Customer Hell

Apple is in Purgatory!

I love my iMac. I have had it for 7 months with no viruses or spy ware. Not that it is flawless. Sometimes some programs have crashed for no apparent reason but they did not crash the computer. And the crashed program booted back up effortless without rebooting the computer.

Then along came Snow Leopard, the "ultimate" upgrade so the reviews said. Since I have written 38  computer books (not bad for a psychologist) I would have waited to upgrade had this been a bloated Microsoft upgrade. But I bought the hype.

http://howto.techworld.com/operating-systems/3200645/mac-osx-snow-leopard-upgrade-the-facts/

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10599919/apple-snow-leopard-sales-purring-npd.html

http://www.businessweek.com/mediacenter/qt/podcasts/techmaven/techandu_08_26_09.mp3

No problems installing. It was after Snow Leopard took over the computer that the problems occurred with no apparent solutions:

1. Parallel won't boot up on my partner's machine. You have to pay for an upgrade that costs more than Snow Leopard. This is an outrage. On the other hand, I have Boot Camp on the other two macs in our system. The Snow Leopard drivers for boot camp worked just fine. Needless to say it will be a cold day in hell before I cough up the money to upgrade Parallel. Besides, who knows whether it will work!

http://www.parallels.com/landingpage/dskd10_5/?source=google_us&gclid=CLa5qIyGmJ0CFShSagodNlWB_g

2. The Office Suite is the backbone of most businesses. Regardless of which office suite you use the word processor has to work! Snow Leopard has caused problems for three of our office suites:

Word 2008 in Snow Leopard,crashes and loses your files.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=783570

The two office suites that I have been using are Open Office for Mac and Neooffice for Mac. I REALLY like them. They are very similar but Neooffice appears to be more stable. That is until Snow Leopard came along.

Neooffice won't make headers and footers anymore. The upgrade requires a donation and may not fix it. My work around was to save an older file with headers-footer as a template.

http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/donate.php#donate

Open Office won't make headers and footers anymore either. The upgrade is free but doesn't solve the problem http://www.openofficedownloads.org/ver1a-icc/?source=CCN-CD302-OPEN-US&googleid=1031165059&ppg=FDZV2

3. The mail program is screwed  up. Filters don't work anymore. Some of my mail went to the wrong folder and some spam items ended up in the main inbox. I spent days looking for solutions to restore my mail setup and ended up erasing folders and filters and then setting up new ones. So far it seems to be working better but I have my fingers crossed.

I never thought I would be writing about Apple in my Customer Hell blog. See my Customer Heaven blog about Apple, April 2009:

http://customerhell.typepad.com/customerheaven/

 Is the intel chip causing Apple to morph into another Microsoft? I hope not! I love my iMac!

Contact us for a free consultation and quote on usability and/or  strategic customer-focused market research.

Linkedin David Gardner Ph.D .

Shaving in the shower annoyances-Part 1

 
I have been shaving in the shower for years. I find it relaxing and I get a better shave with fewer cuts and scrapes. 

For as long as I can remember, I used a product called Skinimate (gel) for sensitive skin. I really loved the way it left my skin soft and smooth. Without a doubt, a great shave!

Costly Change in Cannister Design

Then one day they changed the top from an easy-to-use one to what I am sure their marketing folks think is more streamlined. The costly and annoying problem is that if you drop the container in the shower, it cracks and sometimes falls off completely. Once it falls off you have lost access to the gel. Ugh!

Why the change from the tried and true valve system?  Maybe some member of this successful family-owned firm came up with what he or she thought was a brilliant idea? Who knows? The end result is that they lost a loyal customer. And lord knows how many more?

Needless to say,  I looked for a brand with the “tried and true valve system” that could not fall apart if dropped on the tile floor of a shower. It took awhile to find a brand that also did NOT irritate my skin.

For all you shave-in-the shower-folks here is the winning brand:

Aveeno Ultra-Calming Shave Gel
It is "Dermatologist recommended. Helps visibly reduce redness. Calms dry, easily irritated or sensitive skin. No added fragrance. With naturally calming feverfew. This uniquely formulated shave gel helps to calm and soothe red, dry, irritated or sensitive skin. The nourishing formula contains naturally calming feverfew - an ingredient known for its soothing properties, and leaves skin feeling moisturized and calm long after shaving. Aveeno Ultra-Calming Shave Gel provides a close, smooth shave and helps protect against razor bumps, nicks and cuts. You'll notice improvements in your red, sensitive skin, and your skin won't feel dry, tight or irritated. Discover Aveeno Active Naturals. Simply put, Active Naturals are ingredients derived from nature and uniquely formulated to reveal skin's natural health and beauty. Essential Active Naturals: Skin-calming feverfew."

No question in my experience with this product that what they say about it is right on target. Great shave that leaves my skin soft and happy!

Moreover, it is available in supermarkets and chain drug stores. In some cases less expensive than my old brand!

Contact us for a free consultation and quote on usability and/or  strategic customer-focused market research.

Linkedin David Gardner Ph.D .

Don't Tread On Me!

People don't like change, particularly when they have no choice. The psychological principal behind this anger is based on years of learning research that found that "new learnings interfere with old learnings."

Computer programmers, designers and other Geeks don't understand how frustrating it is for consumers (customers) and just plain normal folks to suddenly find things are different today than they were yesterday.




Yahoo is particularly bad about this. They really ticked me off this week. I like their "classic mail" format and have been using it for years.

All of a sudden, yesterday afternoon they moved the "sign in" from the upper right to the upper left of the page for no good reason. They also added extra steps to get to my mail. This so annoying!












Not only that I ended up with a screen offering "new and improved mail features."




Who needs them? I don't.





Surely there is a way for me to sign up with Yahoo so they won't use me as their guinea pig! I'd even pay for Yahoo Mail Plus is this was one of the options!


















Contact us for a free consultation and quote on usability and/or  strategic customer-focused market research.

Linkedin David Gardner Ph.D .

 

Shaving in the shower annoyances-Part 2

I have been shaving in the shower for years. I find it relaxing and I get a better shave with fewer cuts and scrapes. In my last blog on this topic I wrote about canisters that crack when they are dropped in the shower and offered an outstanding alternative to the product I had been using for years.

In Part 2 of shaving in the shower annoyances the problems are three fold

1.“drop and break” tests

2. quality of shave

3. risk of getting cut.

We tested three razors, the Gillette Mac 3, the Gillette Fusion (the one with the useless battery) and the Schick Quattro Titanum.

Results:

Of the three tested Mac 3 gives a better shave and a lower risk of bleeding. Besides the problem with dropping its price is a problem. In fact all three of the razors tested above are too expensive, especially in the present economy.

Fusion is not the most comfortable shave

Mac 3 is no longer on their website 

Quattro Confusion!'

 

Last Attempt:

In desperation we went “back in time” and bought an old fashion double edge razor that uses inexpensive blades

The razor passed the drop test. Don't know if it will give a good shave since my first attempt resulted in a huge cut and lots of blood.

 

For the moment we continue to shave with the less than satifactory Mac3 even though it flunked the drop test and uses blades that cost too much!

The answer to this problem is to require the designers and engineers who will develop the next line of razors to shave in their showers!

Here ae two interesting links for the adventurous man or woman:

Safety Raors from Amazon

 Classic Shaving Gear

The Art of Shaving

Contact us for a free consultation and quote on usability and/or  strategic customer-focused market research.

Linkedin David Gardner Ph.D .

Safety Tops, Aren't You Sick of Them?

I grew up in an “adult centered world.”  Children were expected to be polite and respectful of adults.  Parents were responsible for their children's welfare and behaviors. Parents kept dangerous materials away from their children so only adults had access to them.

Today, we live in a child-centered world. We use the “child-centered” politically correct focus as an excuse to censor the Internet, books, television, and to create irritating package and product designs in the name of child safety.

You know what folks, enough is enough. Child safety has reared its ugly head in my life and now I have to change my brand of dish washer detergent:

 

The brand on the left which I like a lot and have been using for years just changed to a “squeeze to remove” safety cap. So annoying. Every time I do the dishes I really get ticked off.

1. Did the Cascade cap design people forget that older folks have to open this too? It can be very painful (or impossible) for a senior citizen with arthritis to open the container!
2. Did they do a usability test with adults before changing the cap configuration?
3. Did they consider that even without arthritis, it is an annoying change for their loyal customers?
4. Did they consider the pharmaceutical industry's solution to safety caps?  It is a  reversible cap. One configuration for adults and another for the children who are not being properly supervised by their parents.

Obviously, I will be moving to the Palmolive product on the right which has an easy open flip top!

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Who Stole My Baking Soda Toothpaste?

It seems to me that as time goes by the “young, Gen Y” hotshots in the marketing departments of many great companies are intent on losing old-line, tried and true customers by discontinuing the product that brought their company loyal and  repeat customers!

Case in point. Arm and Hammer Baking Soda is probably in every household in the USA. When I was a boy, my mother taught me that baking soda right out of the yellow box was a great toothpaste if you could get beyond the taste. Years later, Arm and Hammer came out with a mint flavored, baking soda toothpaste. Doing what my mom said, I quickly adopted it!

For years I was a happy camper, cleaning my  teeth with mint flavored baking soda and honoring my mother’s folk wisdom at the same time. Alas, this state of bliss was doomed, I suspect by Arm and Hammer’s marketing folks.  It was supplanted by Arm and Hammer’s versions of “White, Whiter and More White” toothpaste (each version chock full of things like Fluoride or Peroxide or  what have you)  to match the competitive toothpaste whiting and botox craze that has descended upon us all!

Even if I could make the transition taste-wise there is a major catch for me here. I have caps on my front teeth. Whiteners DO NOT work with caps. If you use them, some teeth will become whiter than others!

So here we are a victim of the Arm and Hammer’s marketing department. The question that I  have for A&H is why not keep the old tried and true toothpaste on the shelf along with the other versions? On the other hand, you can understand the approach. There are so many choices for toothpastes on the shelves in all brands that it has become a consumer nightmare!

In the meantime, I guess I will have to open a yellow box of baking soda like my mother taught me 60 years ago. And yes, I have an open yellow box  in my fridge. It still keeps down the odors!

We also use their A&H Laundry Detergent, the hypoallergenic one for sensitive skin. In recent years I often have to special order this version at the supermarket. Is this product next in line to get the market department’s guillotine?

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How Federal Express sent me to Hell and back!

We moved. Our advice is: ‘don’t move!” or plan to spend 2.5 hours trying to get your address corrected with Federal Express.

My recent encounter with Federal Express’s web site is an example of how an otherwise good company with an excellent performance record (we have a nearly 20 year history with them) really ticked me off, sucked up tons of my time, and sent me to hell and back trying to change our company address so I could send a document to a waiting client before a 4:30 p.m. drop off time. Talk about anger and frustration.

The address change problem stemmed from the fact that there are not one, not two, but three places illogically located on their website where addresses must be changed separately.

I found one of the places and dutifully filled out the online form. However, when I printed out the airbill, it still had the old address on it.

I went back to the drawing board and eventually found a second place to change the address. When I opened that link it was quite clear that this address change link did not talk to the previous address change link because the form was blank. So I filled out the second online change of address form. However, when I  printed out the airbill again, it still had the old address on it.

I proceeded to go through the telephone help cycle process (another form of purgatory). In the end, I lucked out and found a help desk agent who knew how to change our address in all three places.  Of course, it meant that I had to fill out the address form THREE times to complete the process.

Now you ask yourself, why didn’t a huge, successful company do a usability study before building the site. If they had, this annoying change of address conundrum would have been caught and fixed in the early site development process.

With UPS, DHL and USPS among other competitors just a click a way, it doesn’t make sense does it? In fact, I am seriously looking at the possibility of changing to one of the competitors. My basic concern is will the competitor’s website be easier to use?  Ease of use is what ALL customers want!

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What Does" Grandfathered" mean?

We just moved (only 4.5 miles) and our Time Warner monthly charges went up $15.00 /month for the same services. We were supposed to be "grandfathered" on the monthly charges but apparently you are not if you move even if you elect the exact same services. Seems very unethical to me.

This is the kind of behavior that makes customers want to go to a competitor. I am now considering AT&T. Will I be going from the frying pan into the fire?

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