Wait, What? Why??

I needed lunch.

I ordered lunch (and a couple days extra lunches).

And then I noticed one of those, "wait, what?" moments.

If you click on something on this site to add it to your pizza (in my case, by mistake green peppers, as well as tomato and chicken) then remove it (allergic, too cheap, too cheap)... it shows up on your receipt.

As, "no {whatever}."  Which makes sense, if your computer isn't smart enough to recognize "Hawaiian BBQ Chicken without BBQ Sauce," but makes no sense if there's no "standard menu item" involved.

In this case it's costing Domino's another pizza -- which I await now -- without green peppers.  Since the guy making it somehow saw the "no" in front of tomato and chicken, but not green peppers... which would make me very, very ill.

What was the developer thinking?!

You can think about big enterprises, and probably get the sinking feeling that this happens on a daily basis but none of the lowly franchise employees have a means or the clout to get it fixed with The Pizza Mothership Web Development team.

Brilliant Signage

So, I want to know, did Hook #2 go up before or after the "Do not use the hook" Sign?

American Airlines Fires Designer For Admitting Site Could Be Improved

And that headline should tell you all you need to know about the AA commitment to Customer Service, never mind Usability.

It's validating to know I'm not the only one who thinks the AA site needs major help. (Here's my post from last time I used their site:  http://yetanothersite.blogspot.com/2009/02/i-get-annoyed-again-american-airlines.html)

Here's the dialog on another blog that got the AA staffer fired: http://dustincurtis.com/dear_american_airlines.html and http://dustincurtis.com/incompetence.html

Long Time No Post: Facebook Doesn't Understand Customer Service

When you run a business like Facebook there are four basic areas you would staff (beyond all the backbone that keeps a business running):

1. Coding and Design - making everything functional
2. Sales and Money - ads and stuff
3. Servers, Networks and Security - keeping the site up and connected
4. Customer Complaints

One way to really fall down on your face is to staff #4 with people who don't understand customer service.

I made a complaint on Facebook. I made a complaint because after taking a quiz I was suggested I take another quiz. The quiz I took was undoubtedly silly and likely to be something along the lines of "What Muppet Are You?" or "Who Are These 80's Stars?".

The quiz I was recommended by Facebook was, "What Kind of Girl Would You Like to Fuck?".

The picture of said quiz was an upskirt shot of a girl with no underwear, her legs akimbo, and her head cropped out.

I complained to Facebook that I found THAT offensive (to the generic complaint email).

To which Facebook replied that I didn't complain in the right channel and thus my complaint was being ignored.

That irritated me -- I had gone through the entire help site and there was no channel for reporting offensive applications.

I replied to the same address with a complaint about the process.

Today, 91 days after my original complaint, I received a reply -- explaining to me that I must, in order to complain, find the offensive application (how?), TAKE the quiz in question, and on the final about screen, complain to its developer.

Seriously, Facebook, seriously?

This is the best you can do?

I know we inhabit a world of forced self-service where no one talks to humans for customer service, but it takes a special kind of lameness to have not one but two humans refer a customer to self-service and never take action on the root problem reported.

Wow, just... wow.

If I was the Facebook sales rep selling ads to Pepsi^® and Ticketmaster^® and Pepto-Bismal^® I would be very concerned that these ads didn't pop up next to porn. I promise you the brand managers for the companies do care.

This one application is a drop, I am sure, in the bucket... but the staff's inability and/or lack of will to actually deal with these problems would mean a lot of full buckets.

Amazon Uses Me as a Guinea Pig, But I Like It

From only one computer-browser combination, I am currently being offered a "Beta" look at a new order tracking page on Amazon.

I like it.

(I would probably like it less if I ordered things I was embarrassed to have pictured on the screen -- and Amazon does sell some of that stuff... I wonder if they've thought of that?) [Less adult-entertainment example: I ordered my pregnancy tests off of Amazon. Would I want a co-worker to see that if I'm checking my order status at lunch?]

Anyway, here's some grabs.

Things I like:

1. At Christmas this would be really helpful as a quick and visual, "How much stuff have I sent family X" guide.

2. It's just more visually attractive than the old site.

3. I like the gift box icon (grab #3) next to items with gifts.

4. I like the hover box w/ shipping, although I'm not sure about it's accessibility. I'm using a roller ball, I think I would dislike that from a touch pad.

I do wonder what these pages will look like in a year or two when things go out of stock-- I have gone back into orders that old, before. (Ok, admittedly, usually to yell at them, "I have spent $xxxx.xx since 1997, don't you care you're alienating me?)

Say What?

Hey Acer, what's a PA & AAP? Or an EMEA? B/c I'm not sure. None of those look like choices for, "Places People Speak English"

Amazon: Two Steps Forward, 1/2 a Step Back

So, Amazon just announced a large effort to work with their vendors to get rid of packaging. They are touting this as customer service usability, which it is. (I think there's a couple of side effects they aren't disclosing such as a)preventing returns of Amazon goods to brick and mortar stores and b)getting Amazon off of the Stupid Shipping Gang usual suspects list).

So I think, "Yes! Amazon is helping to make packages safe to open and making the online shipping process much more green."

I'm very excited by Amazon throwing its economic weight behind improved packaging design.

However, someone at Amazon needs to learn how to make content accessible. Because a two screen long cut and past dump from Photoshop, complete with non-Unicode characters, is NOT making this content accessible.

Imagine for a moment you are blind. You love online retail -- you don't have to try and navigate the Kroger anymore, you can order online. Of course, this only happens when stores make content accessible.

As a blind person, clamshell packaging is really rather dangerous. You prefer not to deal with it.

Here's Amazon announcing they are getting rid of your nemesis Clamshell... and you can't access the message because it's only nominally accessible.

As someone who cares about accessibility, things like this are really frustrating to see. (Just like it's frustrating that the blogger templates and image addition aren't accessible, either.)

Yeah, I've Known That Guy....and That Guy, Too

Fan Service

So,

A little tiny core of people (bless you) reads this thing.

I've got about 4 zillion and 2 starred items in Google Reader I want to talk about.

But I thought I would ask....

What do you want to hear from this blog?

Let me know by commenting or emailing jdoe@yetanotherdot.com.

If you like the current mix, let me know that, too?

Amazon's New (To Me) Schitk

Recently, for my husband's birthday I had a very early miscarriage.

The fall-out from that was that I missed his birthday completely.

So I signed up for the $79/annual "ship it now, ship it two day" option from Amazon. So far it's been nice, as his birthday gifts arrived within the advertised 48 hours (and since one of them was a leaf blower, I consider that to be great service).

I'm continuing to experiment with the service.

Essentially it means:

• I can order anything I want now and, as long as Amazon is the seller, I don't pay shipping again.


• Which means I don't have to add up to $25.00 anymore.


• Which means no more searching housewares for $.49 drawer pulls, books for $1.09 bookmarks, or health and beauty for a single toothbrush.

The impact has been that I'm buying more on Amazon, mostly b/c it's easier to go online than go to the store, but only when Amazon has a price I can live with.

So, the husband was complaining that we never have new toothbrushes.

So I went to Amazon, searched around, and found some Oral-B that were less than what I pay at Super-Target®. A 12-pack should last a while...

He also said we needed new paper towels. Amazon's prices sucked. No go.

Then the bottom of our super-huge kitchen trash can busted out. Understand, I love these trash cans. We have black (trash) and white (recycling). They have a small foot-print, the cat can't knock them over, and I like the whole "the force is with you" intent for the recycling.

We originally got these (I must have been feeling flush) from The Container Store®... which we don't have in Durham.

Amazon to the rescue! I'm going to have to wait 3-6 weeks (so sad!), but I'm not paying shipping on what will be a HUGE box and the price was 20% of TheContainterStore.com

Amazon relies a lot on what must be an insanely huge supply chain. This gets them onto certain websites quite often.

I'm hoping this continues to work for me. Of course, I really liked the Free Delivery I was getting on cat litter from Pets.com to my second-floor, around the corner, bad parking apartment in 1999.

I also really liked the Free Delivery from a couple of online grocery stores that stopped doing it pretty quickly (jars of mushrooms wrapped in bubble wrap! someone to carry cases of ON SALE Pepsi to that apartment! free goodies with orders! .com bust!). This isn't quite Free Delivery since I'm paying for the year, but I'm hoping it's sustainable.

And, for the first time in two years, Amazon doesn't process my order past refunding then sit on it for two weeks.

I'm looking forward to Christmas.

No, I'm Not Going To Tell You That

I'm tired of doctors' offices asking more questions than a credit card application.

This office happened to put the form online.

I just left half of it blank.

No, you don't get my husband's social security number (I have my own insurance), or his boss's number.

My favorite, not on this form, is "Emergency Contact Who Does Not Live With You." I recognize that field. That's the one from the student loan forms. It's, "Person We Can Call If You Skip Town." No, thanks, but no.

You will note they ask for an emergency contact on this form, but don't ask for a PHONE NUMBER for the contact. I guess if you have a seizure or pass out, they don't care about who to call then, but if you are late with that co-pay... watch out!

These forms send a message to the patient that the doctor probably doesn't want to send.

"We don't care about you and who you are and why you are here, but we really, really, really want to be sure we are paid on time for every cent."

I was seeing a doctor who made you fill these out every quarter. I stopped going to that doctor. The fact that they didn't care (no form for that) when my medical status changed, but DID scan my driver's license every three months was just a little much.

Punt, Apple, Punt!

Good Morning, Consumerist Readers...

The following transcript, complete with typos, is from my recent chat with Apple.

You are chatting with {Name Withheld to Protect... Something}, an Apple Expert:

Hi, my name is {Name Withheld to Protect... Something}. Welcome to Apple!

{Me}: I need a new doohickey; TSA lost my old one.
{Me}: I need the thingy that you use to connect a mac laptop to a pc projctor/monitor
{Me}: obviously i dont know what it's called
{Me}: thus I can't find it.
{Me}: and then once I know what it is, I need to know if the apple store by the mall by my house has it

*** 60 second pause ***

{Name Withheld to Protect... Something}: Good afternoon.
{Name Withheld to Protect... Something}: I'm happy to assist with that.
{Name Withheld to Protect... Something}: Would you like a link to the local Apple STore.

{Me}: I need to know what the thing is called firsty

{Name Withheld to Protect... Something}: One moment while I research that for you.
{Name Withheld to Protect... Something}: Are you trying to hook your Mac to a projector? Explain to me exactly what you are doing.

{Me}: yes
{Me}: i have a mac laptop and we have projectors for pc
{Me}: the connector for the projector is the same as if I was hooking the mac laptop up to a pc monitor

{Name Withheld to Protect... Something}: Did you have a plug that you previously attached?
{Name Withheld to Protect... Something}: What type of prong was on the projector for input or output?

{Me}: i don't know what you mean by plug. I had a small white cable, one end hooked up to my laptop on the mac side and one end hooked up to the monitor/projector
{Me}: the pc end looked like pc monitor connectors have always looked. the mac side has a bunch of square looking slots at one end
{Me}: that cable fell out of my bag at airport security
{Me}: or my dog ate it. anyway, it's gone and now I can't hook up to anything.

{Name Withheld to Protect... Something}: One moment while I research that for you.

*** several minutes go by***

{Name Withheld to Protect... Something}: Thank you for your patience.

****several more minutes go by, I stop sending emails and try some more searches***

{Me}: i think i found it.
{Me}: On my own.
{Me}: http://store.apple.com/us/product/M8754G/A?mco=MTIxODk3Mw

***60 second pause***

{Name Withheld to Protect... Something}: Perfect.
{Name Withheld to Protect... Something}: Would you like me to place it in a cart for you?

(this is one of the stupider offers of help ever, I just found something faster than you did, I think I can click the "add to cart button".)

{Me}: No, I need the phone number for the Mac store in South Pointe mall in Durham, NC.
{Me}: I don't want to pay shipping.

{Name Withheld to Protect... Something}: I will gladly send you a link so that you may contact them directly, one moment
{Name Withheld to Protect... Something}: Click Here

(Thanks for nothing. A link to the site I'm ALREADY ON. Way to go.)

You will note I never got what I wanted -- them to check the inventory without me calling the store and find out if they had it in stock.

I think I'm going to order the $1.94 knock-off on Amazon, instead. It's got $2.95 shipping, but that's a net of $15.00 less than Apple....

They're Baaaaack

No, silly, not the poltergeists....

The horrible emails from Yum! Brands and Pizza Hut.


When, oh when, will they learn how to send a properly formatted HTML email? Or even a plain text one....

If they keep this up, I'm going to have to add a tag just for them....

PizzaHut.Com Goes for the Gold

The Gold Medal in embarrassing emails, that is.

Today I had this in both inboxes --->

Of course, I find that LESS horrible than this un-formatted monstrosity they sent me earlier this summer, or this customer-service survey that came weeks after my pizza.

It's an apology for some email that I deleted if I ever saw... but they don't offer much in the way of an apology. Yum! Brands should know better than to make this kind of gaffe time and time again.

If they DID send out some coupon they can't afford, they should have at least offered people a token apology. ("Free 2 liter Pepsi with your next order of $50 or more.") The letter also seems awfully heavy on the 9-syllable words for something that is going out to every college kid with a credit card...

I haven't been on the site in weeks except to show people the horrors of the "Full Description" links; I'm assuming it still sucks.

Usability = Customer Service for Your Users

So, I was reading the blogs and saw a typical article on one of the travel trouble-shooter websites, namely: http://www.elliott.org/the-troubleshooter/double-booked-at-the-days-inn/

Where things got interesting were the details-- a very long talk about how hard to use DaysInn.com is. (You won't be seeing that particular rant here; I decided not to book at Days Inn anymore after they switched to the single-packet-of-white-rain-per-person-per-stay shampoo policy. In this era of TSA I need the hotel to provide adequate shampoo and soap!)

Where I laughed was this,

I asked Days Inn to take a look at your reservation. It determined that you had made a mistake when you booked your rooms. While that may be true, I think the Days Inn site has what designers might call “usability” issues that make these errors easy to commit. I think it should refund your second room.

I'm happy to be seeing "usability" hitting a more mainstream customer service website... but I wish it wasn't in quotes!

Yes, Your Customers Did Pass 3rd Grade

Sale Price: $2.29

Original Price: $1.99




Two for $8.00 on sale...

Original price, $3.99 each.

Finger Pointing, Poor Usability, and Bill Gates

Bill Gates’ web experience: Byzantine, idiotic logic

Bill Gates's and Microsoft's internal memos expose (pdf) a horrible user experience AND no one willing to take the lead on fixing it.

And you thought it was just where you worked!

My favorite quote, "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated."

Side note: I once had someone tell me Microsoft would never worry about this, "user research stuff" because they would just know. Nope, even The Bill recognizes the need for usability.

Arbitration? Only if you're the little guy...

We provide the first study of varying use of arbitration clauses across contracts within the same firms. Using a sample of 26 consumer contracts and 164 nonconsumer contracts from large public corporations, we compared arbitration clause use in consumer contracts with their use in the same firms' nonconsumer contracts. Over three-quarters of the consumer agreements provided for mandatory arbitration but less than 10% of the firms' material nonconsumer, nonemployment contracts included arbitration clauses. The absence of arbitration provisions in nearly all material contracts suggests that, ex ante, many firms value, even prefer, litigation over arbitration to resolve disputes with peers. The frequent use of arbitration clauses in the same firms' consumer contracts appears to be an effort to preclude aggregate consumer action rather than, as often claimed, an effort to promote fair and efficient dispute resolution. Other common features of civil litigation reform discussion, avoidance of juries and loser-pays attorney fee rules, find little support in the pattern of contractual terms we observe.

Whole thing: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1076968

Pizza Hut Follows Up Horrible Web Site Experience With Really Crappy Email

So not too long ago I wrote about PizzaHut.com and its high level of Bad.



Today I get this:

What is it? The Worst Marketing Email In The World. It's not compliant with the three biggies: Outlook, HTML, or Plain Text. It's not even RTF. Maybe it works for Lotus Notes users, but I doubt it.

Beyond that, the links to (I think) sell something are the same as the "get me off your damn spam list" links.

Way to go, Yum! Brands!

Wal-Mart Finally Buys a Copy of Why We Buy, Remodels Stores

Executives also talked about using lower display fixtures in its stores so customers' vision is not blocked by walls of racks towering over their heads.

For its home department, Wal-Mart has developed a new design that features these lower fixtures, so a customer can survey the entire department while standing in the aisle.

"She buys more when it's easier to shop," said Linda Hefner, general manager of its home department.

Full article: http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSN0532538920080606?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews&sp=true

Why We Buy: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684849143/ref=nosim/toosugartoolittl