Foreign Affairs makes it hard for me to be globally informed

Dear Foreign Affairs,

Perhaps you are a company that believes you are all about quality content. Problem is, quality content is no good if it's impossible to access.

Last night, I wanted to read an article on the Arab Spring. Your web site said that I needed to pay to read it. I couldn't decide if I should buy the individual article or take the plunge and subscribe. I slept on it. When I awoke, I decided that your content was worth it. I should start 2012 globally informed.

From the article, I clicked the subscribe link. I had 3 options: digital, paper, or both. Little did I realize that both included premium content, and my dear article was premium. Frankly, I didn't know to know this. I am absolutely new to your service. And even though I was coming from a premium article and clicked a link to subscribe in order to read it, you didn't bother to let me know, either. I didn't bother to study all the options and second guess myself. And you didn't bother to notice my intention and put me on a path to success.

Now I just gave you $29.95 and feel incredibly bummed out.

There is apparently no way to upgrade my account, and filling out the customer service form only promises that you will respond within 2 business days. Two business days? Do you have so many customer issues that you can't respond in a more timely manner? Or do you have no staff actually dedicated to customer service? I am not hopeful that I will be reading this article anytime soon.

You are Foreign Affairs. I feel like I shouldn't have to tell you that investing in a usable online experience is worth it, especially as more and more reading experiences become digital. You don't need to innovate; you only need to make the interactions seamless so that people can focus on your content and not the (failed) experience. Thoughtful design can go a long way.

-joanie

P.S. You gotta get rid of those spammy comments, too. You know, the ones where people are posting URLs to vacation condos and such. It only degrades the experience and shows how little you care about the online experience.

Smith and Noble apparently sold me out

Dear Smith and Noble,

I am awash in catalogs, and it seems you may be to blame.

In this age of e-statements, digital activity, and online correspondence, I expect very little to arrive via snail mail. And yet my mail is overflowing...with catalogs.

At first the catalogs were a slight annoyance. It was something like you automatically signing me up for your catalog after I ordered some window coverings online. I suppose you wanted to stay "top of mind" even though you clearly were top of mind before the catalogs started coming.

Then the catalogs started reproducing. Suddenly I was getting other catalogs, some of them really thick wholesale catalogs, for no apparent reason. It seemed the primary function of my mailbox was to be a temporary holding place for catalogs as they moved from mail carrier to recycling bin.

Today I learned that it will be nearly impossible for me to stop receiving catalogs, and perhaps you are partially to blame. I called Home Decorators Collection's customer service number and asked to stop receiving their catalog. Seemed simple enough. Then I asked if I could somehow end back up on the list, presumably the same way I ended up there to begin with. She said yes.

Using the Key # on the catalog, she acknowledged that Smith and Noble gave my address to them. And probably countless other catalog companies.

If this is true, this is disgraceful. I buy something from you, and you turn around and sell me out. In fact, you may very well keep selling me out, even back to good ol' Home Decorators Collection.

No more. As I tweeted earlier today:

Apparently Smith and Noble is one of the reasons I am receiving so many unwanted catalogs. I will NEVER, EVER buy anything from them again.

-joanie

P.S. I just called your customer service number to opt out of receiving your catalog. As I was leaving my name and address per your instructions, your system abruptly stopped me and said that it couldn't record my information. Then it hung up on me.

(A longer version of this post appears on No More Catalogs, a blog intended to stop unsolicited catalogs from showing up in our mailboxes.)

Intuit makes me want to cry

Dear Intuit,

I used to love you. The joyful sound of the cash register bell that confirmed each transaction made money management fun. I loved making pie charts, watching my hair color expenses trend with my entertainment spending, and seeing neatly rectified statements each month. Tidy.

Fast forward twelve years. I've got legacy data miles long that has been corrupted through each Quicken upgrade, moved back in time 100 years in my first upgrade post "Y2K," and otherwise neglected as life grew in complexity.

Putting aside the hours of manual data correction I've done (and paid to have done) over the years, my frustration with Quicken grew in 2009 when, using a Windows version on my newly acquired Mac, slow didn't begin to describe the application's performance.

Of course, I thought, it's time to give up on this old, locally stored data paradigm and move to Mint.com. After fighting with Mint.com for about 10 hours over the course of two weeks, my accounts began to sync. Sort of.

First, I realized that I couldn't ask Mint.com to collect pre-registration transactions. Since I'm self-employed and use my financial tracking software to help with tax prep, it's helpful if it starts January 1. I opened my Mint.com account in March, 2010, and bit the bullet, entering in hundreds of transactions from prior months manually. Somewhere in this process, I realized that I couldn't actually associate these transactions with the proper account, but could "tag" them with keywords in an attempt to create accurate reports. I pressed on, creating a Byzantine system of tags I had to create a separate document elsewhere to track. I was determined.

But it didn't really get better. The hard won account syncing worked sporadically, at best. I began to notice large, missing date ranges in my accounts, and frequently Mint.com would create duplicate accounts, each with different date ranges, making the entire process inaccurate and anything but automated.

Mint.com Customer Service and I were becoming friendly, as the battle to get my accounts to sync was a long one. In their last response to me, they suggested I "hide" duplicate accounts and transactions. Really? This is not my music collection - I need this to be at least sort of accurate.

I understand that there is a trend in personal finance of keeping broad, general categories and not worrying about details. I'm all for this approach, but that doesn't mean I want a transaction for $500 worth of tires to show up four times, or that I don't mind if the software skips over two weeks of transactions every now and then, excluding significant payments, like my property taxes (paid in two lump sums each year). I mind this very much.

So back to Quicken I went, this time, Quicken for Mac. Intuit, it would be great if your marketing stuff told me something useful about the differences between the products. Since it doesn't, I went for the cheapest version.

Suddenly, it appeared to be 1996 on my screen, except worse. Download transactions directly? Nope. More manual, error prone labor for me. Is this the best we can do? Really? I consider dusting off the Dell machine running Vista that's under a big pile of paperwork on my floor. That's right. Quicken makes me long for WINDOWS.

I might just be old, but I don't care about having a "tag cloud" of my expense categories. Who came up with that? I want a nice, old fashioned, accurate data log. Really. That's it. Please?

Intuit, please release a product for the Mac that works. I know you can do it. I know you can.

Jen

Plantronics makes me feel dorky

Dear Plantronics,

Please stop manufacturing such dorky-looking bluetooth headsets that make me resemble the weird business development guy, somebody on the Starship Enterprise, or a person trying too hard to be cool.

I love your products. I had the Voyager 510, which served me well over the years until the flexible part sort of fell apart. I loved it so much that I considered simply reinforcing it with electrical tape until I realized that such a thing was probably the equivalent of using masking tape to fix your broken Buddy Holly-style nerd glasses. For the sake of my children, I opted to buy a new headset.

Although at this moment Amazon appears to be selling the 510 once again, I was under the impression that you had discontinued this model, which I always thought was very me. It didn't attempt to look futuristic, yet its design was sleek and simple.

I headed to Best Buy with the intention of either securing the last 510 or, if unsuccessful, buying one of your new headsets, probably the 520. I discovered two things: 1) they had no 510s; and 2) all bluetooth headsets look super lame--even the Jabra, which was the best-looking of the bunch. I actually considered spending $20 more and enjoying less features just to avoid wearing one of your models.

So there I was comparing the Voyager 520 with the Jabra BT530, both with an emphasis on noise reduction. In one hand, I had a trusted brand but a very ugly headset. In the other hand, I had an untested brand but a much better looking headset (still not perfect, though). The former had great information on their packaging. The second had beautiful packing but no real technical details given. One seemed known but unpleasing. The other was unknown but more attractive.

I opted for the Jabra BT530 and headed for the checkout line, where I waited for the next cashier. I was still conflicted when I noticed, among the magazines and candy, an endcap featuring these very models--and only these two models--as if a higher being was trying to urge me to reconsider. I took it as a sign and ditched the Jabra for the Plantronics 520.

Frankly, I feel that the 510 was a better headset, but the 520 does the job. I like that you included a car charger (which the Jabra did not have) and that the headset can connect to two phones. And I trust you. I haven't reconsidered my choice.

However, in the end, I'm happy but not thrilled, which is unfortunate. And I'm embarrassed when I wear this terribly ugly headset. No offense to Jon Cryer, but the 520 is like Duckie (who Andie theoretically should have ended up with but frankly would be asking too much of any teenager), and I really wish you were more like Blane.

I can't help but wonder who your audience is. I can't help but believe it has to include me, which makes me ask, Why have you let me down?

-joanie


P.S. Please note that just because I'm a woman, I do not want the headset to be pink or bejeweled. I would, instead, like it to be less chunky, wedge-shaped, and chrome-y.

Ben Sherman bums me out

Dear Ben Sherman,

I'm pretty disappointed that I can't exchange a jacket I bought my husband for Christmas. It's his size; it just never fit quite right. It seemed a little short in length. I was assured by the floor staff that my husband could exchange the jacket if necessary, and I never bothered to read the admittedly not-so-fine print on the receipt. My bad.

But my bad is your bad. That's because even a well-posted return policy doesn't make a customer happy if the policy is...well, not so great. I had assumed a standard 30 day window. You had a short two-week return window that began from the date of purchase, which was, of course, before Christmas, leaving little time after Christmas to make an exchange.

You're not a cheap shop so I expect a little more for the money, not only in product quality and style but also customer experience. A premium store affords premium customer experience, and that continues after the customer has left the store. Once a purchase is made, customer service transforms into pride, word of mouth, or simply the pleasure of giving the product as a present and knowing the recipient will find value in it.

Unfortunately, I wrongly had this pleasure. My bad. Now I see that ill-fitting jacket hanging in our closet, and it always gives me a bummed out feeling. I don't think, I now know the policy and won't make that mistake twice. Instead, I am reminded to never buy a gift from your store again.

This experience made me realize that return policies are what we designers call "affordances." They suggest to people how to use the product. Your return policy suggests that your clothes should not be given as gifts--and certainly not Christmas gifts.

It's hard not to compare your return policy to others. There's Target's policy, which enables blissful spending and I suspect uses a return as a way to make an additional sale. After all, the customer has walked back into the store, and each visit is a sale, whether it's an actual purchase or another opportunity to serve the "kool-aid," so to speak.

There's also REI's generous policy. Incidentally, I had to return a pair of snow pants to REI after Christmas. I dragged my feet in search of the receipt. After my fateful encounter with you, I called REI to ask about their return policy. Guess what? No rush, and I didn't even need a receipt. Sure, my love for REI is an open secret, but that's because they have a culture (including a return policy) that affords it.

A return policy should not be about bottom lines. Rather, it's about your commitment to a future relationship.

-joanie

Design Within Reach made a believer out of me

Design Within Reach,

Thank you for the email acknowledging that my recent transaction was less than ideal. And thank you for the card that quite insightfully quoted Charles Eames to say "The details are not details. They make the product." How true.

It means a lot for a company to recognize criticism and respond to it. And it means even more for customers to feel that they are being heard. Lending an ear can go a long way. I believe your gesture to openly recognize and respond to negative feedback is the difference between a good company and a great one.

Don't get me wrong. A flawless customer experience is ideal, but things don't always go as planned. Each customer comes with a unique set of expectations. Each is a potential landmine of disappointment. I imagine delivering great customer experience can seem like a perpetual uphill battle, particularly when there's a breakdown for whatever reason.

It's easy to be a great company when it's all smooth sailing, but true character is revealed in rough waters. It's tough work to turn a negative experience into a positive one. Troubleshooting requires time, insight, and will. You have to empower your people to attend to the unique needs of each individual customer and then do something about it.

The upside to a bad situation is that when it is righted, customer loyalty can be stronger than if the situation had been seamless from end to end. If the customer invests time and energy by contacting customer service, then antagonism has the potential to become give-and-take, which in turn can be the foundation for a relationship that is actively forged rather than passively assumed. That's powerful.

You demonstrated that fallibility need not deter a positive customer experience in the end. In fact, fallibility can provide the opportunity to exceed expectations.

-joanie

Design Within Reach ruined Christmas

Dear Design Within Reach,

You know what's worse than feeling like you've been tricked? Calling customer service looking for some consolation and instead getting an earful from Antoinette.

Yeah, I'm furious. I'm furious because it's Christmas Eve and that Eames® Wire-Base Table won't be arriving for Christmas. You know, that piece that I bought yesterday from your website (12/23), the one of a handful of pieces you specifically flagged for overnight shipping so that it would arrive before Christmas. You know, the piece that you actually knew wouldn't arrive by Christmas (because these particular pieces have a 4-6 week lead time) and yet was flagged anyway because, according to Antoinette, it was under $250.

That's right. Apparently you flagged items by price, not availability, which means I'm not the only poor soul who needs to scramble today. You took an otherwise stressful time and made it worse.

On one level, it's hard to believe that you couldn't apply better logic. How about flag items for next day deliver if they are in stock && can actually get there on time?

Instead, the onus is on me to know that you applied rather weird logic. According to Antoinette, I'm supposed to ignore the red type appearing only on certain items--not all, which made me believe you meant it-- that promised expedited shipping, and instead read the "fine print," which frankly I have yet to find on your site. In other words, I'm supposed to warily approach your specially placed red copy, looking for loopholes. This does not boost trust and confidence. In fact, you are encouraging me not to trust you.

To make matters worse, the shipping confirmation confirmed "overnight" delivery, but the order confirmation had a vague line that read, "In-stock orders ship from our warehouse in Kentucky and typically arrive anywhere in the continental U.S. within 7-10 business days..." That's why I called, only to find out about the even longer 4-6 week lead time.

I don't know what to make of this fiasco, to be honest. Let's agree that your web site ruined Christmas. Let's also agree that your emails that verify overnight shipping, yet also warn that in-stock items may take two weeks to arrive, don't even warn of the 4-6 week lead time. Let's also agree that the fact that no shipping confirmation will be sent once it does ship means that sometime between the end of January and the beginning of February an Eames piece will magically appear on my doorstep without me around to receive it.

I gotta be honest: this is not making me feel great about my purchase. In fact, it prompted me to search for "Eames Wire-Base Table" and discover other reputable dealers with the same item at the same price. It occurs to me that there is little reason to buy something like this from you except out of trust, which you have yet to earn.

-joanie

A mechanic makes me a believer

Dear The Toyota – Scion Specialist,

Thank you for changing the tail light on my Prius the other day. It was the most unexpectedly delightful automotive service encounters I have ever had.

It wasn’t that I made the appointment last minute (only a couple hours earlier), or that upon arrival you dropped everything to change my tail light in what seemed like seconds, or that when done you handed me the broken tail light (which added an unexpected level of oversight and accountability), or that you didn’t charge me for it. It was that after all of that, you gave me a tour of your absolutely immaculate facilities, where you not only worked on cars but built them from scratch.

I left your garage with the deep impression that you and your fellow technicians love working on cars. I believe you do what you do because you’re passionate about it. This isn’t a job for you.

I have never had a technician leave that indelible of a good impression. Sure there have been others. Shum’s Auto Clinic (a.k.a. Plymouth Auto) comes to mind. I always felt that they were honest guys who wouldn’t rip me off. I never, however, got the impression that they loved what they did.

So why does loving what you do matter? Because I believe that passion makes you do things better. Maybe you’re not the world’s best mechanics, but after our encounter, I’d sure bet money that you might be up there. And that’s who I want working on my car. I'm a customer, and we pick up on passion.

When running a business, it’s so easy to be concerned with process and profit that you miss the relationship-building and word-of-mouth opportunities, which are fleeting and much harder to come by. By taking 5 minutes to prioritize my car (and thus me) as a favor rather than a work order, you earned something far greater in return.

This seems like a winning strategy, but one without a formula. It demands the ability to recognize the moment, or perhaps follow your heart, which can’t be taught yet delivers the exemplars of great customer experience.

I encourage all Toyota and Scion owners to consider the factory trained and certified experts at The Toyota – Scion Specialist, located on 61 Willow Street, Redwood City, California, where it’s always sunny.

-joanie

Firestone makes me feel like a big wallet with crooked tires

Dear Firestone,

I have to admit I feel a little disappointed about my new tires, and I thought you should know. Earlier this week, I got four Firehawk GTs, which your salesperson explained were good all-weather tires that would perform well in the rain. I am petrified of hydroplaning and a pretty risk-adverse person so I asked him if he would put these tires on his mom's car. He replied that he had these very tires on his Crown Victoria. I was sold.

It took about 45 minutes to install, during which time elation was building. I would soon be driving with the confidence that comes with new tires. Instead, I find myself even more concerned than when I was hurtling down the 280 on what can only be described as bald "tires." Now, when I feel my car sway, I wonder if it's the wind or my new tires, which I've imagined to be wildly askew. And every time my car wanders, so does my mind.

Why are my tires crooked? Because when it came time to pay, your salesperson told me that my car needed a great deal of work before the tires could be aligned. You would be happy to do the work, of course, but it would cost $1,114.46 to be exact. Tie rods. Suspension. Something or other. I said I would think about it.

Now I have four new yet unaligned tires and what feels like a big red target on me.

Perhaps I made myself a target by quickly taking your tire recommendation. I was clearly a customer who knew nothing of tires but was quick to fork out $468.33 once you account for the requisite fees, labor, and hazard protection, which I was falsely under the impression was included. Maybe it was the two car seats in the back of a matronly station wagon that made you suspect I would, like the tires, just quickly agree to buy whatever it was you were selling under the specter of safety.

I wouldn't be surprised if I needed the work. My car is a lemon and acts like it's twice its age. But frankly I don't trust you. As far as I know, I'm just one way for this location to reach its year-on-year goals and perform well within the region. My visit is just one transaction in a comparative, competitive framework that assumes--nay, demands--endless "natural growth" and privileges present performance regardless of how it might effect future returns.

I feel this way because everyone is treating my car like a big endcap to sell me more things. Jiffy Lube wants me to change my air filter and windshield wiper blades. Royal Motors always discovers something deep in the bowels.

My goal is not to cave in, although sometimes I do. This makes servicing my car feel like I'm playing a single hand of Texas Hold'em, and the state of my car at that particular moment is the flop.

In the end, I just can't be sure what I really need. Maybe this confusion is just the "faceless" and dehumanizing nature of modern business today, where you "know" me only if I tell you my phone number and a record appears on your screen. The salesperson and I, however, have no relationship. We have nothing on which to base the "truthiness" of our conversation, other than my rather abstract sense of the trustworthiness of your brand, his quick impression of who I am and what I want, and our poker faces, which conceal our real intentions.

We aren't building a relationship, only completing a transaction. I guess that's why I don't take your service recommendation personally. And that, I guess, is my point.

-joanie

Tivo makes me nostalgic, but I've moved on...

Dear Tivo,

What happened to us? We were inseparable. It was just you, me, and cable TV. Life was good. Really good. In fact, I couldn't imagine life without you, even when DIRECTV and Comcast starting offering their own DVRs as a standard part of their cable services.

I like to think I was Olive Oyl and you were my Popeye, and the cable companies were Bluto, always trying to force their way in-between us and undermine you with an eye toward my affection. But it didn't happen, and still doesn't, even as your peanut-shaped remote just lies there on my coffee table, lifeless.

Oh, your remote! The buttons felt so right. They responded so well to the touch, not like the others, which took a few muscled depressions before it finally responded, and then responded again and again, the signals finally catching up and me so far adrift from my target. I was afraid to use the other remotes. But never yours.

And the little TV with the antenna and legs. He gave the whole thing personality. I hated the times the machine needed to reboot, but look over there! That little guy is having so much fun sliding and swinging around!

That was my last encounter with you. Something happened. Months ago–I lost count–you overheated and conked out. It was sudden, and I mourned for you.

But I didn't do anything about it. I didn't fix you. I didn't replace you. I just carried on.

Frankly, TV WAS better with you. Unfortunately, it's no longer better enough to warrant the work needed to troubleshoot you and rescue the 70+ episodes of Dora the Explorer I so obsessively recorded for my kids. They're on to Hanna Montana, now.

And me? Well, I guess I'll watch North by Northwest some other time. Same with those other movies I collected over the years but never got around to playing.

Perhaps I'm in recovery. All the hours of TV I watched and wanted to watch and didn't know I needed to watch. You made me voracious for TV, but I could never keep up.

You enabled me. I explored Steve McQueen and wishlisted Anthony Wong. I felt confident that I wasn't missing anything, even if I never watched most of it.

I suppose the missing piece in our broken relationship is TV. I don't watch that much of it anymore. I've moved on to Hulu. It doesn't have everything, but it has enough to keep me satisfied. There's no queue, no pile-up of movies and TV episodes to dig through. I just graze and go.

Today the New York Times said that you posted another quarterly loss. It makes me sad because I loved you. I still love you. But I think for many of us, it's simply time to move on.

-joanie