Bailie.com

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Bad customer service biggest blow to office productivity, part 2

It’s amazing how another full day’s productivity got sucked away by having to follow up on information I shouldn’t have had to worry about.

Because my laptop was overheating - more so at the office than at home, it seemed - I decided to call the building management and ask if the wiring was good in the office. They suggested I get an uninterrupted power supply, which I ordered from Staples online. I had no idea which to buy, as they all seem to do more or less the same thing, so after some reading and a feature comparison, I chose a mid-range model by Belkin. It arrived the next day and I pulled it out of the box. No instructions in English. Just peachy. OK, well, you should just plug it in and use it, right? Well, I used my high school French and got as far as “charge it for 8 hours” and so did that. But for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to turn it on - pushing the ON button wasn’t doing it. A phone call to technical support sent me around in circles, and eventually got me to the message that “we’re closed for the weekend”. An email got me an auto-reply that they would answer “in the order that the email was received” (the reply included a link that went to a URL that told me “Sorry, no downloads found for product F6C550-AVR〈=1.") A scan of the website got me a manual about power management software, most of it which is written for electricians, I’m sure (I couldn’t understand most of it), but not to the installation instructions sheet.

Since I couldn’t use the unit, and the laptop was still overheating, I called a friend of mine who is an electrical engineer, and asked him what he thought about the whole situation. His advice: make sure there is enough air under the laptop to keep it cool. So I stopped by Staples and bought a little “under the laptop” cooling unit with two fans to keep the laptop from overheating. OK, so the immediate problem is under control, and I can at least check email. But the larger problem was still out there.

So I struggle with the French instructions, to no avail. However, when I mention that the “Site Ground Fault” light was on, a contractor working at the office comments that her dad is an electrician, and she knew that meant there is a problem with the electrical outlet. So I call the building management company, and they tell me they’ll send over an electrician to take a look. The fellow comes over and finds that there is no ground wire at all, so we have to move desks and bookcases, and he fixes the socket, and then we move everything back and I vacuum up all the plaster and paint that has been dislodged.

Meanwhile, I call the Belkin support line, and get put on hold. The standard high call volume message plays. They remind me several times how I should follow all the instructions that came with the equipment (hah!) and how I should have all my equipment handy, and such other things that don’t apply because I can’t get past first base. Meanwhile, I figure that I might try installing their power management software because at least I can figure out the CD, which is in English. Pity the poor sod who needed a French instruction sheet but got an English CD. The CD tells me to enter the serial number. Fair enough. I turn over the unit and enter the serial number. Error message: serial number is incorrect. How can this be, I wonder? After all, the chances of this being a bootleg product are next to nil - I bought it from Staples online. I try again, no luck. I laboriously copy the number, and try every combination of “O” and “0” to make sure I haven’t mixed those up. Nothing, nada, zilch.

Now I’m getting really choked, and of course, this is when the rather surly - no, actually, not surly but bored - service rep finally answers the phone. She tells me there is no English instructions she can send me. That’s comforting news. But there should be a manual online. With some searching, I do find the instructions sheet, under the guise of being a manual. Then, she tells me to hold the ON button down for 3 to 5 seconds, and it will go on. Hallelujah, we have lift off! But wait - the CD won’t work. Could she explain to me what to do? She tells me that the serial number is needed. (Thank you for that enlightening piece of information, like I haven’t already found that out.) But it’s not a serial number that I need, it’s the serial CODE, the one ON the CD itself. Yes, the CD that’s spinning in the CD drive. So I thank the service rep and hang up, then cancel out of the installation and copy down the serial code. I pop the CD back into the CD drive and start again. And, you guessed it, it doesn’t work. So I do this again, and it turns out I’ve transposed a letter. So I start again, and double-check my input but again I’m told that my serial number is wrong. At this point, I’m completely frustrated but don’t want to call back and be put into a long-distance queue again, so I give up. I unplug everything, set it up at my desk, which now has a new, grounded outlet, a new UPS, a new cooling unit, and so on and so forth. And I may never get the power management portion working because, quite frankly, I don’t need to lose any more billable hours because a consumer product company can’t invest in a little usability before they take something to market.

For all I know, Belkin developers and customer service folks may be rubbing their hands in glee because they’re thinking, “Good, we got rid of another service call!” But the marketers should be thinking, “Yikes, we just lost another customer - and she’s telling the world!” All it will take is a company or two offshore to start doing usability better than the domestic companies, and they’ll attract customers like flies to honey, because not only will their stuff be cheaper, but it will be more usable. And ultimately, for me that translates into more time saved, and less opportunities lost.