MultiMedia Messaging
Posted: Wed 15 March, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Thoughts, Weirdness 3 Comments »Ah, O2 you bunch of fuckwits. Apparently they have decided on an arbitrary limit of 100Kb for media messages (i.e. sending a photo from your phone to someone elses). At its default setting, the XDA I now have takes photos that are 104Kb in size.
Now, what kind of sodding use is that, when you’re trying to send one? *sigh*
Excellent Technique
Posted: Tue 14 March, 2006 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, General 2 Comments »This morning:
[phone rings]
“Hello there sir, my names Josh and this is just a quick customer service call about your Orange phone”
“I don’t have an Orange phone. Never have.”
[*click*]
Short, sweet, and pithy. It doesn’t get much better, really.
Overheard
Posted: Mon 13 March, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services 1 Comment »In the supermarket…
“Have you not got any Daily Expresses today?”
“No, sorry, they only sent seven copies today, we’ve sold out.”
“Oh, OK. I’ll have to get a Daily Mail then. It’s just it’s such a rubbishy newspaper”
Local Public Transport
Posted: Mon 6 March, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Travel Leave a comment »While we’re away, the Mother-In-Law (well, almost in-law) is looking after the house. One of the things I had to do before she arrived was to sort out timetables for the local buses and trains.
Now, the train bit is no problem, and the timetables are always at the station. So that was fine.
The bus situation, however, is a bit different. When I went to the bus station, which always used to have an office where you could pick up timetables, it turns out that they’ve decided it’s more economical to not bother with that, and simply have the timetable p on the bus stands, wrapped in plastic. In other words, you can’t get a copy of a timetable to take away with you. Well chuff me, that’s helpful, isn’t it?
In fact, you have to either get a timetable online (and do they do timetables in PDF format so you can at least get one easily? Do they fuck-as-like) or you have to ring them or email them and get one sent out. Which is OK if you’re organised and getting this kind of thing sorted in advance. But what happens when you’re just wanting to find out when the next bus is? In short, you’re knackered.
And then they wonder why less people are using the sodding service. I sometimes wonder if First Bus haven’t made the executive decision that actually they’d be able to run a decent service if only they could stop people being inconvenient and actually wanting to use it.
Continued Downage
Posted: Thu 2 March, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, D4D™, Geeky Leave a comment »Well, it looks like 34sp are still having intermittent problems with their service at the moment.
So, why aren’t I pissed off?
Well, primarily because as usual with 34sp, they let you know what’s going on. OK, you’ve got to know about status.34sp.com, which is on a different network entirely so even if every 34sp website is down, status is still letting you know what’s happening.
Secondly, it’s because it’s not actually their fault – this is a problem with the link from 34sp to the outside world, which is failing a lot. And they don’t yet know why. But they’ve said they’re looking into it, and for once I believe them.
And thirdly, because this is a rarity. In four years with 34sp, this is the first major unintended downtime I’ve seen. And that, for my money, is pretty good service in anyone’s book.
Is It Me?
Posted: Mon 27 February, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism 1 Comment »On Friday I ordered a new desk (for the refitted office at home) from Argos to be delivered today. OK, I should’ve known better, I realise. But hey, that’s life.
Anyway, I ordered it online, and all was fine. I got a confirmation message on the screen which said something along the lines of “We need to manually verify this order, then we’ll send you a confirmation”. OK, for e-commerce that sucks, but it’s well known that the entire company of Argos has an IQ of 100, and most of that is kept in head office. So OK.
By today, still no confirmation, and it’s supposed to be being delivered today. So I thought I’d ring the useless bastards and check.
First of all we get the “I’ve got to have an order number before I can help you. But I haven’t got an order number, because Argos’ve never given me one. Well I’ve got to have an order number for the system” farce, but eventually we get through that one.
Finally I get to the correct department (“Oh, sorry, there’s two departments that deal with home delivery, and you’ve come through to the wrong one”) and get it confirmed that the desk is on the delivery truck, and will be with us sometime today. Helpful they’re not.
And what’s the excuse when I ask why I haven’t received the order confirmation, despite a) the money having left my account, and b) the order having been processed, and on the truck?
Oh, sorry, the internet’s slow at the moment
Yeah, OK, I’ll fall for that one. Like I came off the carrot truck this morning.
Don’t you just love it when people expect you to know as little as they do?
Voiceovers – a solution?
Posted: Fri 3 February, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Thoughts 1 Comment »Having been getting annoyed by voiceovers, summaries, and all sorts of other “dumbing down” guff recently, I think I’ve just come up with the solution. (OK, it’d take some approval from the TV people, but all the same it’s a bit of a knockout idea
Channels. Soundtrack channels, like on a DVD. You could have the normal soundtrack channel, voiceover and all, as the default, but you could then change the soundtrack channel if you wanted, similar to the “director’s commentary” on DVD, so that all you got was the actual programme, no voiceovers.
Hell, I’d subscribe to an option like that, if it could be made into a generic ( i.e. multi-channel) consideration. Mind you, I’d also be willing to do the same for advert-free viewing, but that’s something else, and probably technically harder to do.