When I hit the bear in June (http://magree.blogspot.com/2014/06/bear-with-me-as-i-am-mad-and-sad.html) I received prompt and courteous service from the online representative to the adjuster to the auto body shop.
When I tried to find where the iPhone App to access my information, I had to go through a cycle of three messages. On the envelope from some recent documents, there was an ad to have insurance ID cards on my phone. “Download it today in the Apple App Store or Google Play.” I could not find it in the Apple App Store no matter what search words I used.
I sent email to the insurance company. The first reply was to supply my insurance ID and phone number. I supplied those and received the reply “available in… the Apple store…”
Surely she couldn’t mean a physical Apple Store. I tried iTunes and bingo! I sent that news back and received no reply, not even a thank-you for the clarification.
In 2013 there were some rave reviews for the App but the only 2014 reviewer claimed it would not accept his ID and password. I downloaded it anyway.
None of the screens showed me my insurance ID card, no matter how many promising links I tried. Then I figured I had to click the lock in the upper right had corner. Then I had a screen asking for my username and password. Now I could navigate to copies of the IDs for both cars. But, oh, it was so easy to misinterpret where the navigation triangles would take me. Often I wound up back at the log-in screen.
All-in-all I would say that the app was more inconvenient than digging around in the glove compartment for the ID card. When I hit the bear, I think I found our insurance papers in less time that it would take me to log on to the app. Also, I don’t need an app to call in a claim; I have the claim number in my contact list. I can find that phone number in about the same time as I could find the app icon on the right screen.
Showing posts with label technical support. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technical support. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 02, 2014
Sunday, July 01, 2012
Who is worth more, the CEO with rigid rules or the employee giving excellent service?
For background, see "What Customers Want, Companies That Bend the Rules", Elaine Pofeldt, Forbes, 2012-06-30
How often have you gone around and around with a "help" person following a script? How often have you gotten above and beyond help that solved your problem in minutes? I bet in both cases the CEOs got huge salaries that make us wish we had their pay for one year in a bank. I bet in the first case the person got a meager salary to keep "expenses" down. I bet in the second case the person was give some free rein in making sure the customer was satisfied.
A friend often wasn't getting my emails. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn't. I went to his house to see what his setting were. I could find nothing unusual.
I had taken my laptop and tried sending him email. His provider, CenturyLink, wouldn't let me. I tried the usual tricks of changing the settings in my mail program, Microsoft Outlook. Nothing worked.
I called my ISP, Hickory Tech (also CPInternet), and spoke with a knowledgeable person in Minnesota. He said that CenturyLink blocked access through other ISPs (or something like that). Almost every time I've called my ISP, I have received helpful service.
I called CenturyLink. The support person, probably half-way around the world, never understood the problem. She put me on hold several times to consult with "higher support". We just went around and around with me repeating the same thing over and over again. I finally told her that we were getting nowhere and I hung up.
Ironically, my friend is getting all my emails now. Did "higher support" diddle with something? We'll never know.
From something I read recently, CenturyLink's call center might be in the Phillipines, now competing on price with India. I'm rather certain that Hickory Tech's support is in Mankato, Minnesota. The latter are probably making more in a day than the former in a week or even a month.
Interestingly, if I want to use DSL, my only choice is CenturyLink. Back from the dialup days, I've been using a local ISP that was bought out by a Minnesota telecommunications company. I had a choice in selecting the ISP. I've heard that CenturyLink wants take that choice away.
The size of a company is not always a measure of customer service. Small companies might ignore customers and big companies might give excellent advice.
When my previous laptop went belly-up, three weeks after the AppleCare contract expired, I went to Best Buy to get a new one. The Geek Squad took out my old hard drive and sold me a USB case to put it in for use as an external hard drive.
Things went fine until I upgraded to a new OS level. Suddenly my computer wouldn't recognize the external hard drive, my wife's with an older OS would. I sent email to the manufacturer of the hard drive case and never received a reply. I went to Best Buy for another reason and asked about the hard drive. The Geek Squad employee, the same woman that did the diagnosis on my older computer, told me to check the preferences. I didn't find it in System Preferences, but I did find it in Finder Preferences – showing external drives in the sidebar was not checked.
Say what you will about Best Buy, but it made a smart move buying The Geek Squad and giving them some latitude in helping customers.
How often have you gone around and around with a "help" person following a script? How often have you gotten above and beyond help that solved your problem in minutes? I bet in both cases the CEOs got huge salaries that make us wish we had their pay for one year in a bank. I bet in the first case the person got a meager salary to keep "expenses" down. I bet in the second case the person was give some free rein in making sure the customer was satisfied.
A friend often wasn't getting my emails. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn't. I went to his house to see what his setting were. I could find nothing unusual.
I had taken my laptop and tried sending him email. His provider, CenturyLink, wouldn't let me. I tried the usual tricks of changing the settings in my mail program, Microsoft Outlook. Nothing worked.
I called my ISP, Hickory Tech (also CPInternet), and spoke with a knowledgeable person in Minnesota. He said that CenturyLink blocked access through other ISPs (or something like that). Almost every time I've called my ISP, I have received helpful service.
I called CenturyLink. The support person, probably half-way around the world, never understood the problem. She put me on hold several times to consult with "higher support". We just went around and around with me repeating the same thing over and over again. I finally told her that we were getting nowhere and I hung up.
Ironically, my friend is getting all my emails now. Did "higher support" diddle with something? We'll never know.
From something I read recently, CenturyLink's call center might be in the Phillipines, now competing on price with India. I'm rather certain that Hickory Tech's support is in Mankato, Minnesota. The latter are probably making more in a day than the former in a week or even a month.
Interestingly, if I want to use DSL, my only choice is CenturyLink. Back from the dialup days, I've been using a local ISP that was bought out by a Minnesota telecommunications company. I had a choice in selecting the ISP. I've heard that CenturyLink wants take that choice away.
The size of a company is not always a measure of customer service. Small companies might ignore customers and big companies might give excellent advice.
When my previous laptop went belly-up, three weeks after the AppleCare contract expired, I went to Best Buy to get a new one. The Geek Squad took out my old hard drive and sold me a USB case to put it in for use as an external hard drive.
Things went fine until I upgraded to a new OS level. Suddenly my computer wouldn't recognize the external hard drive, my wife's with an older OS would. I sent email to the manufacturer of the hard drive case and never received a reply. I went to Best Buy for another reason and asked about the hard drive. The Geek Squad employee, the same woman that did the diagnosis on my older computer, told me to check the preferences. I didn't find it in System Preferences, but I did find it in Finder Preferences – showing external drives in the sidebar was not checked.
Say what you will about Best Buy, but it made a smart move buying The Geek Squad and giving them some latitude in helping customers.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Whatever happened to "The computer for the rest of us"?
Remember way back in 1984 when the Macintosh came out. "The computer for the rest of us" was Apple's primary slogan. The interface was intuitive and almost every thing worked right out of the box. No messy commands to remember. Typing was only for when you had something to write, otherwise it was point and click.
In fact, a joke for a long time and still valid in many situations was "Macintosh users never read the manual."
For many people, Macs are a joy to use right out of the box and many still don't read the manual. Updates often come automagically and when they have been downloaded, the user goes to the Apple menu and clicks on restart.
But then Apple and other vendors forget to co-ordinate their updates. Or one doesn't provide certain features in all circumstances.
One that happened to us was that we could no longer scan with our HP 3310 All-n-One when we reconfigured the AIO to be a wireless printer for two computers.
I've been looking for a solution every so often for a couple of years. I've been to apple.com forums, HP forums, and independent forums. And support articles. Dozens and dozens of people have complained about this problem, but I never found a clear solution.
This week I tried sending a webform to Hewlett-Packard.
Chris of HP Total Care responded. His suggestions might have worked but he only wrote about connections through Ethernet or USB. I wrote back that I wanted wireless.
Michael responded. I tried his suggestions and I noted all the things that didn't work as stated. Still scanning didn't work. I wrote back with these problems.
Priscilla responded. She gave five pages of instructions. I started working through them one-by-one. One of the steps was to download software from Apple. That page was down for a good part of the afternoon. When I finally got the download and installed it, one part of the installation ran over five minutes with "Install time remaining: About a minute"!!!!
Then I had to download some HP software. That process was a bit more automatic than Priscilla described, but the installation began. At one point I was sent to System Preferences to do some selection or other. When I clicked on Scan another window opened. It said "Press scan to start". So I pressed the scan button on the AIO. That gave weird results I won't go into. Aha! I have to CLICK the SCAN button in the window.
Away the scan went, wirelessly, scanning a piece of paper I had on the scanner bed. Whoopee! The first scan in over two years!
OK, let's try a slide. I put in a favorite from Sweden of a big, white ferry dwarfing some apartment buildings on a bluff behind it. It scanned and scanned. But like years ago, the scanned photo had a blue wash over it. I got a better and faster result taking a picture of the slide shown through a table-top viewer. WYSIWYG is really WYSAWYG! "What you see is what you get" has become "What you see ain't what you get!"
Oh, well! At least I'll be able to scan all those pieces of paper that I don't want to file or that I want to email copies of to others.
And finally, despite all these complaints, I'll keep buying the "latest, greatest" Mac every few years. They are still easier to use than the competition.
In fact, a joke for a long time and still valid in many situations was "Macintosh users never read the manual."
For many people, Macs are a joy to use right out of the box and many still don't read the manual. Updates often come automagically and when they have been downloaded, the user goes to the Apple menu and clicks on restart.
But then Apple and other vendors forget to co-ordinate their updates. Or one doesn't provide certain features in all circumstances.
One that happened to us was that we could no longer scan with our HP 3310 All-n-One when we reconfigured the AIO to be a wireless printer for two computers.
I've been looking for a solution every so often for a couple of years. I've been to apple.com forums, HP forums, and independent forums. And support articles. Dozens and dozens of people have complained about this problem, but I never found a clear solution.
This week I tried sending a webform to Hewlett-Packard.
Chris of HP Total Care responded. His suggestions might have worked but he only wrote about connections through Ethernet or USB. I wrote back that I wanted wireless.
Michael responded. I tried his suggestions and I noted all the things that didn't work as stated. Still scanning didn't work. I wrote back with these problems.
Priscilla responded. She gave five pages of instructions. I started working through them one-by-one. One of the steps was to download software from Apple. That page was down for a good part of the afternoon. When I finally got the download and installed it, one part of the installation ran over five minutes with "Install time remaining: About a minute"!!!!
Then I had to download some HP software. That process was a bit more automatic than Priscilla described, but the installation began. At one point I was sent to System Preferences to do some selection or other. When I clicked on Scan another window opened. It said "Press scan to start". So I pressed the scan button on the AIO. That gave weird results I won't go into. Aha! I have to CLICK the SCAN button in the window.
Away the scan went, wirelessly, scanning a piece of paper I had on the scanner bed. Whoopee! The first scan in over two years!
OK, let's try a slide. I put in a favorite from Sweden of a big, white ferry dwarfing some apartment buildings on a bluff behind it. It scanned and scanned. But like years ago, the scanned photo had a blue wash over it. I got a better and faster result taking a picture of the slide shown through a table-top viewer. WYSIWYG is really WYSAWYG! "What you see is what you get" has become "What you see ain't what you get!"
Oh, well! At least I'll be able to scan all those pieces of paper that I don't want to file or that I want to email copies of to others.
And finally, despite all these complaints, I'll keep buying the "latest, greatest" Mac every few years. They are still easier to use than the competition.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)