There is a lesson in this tale for all of us IT professionals on what it means to have great customer service. A little while back I purchased a pair of tuner cards for a Media Center I was building. I chose a model called Black Gold Signature Tuners from a British company called GDI. A number of factors led to me making that decision, including:
- The drivers were WHQL certified and claimed MCE compatibility.
- Its a British company and I like to support local business whenever possible.
- Everything about the name suggests: "This is our flagship product, it is the highest quality and we are staking our reputation on it".
The tuners have worked well for over 2 years, but now along comes Windows Vista. Suddenly, my tuners are not supported, or rather they are supported but I can only use one of them, not two. Here's an extract from the canned response I received from GDI support:
GDI have invested considerable time and resource in the development of ‘Signature’ single tuner driver, multiple PCI card support for Microsoft’s Vista operating system, unfortunately without success. The decision has now been taken to reallocate this resource to new strategic multi-tuner developments.
Allow me to translate.
Our reputation is worth nothing. Our developers were not up to the job and supporting you isn't making us any money so tough luck, we've hung you out to dry. But here are some new ones you can buy.
Now, I think GDI has missed an opportunity here. While I think I detect a certain amount of acrimony towards Microsoft in their statement, they are nevertheless the ones who are basically telling me I made a bad decision when I chose to trust them. Well guess what, GDI - I will not be buying new tuners, or anything else, from you, ever. And I will tell all my friends and colleagues in the IT industry not to, either. You can't let your customers down like this then expect them to come back for more, no matter what the reason.
The missed opportunity here was to convert me from a merely satisfied customer to someone who evangelizes about the best-of-breed customer support of a fine British company. That kind of reputation is priceless. For a lesson in how to do this, allow me to introduce you to Joel Spolsky, someone whose writings I greatly respect and with whom I find a lot of resonance. Sadly, no. Instead, they have converted me to an unhappy customer who will never buy or recommend their products again.
So what would it have taken to keep me on-side? Simple.
- First, be honest about why you've given up on this product. Is it because your developers simply aren't smart enough, or is it because Microsoft made architectural changes that left you high and dry? If you don't give me a legitimate reason, then I'm forced to assume that it's just because you can't be bothered.
- Second, take some of the responsibility and stand by your product line. Offer me a replacement device 'at cost' or at least with a discount. I shouldn't have to buy new hardware, but if there are genuine reasons why you can't support me, I would have understood and been satisfied that you were taking ownership of the problem, instead of just telling me "tough luck, you made a bad choice".
I hope that GDI understands the message they have sent, and the reasons why I will never buy their products again. The lesson is clear. Great customer service is not that difficult, but sometimes you have to trade profit for your reputation. Sometimes you need to say "We're sorry - we acted in good faith but we let you down, and we're taking responsibility for that."
So do I practice what I preach? You better believe it. Only this week, I have done work for two clients who haven't paid me a penny (in both cases, this involved transferring a web site to Office Live so that they no longer needed to pay a web designer extortionate fees every time they needed to correct a spelling mistake). Why? Because they are new businesses and they can't afford it, and because I wanted to make a really amazing first impression. Believe me, those people are going to remember me, and they are going to recommend me to their friends. If they are not happy with what I did for them, I will stand by my work and will keep at it until they are happy, even though they are not paying me. Yes, it costs me time and in some cases a little bit of money, but I am investing in my future - I think it is worth it.
[Update - GDI subsequently offered me a 20% rebate, but only after I complained and I can't see any mention of it on their web site. I invited them to comment here, but it looks like they decided not to. I'm still considering whether to accept their offer.]
I recently worked through a technical support issue using the SBSC managed newsgroups. Today I received an email that asked me to complete a customer satisfaction survey. Although I was very happy with the results, I couldn't resist poking fun at the survey. I hope you like my response ;-)
It is sometimes difficult to understand the motivation for spam, then at other times the motivation is clear. Sandi Hardmeier reports that the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission, that regulates stock trading in the USA) has suspended trading of 35 companies involved in "pump and dump" spam campaigns. It is easy to see how the spammers are making hard cash out of naive investors. It's good to see the establishment reacting to the situation but as Sandi says, governments need to be a lot more proactive about responding to online fraud and tracking down those responsible.
I've been getting used to using Windows Vista on my tablet PC, so that when I go back to my Windows XP development workstation I suddenly miss all the bells and whistles of Vista. I was wondering what people would miss if their Vista were taken away and they had to return to Windows XP? For me, it is the search box on the start menu. I've got so used to tapping the windows key then typing in the name of the program I want that I instinctively try to do that on XP too! I was amazed how quickly I got to rely on that feature.
So if YOUR Vista were taken away, what would YOU miss? Leave me a comment.