
Just don't let them near my customers unsupervised.
I'm already half expecting a customer's colonoscopy to appear on a bunch of Facebook funwalls thanks to the youthful exuberance that runs that show.
Interestingly, he kept leveling the phrase "industry standard" at me, as if that was the sole selling point of his offering. A bit like telling me to buy his condo because it has an oblong shaped door that opens inward …
I believe a small, lean business cannot afford to "fill 'er up with standard" and expect to succeed, unless you're a trust fund baby running an Alpaca hobby farm LLC. You've got to fill 'em up with "super", in ways the big guns can't - by being personal, personable and flexible - because you can. Ten thousand bad mouthings and a damning DVD haven't sent Wal*Mart under, where would ten leave you?
I thought I'd test my young policy protagonist's "industry standard" claim against other tour company principals we work with. Their responses:
Ciao Lynette
… I have learned the hard way that it does not pay and is simply not very kind to be rigid when you are dealing with people you care about with regards to their precious vacation time. Turning someone into an enemy is never worth it … – Lauren Hefferon, Ciclismo Classico
Our customers are our appreciated guests (unless they insist on proving themselves otherwise), not military recruits to a boot camp nor livestock to be herded around … there's actually a tour company that would rather incur a word-of-mouth disaster than gain 2 happy clients who'd talk up what great service they got? – Michael Khaw, Agile Compass
I'm sorta shocked that a legitimate biz would treat someone like this (and risk the bad karma/negative PR) … – Rob Templin, Second Summer Tours
I am surprised by the stranding, it is hard to imagine that orientation would be so important that you would drop a guest because they missed it – Tom Sheehan, Pedalers Pub and Grille
... there are always two sides to a dispute, but if what you sent about the touring company is actually the case, it will be out of business in a few years – Jerry Norquist, Cycle Oregon
You needn't be in the tour company biz for the above to remind you of who enables us to all be paid.
I'll let Lauren Hefferon, owner of Ciclismo Classico, have the last word ...
How many years has this company been in business? How old is the director? I must say younger, less experienced business people tend to make these kind of mistakes (running a business like a microcosm of running your life). So many people in the bike business do not learn to connect their own ethics with the business itself ... I think the bike business in general forgets that they are primarily in the PEOPLE business. Bike shops often care more about bikes and bike tour companies often care more about their "precious" tours. It is ALL about the people.
Once again with feeling:
It is ALL about the people.
45-year-old Bike Friday Customer Evangelist Lynette Chiang is from the blue rinse school of CE, where people are people and spreadsheets are spreadsheets and there's a time and place to confuse the two.
January 1, 2008
02:58 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
Customer evangelism tip: if you want to bring your customers closer to you, don't use the p-word, at least not to their face.
Don't say "Our policy is …" because they don't want to hear about your freaking policy. They want to hear how you can help them. You've been there, right?
Moreover, beware of how your business partners are using the p-word, because while you're merrily trying to build beautiful relationships with customers, your partners' efforts could be throwing a pickle in the cheesecake, so to speak.
Your best friends, at times your worst enemies, and everything in between - ultimately, customers enable us to be paid. It's all good, if you allow it to be.
Our company works in partnership with a number of tour companies. One such company offers a really fine product, which is strictly low-cost and therefore comes with a no-refunds and no-exchange policy. How strict I didn't truly appreciate, until a recent SOS email from a customer. (For some reason when people are unhappy they bang on the door of the company Customer Evangelist, as if I'm supposed to Hail Mary and work a miracle. Well I do try!)
The customer, a single working mother, told me she was unable to do the tour she signed up for, but wanted to transfer her investment to another tour later in the year, and even better, sign up her son as well.
So let me add that up … 1+1 = 3. That's two sales, plus an extra point for sheer customer satisfaction – that's Customer Evangelism mathematics.
But the tour company would hear nothing of it. Their policy says 'no refunds' – customers need to get travel insurance or be damned.
Could the company not make an exception - after all, it was not like they'd spent the money already? No, who the hell was I to tell them how to run their business?
After giving me a long email lecture on their successful business model, they grudgingly agreed to let her transfer because she was signing up someone else.
The customer was overjoyed – even more than when she'd first signed up. Great! Phew.
After the tour, I happened to be sitting at dinner with 4 customers who had been on the tour – well, actually three. Unfortunately, one girl's flight was delayed a day due to bad weather, and she arrived to miss the orientation session, and was refused entry. She did not have trip insurance – bad move. Not only that, she was told she could not get even a partial credit towards another tour, and was effectively left stranded at the airport, having to wrangle herself a long stay at a stranger's house.
Yes, she read, and was read, the riot act, she should have known better. But the bottom line? A sad and stranded customer out of pocket $600.
It's called 'buyer beware'. Does a fast company really want to operate in that realm?
Over dinner we discussed how she might approach the company to get special consideration – what if she enlisted some people to join? She was somewhat cheered by this prospect, and we ran it by the tour operator.
The tour operator said she'd get $50 referral bonus for each one, offsetting her loss.
Now although this seems like a great solution – make a customer earn back her investment - you might as well dress her in a striped shirt and pants and give her a potato peeler and a bucket of spuds.
People know what caveat emptor means, but that doesn't bring them into the fold - it's simply a golden opportunity to drive them away. Nor do they want to hear the old chestnut "we stand behind our products" either – unless you get out from behind that wall of stuff and prove it.
There are some areas where it pays to take care of future sales rather than the one right in front of you. As I described in a previous post, the Wolford manageress was well in her rights to tell me to go and get knotted, but she didn't. I'm a happy customer. (I'm no longer a fan of Velcro, though).
Rigid policies are fine for a bargain basement table of Jurassic Park-themed oven mitts marked 'as is', when you're talking the realm of good will, good feelings and the 'touchy feely' - especially in this day and age of money-back-satisfaction-guarantees, and branding for the long run - the p-word just turns people off.
Buyer Beware is a property law doctrine – an important fall back position, but the last thing a business based on relationships should resort to.
Hello Lynette,
I'm writing to request removal of my company from your roster due to your repeated demands that we alter our policies (which are at the heart of our business model) to suit your fancy. If compliance with such demands is a requirement towards participation, we simply wish to have nothing to do with such a program. I am absolutely not going to have business partners telling me how to run my company when they have little or no understanding of our business model.
We provide what is for most of our clients a life-changing experience, that is both unique and sacred. We make that experience available to as many people as possible by keeping our pricing ridiculously low. However to do so while staying highly profitable we must operate on a very strict budget framework where all unnecessary costs are trimmed and all policies, including the no-tour-switch or refund policies are strictly enforced. At the same time, we are a member of the Better Business Bureau and Co-Op America. We operate to the highest legal, ethical, social and green standards required for membership with both of these highly respected entities …
Lynette Chiang aka The Galfromdownunder is in a curious position of lobbying for her customers, her employer, it's business partners, it's partner's partners …in fact, the whole dang lot. That's the wide, wide world of Customer Evangelism.
09:35 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
A customer wrote to me today, very excited about this new 'Facebook thing' - he wanted to start a Facebook profile for our Bike Friday community.
"It'll be as big as Google!" he enthused.
I thanked him for being a champ – who needs a customer evangelist when you've got disciples like that?
And what harm could Facebook do, other than allow people you've safely disowned from your bad hair days to hunt you down like a Star Wars homing beacon?
Ah, Beacon.
As a FYI, I pointed him to the NYT article which described how Facebook's "23 year old CEO" did the equivalent of "suck on this" to its 58 million members.
The beautifully written last paragraph of that article is worthy of framing:
Beacon was a clumsy attempt to reset the default on the common-sense understanding of discretion and to profit off the resetting … Facebook was thwarted, as the corporate raiders of years past were not, because it aimed not at pension plans and seniority-based pay scales but at something considerably more valuable - the unwritten rules of privacy that make civilized human interaction possible – Christopher Caldwell.
Read the last 11 words again. The man deserves a Pulitzer prize for Paragraph of the Year, if there was such a thing.
I'll bet my bicycle he's older than 23.
We already know the corporate world has a side that would kick the cane out from under a cripple and make him pay for the privilege.
No surprises there, nobody's perfect, it's a dog eat dog world etcetera.
What bothers me is that this whole Web 2.0 generation is just the dot.com generation all over again, steered by even younger and more contemptuous captains. The civilized human interaction Caldwell talks about is going the way of the typewriter – out.
Facebook was originally designed for and by young people. Like Google, it is staffed largely by youth. Respect for seniority is not their #1 goal in life. Making money and doing cool stuff is.
Our customers are generally 55 and over. Is Facebook something that will enhance and resonate our relationship with them.
As a community tool that lets you find people you never thought would darken your email box again, it's great. Personally, I grew tired of the emails every 5 minutes telling me to look at some writing on the wall or click to answer a message. I started writing them on email again -it's nice to receive a message without URL's and advertising embedded all over it, just like the old days of letter writing. It's also why I haven't jumped onto cooltools like Flickr … I just want to see the photo like you handed it to me across the dining room table without all this logging in.
Am I a luddite? Ageist? Killjoy? All of the above? Now and then, especially when I've had a gutful of technology.
But who cares what I think? Why would Facebook and its young moguls care about the feelings of incontinent old fogies coherent enough to have an internet connection, buying a silk purse for their wrinkled old sow? When you're looking at $15 billion in net worth any detractors are a mere punctuation mark on your screen. Just delete 'em. You can do a Wacko Jacko and you're allowed.
I'm not denigrating youthful genius – these people are the probably our 22nd century Young Einsteins.
I simply champion Caldwell's point – some things are as perennial as the grass, and I'm not talking astro-turf.
I know I've pleaded my case before, (and tell me if I'm pedaling a rusty clunker here), but in our business, respect and regard for those who have been it, seen it, and are still at it, even two hip replacements or a triple bypasses later, is all. When you're dealing with youth culture, and the fruits of their capricious brilliance, this ain't necessarily so.
* Inspired by Ashleigh Brilliant's "Wait! Come back! There's a part of my face you haven't stepped on yet."
The Galfromdownunder is customer couch surfing Hawaii, hoping that people with a kind heart for their fellow human being will buy a cheap, postage-stamp sized piece of land beside hers, so we can all grow old together and live happily ever after.
08:36 pm | 0 recommendations | 2 comments
Now that the tree's going crispy around the edges, rubber fish on plaques singing "take me to the river" are being re-gifted, and the salutation on every email and phone message is still 'Happy New Year", I've been reflecting on the need for a global greening of Christmas.
What's this to do with work/life? Unless you seal yourself in a tomb for the holidays, Christmas is a whole lotta work, and an inescapable part of life.
Santa comes but once a year (poor sod), but leaves a massive of carbon footprint in his sleigh-stream. All this buying, moving, eating, drinking, helloing, goodbyeing, air-kissing in exotic places ...
They tell us people bought less this year, less ka-chingle bells ringing at the tills of seasonal stalwarts like Coach and Target. (Mind you, I've never understood how a company like Coach can turn over those purses like cans of Trader Joe's black beans. How many of those C-backward-C beige jacquard bags can you tolerate in a year?)
To be fair, Santa's sleigh is still old skool and reindeer-powered, judging from all the advertising. I'm surprised I didn't see him in a Smartcar to avoid parking fines while making his deliveries, or an SUV to keep up with the soccer moms, or a Hyundai to get him from chimney to chimney faster, or a Prius to do it cleaner.
Fake Christmas trees, once par for the course for those with even less taste than money, are now sustainably hip, just like my Martin Pergo flooring guitar will be when Brazilian rosewood and mahogany become extinct.
In Eugene, Oregon, someone started a campaign to give only gifts that are pre-owned, meaning, pre-loved. It's a wonderful way to reduce your stuff while increasing that of others, maintaining The Universal Law of Conservation of Stuff. The exquisite taste and hard-earned cash with which you adopted that Lladro figurine of the shepherd boy with the long staff and the little lost lamb does not depreciate with age. If anything, it matures like a fine wine. So pack it up and pass it on.
One tradition I trashed long ago, is that of sending Christmas cards.
I'm not talking about a lovingly hand made, hand drawn card containing a personal poem or even better, a $50 note concealed inside. I'm not even talking about those tedious "Dear all", family update letters, which wax nauseatingly lyrical about the Me, Myself I, and my Dean's-listed offspring, while your Chad or Britney languishes on the other d-list or mugs a hapless train commuter.
Spurn the generic: I commissioned an illustrator friend, Justin Winslow, to commemorate the time I blackened peppers in the impeccable studio of a friend, threatening smoke damage to his valuable collection of architectural tomes. Nothing like an original card to say you're sorry!
I'm talking about the banal, once-a-year "Dear X, [insert Hallmark platitude here], from the Y family" hiding behind a bad picture of a candle, tree, sprig of holly or other cliché.
It would be far more honest and original to write, "Once again, I don't have any more time in my year for you than the 24 seconds it will take me to scribble, stamp and send this and even then I'm rushing to make the 5pm post. USPS you next year."
Instead, I want to promote an idea I call IP or "Impromptu Postcarding". Carry a small stack of 3x5 blank note cards, the kind from Staples, pre-postage stamped by you, in your bag. When you think of someone, scribble a quick note:
"Hey. Thought of you just now. Saw Rainier cherries on special and remembered your pie of Thanksgiving '67. What's new?"
Then fling it in the mailbox.
I carry a gluestick as well, because I read little snippets that make me think, "I should send that to X" I tear them out, stick it on an IP, and send it. It could be a Tootsie Roll wrapper that reminds me of the big party you threw with the giant piñata … so glue the wrapper to the card and say, "When are we going to do the piñata thing again?"
It could be a real estate ad that makes think, "Hey, move over near us so we can see each other more!" Tear it out, stick it down, write your truth and toss it in the mailbox.
It will create delight at the receiving end, because you are genuinely thinking of that person without a trite tradition to guilt you into it. The card will be kept as a bookmark, I guarantee it.
At work, we were faced with the onerous task of sending cards. I voted against the corporate Christmas card with staff signatures all over it. You couldn't be more impersonal and uninspiring, and it actually sends out the reverse message - unless the message includes a $50 note or the illustration vies with a Larson.
I'll let you in on an ABC (Australian Born Chinese) custom I had pummeled into me when I was a kid. It's called, "Give a gift, send a card."
Blame the Asian merchant mentality, but under no circumstance does one give a store-bought card, unless it has money in it. It says you're too cheap and the recipient is unworthy of a real gift, even if trees are becoming a scarce resource. You send a card, or go emit a large amount of carbon by buying something.
Just another reason to stop giving or sending generic and perfunctory Christmas cards, and start re-gifting your stuff.
I can't leave without taking another dig at those photocopied family letters: face it, you can't help but sound self-congratulatory unless you're a canny copywriter. Instead, why not scare the hell out of your recipients just ... well ... for the hell of it.
I'm waiting to receive a letter that reads: "... Noah has 6 piercings now, and a second nipple ring to match the first. The police let him go after the owner of the pizza place he graffitied decided his latest mural - depicting the Last Supper with pizza slices and root beer instead of a bison and vino - can stay. He's now been hired as a marketing assistant graffitiing pizza boxes all day …
I'll keep that letter as a bookmark.
The Galfromdownunder is reducing her carbon footprint over Christmas by cat-sitting in Berkeley and feeding them Chinese leftovers.
