8/15/2010I’m one of, what I’d like to believe, the most careful people around when it comes to dealing with my confidential information. I use Roboform for all my passwords which means I don’t have a single password that’s either the same, or easy to guess. I have Lifelock for protecting my identity and I check all my accounts weekly when I download them into Quicken for review. I like to think that I’m very careful about these things. Let me tell you… nothing, and I mean NOTHING kicks your weekend off on a sour note like looking at your credit card transactions in Quicken and seeing nearly $2,000.00 in charges that you didn’t make. That happened to me this weekend. I found myself staring at four charges on my company credit card. What struck me was not the amount of the charges, or even the number of charges even considering I had not used the card actively in almost 9 months. No, it was the PLACE where the charges originated. The payee was “Lollapalooza”. I thought to myself… what the hell is Lollapalooza???!!! So the first thing I did, after noticing there were three charges to it, was to Google it. A music festival in Chicago? That happened this past week? Huh? I’m from Indianapolis so it was clear to me that this was fraud. On top of that, the was also a charge to T-Mobile which is NOT my cell phone provider. Sadly, I’m on of the schmucks who are stuck with AT&T because I love my iPhone.  It seems that my credit card number was somehow lifted and used. What still confuses me is the fact that I had not used the card in 9 months. The last time I used it, I set it up on file with my dry cleaning service and my limmo service in Boston. That’s it. It’s been in my vault ever since. Of course, being my company credit card, it’s number had been used with multiple other companies and services and all I can think is that one of them was breached and my number was stolen as recently as last weekend. In any event, I proceeded to logon to my bank’s web site to try and find the number to call in case of fraud. Banks should REALLY get some usability experts to design the web UI. It should be as easy as logging onto my bank web site, clicking on the account in question, and then having a menu option called “Report Fraud”. Yes, yes, I know the bank needs us to call and report it in person, and I’m not saying allow me to do it online, but at least have the link give me the phone number to call. I shouldn’t have to click through multiple customer support pages just to find out what number to call. But that’s just me…  I made the call and got the card cancelled. Thankfully I’m not responsible for the fraudulent charges, but I would like to know where the breach took place. The moral of the story is to watch your accounts closely. These kind of things are, unfortunately, going to happen. The best we can do is respond as quickly as possible. I wish we could do more…  4/1/2010A friend of mine went to see her family doctor. The doctor has been her family doctor for decades. He was her family doctor ever since she was a child. This makes for wonderful continuity in patient history and allows the doctor the get a more holistic view of their patient and the patient’s family. She went to go see him because she was having major lower back muscle spasms and pain. This had been going on for about a week and his response was to prescribe some muscle relaxers for her… Flexeril to be exact. Now having a pharmacist for a father, she’s always been keenly aware of drug reactions and side effects so, she specifically asked the doctor if there was any side effects to the drug he prescribed. His reply was “No, not really.”. She filled the prescription and called her dad to just double check on possible side effects of the drug. He said that it could cause extreme drowsiness so it should only be taken at night. She followed her dad’s advice. What precipitated during the course of the next two days, was nothing short of mind blowing. The drowsiness was certainly there, as her dad had warned (yet the doctor failed to note), but there was also a weird change in mood swings that was just unnatural. Thankfully she recognized the sudden, irrational changes in mood as well as the acute anger and sensitivity that accompanied it. She began to do some research on the topic and within 10 minutes on Google, found information that could only be described as disturbing. http://www.askapatient.com/viewrating.asp?drug=17821&name=flexeril She immediately stopped taking the drug and disposed of the remaining pills, vowing never to take it again. This is all good and well, but what if she had NOT been so acutely aware of side effects? I don’t want to play “what if” games, because it doesn’t lead anywhere good. In my profession, I don’t have any legal or ethical responsibility to keep up to date with changes in the marketplace, yet I do it diligently because I see it as my moral responsibility to provide the best possible service to my clients and to have as much information available and processed as possible before making one recommendation over another. I know we live in an “it’s not my fault” society and yes, I despise that mode of thinking, but with a medical doctor, especially one you’ve trusted your well being to for so many years, there’s a very deep level of trust associated. Shouldn’t this doctor KNOW what the potential side effects of the drugs he prescribe are? Shouldn’t this doctor ASK QUESTIONS of the pharmaceutical rep that pawns this crap off for him to prescribe? Shouldn’t this doctor at least DO SOME RESEARCH on the kind of drugs he prescribes? To me the answers are and always will be YES, YES and YES!!! But alas, that wasn’t the case here. It seems to me this doctor has been in the business too long and has become complacent. Maybe it’s easier to improve your swing and make your tea time than it is to spend some time researching facts that may affect the lives of those who trust their care into your hands. 12/27/2009
I can’t believe that coach Jim Caldwell pulled Peyton Manning and the other Colts starters from the game in the THIRD quarter of today’s game against the Jets. What the hell coach???!!! 
Has nobody learned ANYTHING from all the years the Colts would rest players and then proceed to LOSE in the Divisional Round of the playoffs?!
In the fierce rivalry that is the Colts-Patriots, the only thing BB&P (Belichick, Brady & Patriots) could not do was to run the table and go undefeated. So why then, when it’s so close within their grasp, would the Colts NOT go for it? Because you’re afraid Manning will get hurt?!  Oh please! He’s Mr. Invincible who’s NEVER missed a single game in his career. No, what I think it is, is a rookie call. Don’t risk the players because IF they do get injured then you’d never be forgiven.
This is reminiscent of the Prevent Defense. Like I always say, when you please not to lose the game, you’ll end up not winning the game… At least BB&P had the guts to go for glory…
I could forgive a coach for going for it and getting a player injured. That’s the risk you run. If the Colts end up NOT winning the Super Bowl this year, it would be hard to forgive the coach for giving up such a golden, once in a lifetime opportunity… 
Later
C
Technorati Tags: NFL, Colts, Undefeated 10/8/2009This message is for the person out there that loves to spam my blog with links for cheap medications... Thank you so much for your spam attempt... my readers won't ever see it because content approval is turned on for my blog, so you might as well give up. Oh yes, it used to be a major pain to manage the comments list after you would spam me, but I solved that by writing my own little tool too so... just give it up already!
Later
C
7/6/2008
This one always cracks me up. I've owned my email domain, dtdn.com, for about 11 years now and for as long a period, I've had my email address the same. My email alias is a single character… C… just C… nothing else…
Through the years, I've had many an encounter where supposedly intelligent web applications simply refused to accept my email address, claiming it was somehow… invalid?! What???!!! For one, I was forced to stay with a single web hosting company for a very, very, very long time because most other hosts would not allow me to create an email alias that was just a single character. Now I know that I fly unconventionally sometimes, but I have one question about that?
WHY???
Just why in all heck is it that a single character email address is considered "invalid"? I certainly don't get it. Who made that stupid decision? If I want my email alias to just be "C", why can't it be? As long as nobody else already has it reserved, why can't I have it? It's my domain after all right? Just doesn't make any sense to me.
I was reminded of this "short sighted" nuance of systems when I went online this morning to Delta.com to check in for my flight to Raleigh, NC this morning. I wanted to forward a copy of my itinerary to my wife and Delta's super intelligent system told me that my email address is… wait for it… INVALID… Supposedly, if I had an email address such as CV@dtdn.com, now THEN it would be valid. I don't know who comes up with these idiotic ideas for what is a valid email address and what it not, but I would think, given the vast amount of domain extensions out there that if the address has at least ONE character before the @ sign, and at least one character AFTER the @ sign and before the dot (.) and then again at least one character after the dot, that should qualify as valid, don't you?
Here's a screen shot of the Delta message:
OK, so if you ever happen to be in a position to write a part of a web application that validates email addresses, please take notice… there ARE actually some people out there that use a single character as their email address and yes, these are indeed VALID email addresses… ;-)
Later
C
Kick it Fave it Digg it Reddit Del.icio.us 6/19/2008
Nothing irks me more than when some talking heads on TV is spouting off some opinions and then NOT using the right facts! A good example is California Congressman Adam Schiff who was on Fox and Friends (DirecTV channel 360) this morning. The topic up for debate was… of course… OIL. Anyway, the discussion was about the ban on offshore drilling for oil. Congressman Schiff was against offshore drilling and he noted, correctly I might add, that the US only has 1% to 3% of world oil reserve while we consume 25% of the world's oil. Sneaky slight of hand there Congressman, but that's not the question here, now is it? First the facts. Per the CIA World Fact Book:
| |
World Total |
United States |
|
Proven Oil Reserves |
1,331,000 million bbl |
21,760 million bbl (1.64%) |
|
Oil Production |
78.9 million bbl/day |
8.322 million bbl/day (10.55%) |
|
Oil Consumption |
80.29 million bbl/day |
20.8 million bbl/day (25.91%) |
The real question is not related to oil reserves, but production instead. See, you cannot contrast reserves against consumption just to make a point when the question on the table is about production. What Congressman Schiff should have done was to use our production figures i.e. 10.55% instead. Instead, by contrasting reserves to consumption, it makes the cause look so much more hopeless and daunting. In his words "even IF we do this, we still only have 1 to 3 percent of the world's oil." True, but producing an addition 1 million bbl/day would reduce our reliance on foreign oil by no less than 8.01%. Now I agree that we consume way, way more oil than we produce. I agree we should reduce our dependence on foreign oil. I agree we can and should reduce our consumption, so please, no hate mail OK? ;-) But reducing consumption AND increasing production together should be used to address the current energy crisis.
There are always three sides to every story. Your side, my side and the truth. In a society where most people take what they see on TV as truth and/or fact, all I ask is that if you're going to be quoting numbers and figures, for Pete's sake! Get your facts straight!!! ;-)
Later
C
Kick it Fave it Digg it Reddit Del.icio.us
6/3/2008
OK, so I own about a dozen or so domains. As a big batch of my domain started coming up for renewal, this batch being under Network Solutions, I began to think that domain registrar fees simply should not be as expensive as they are with Network Solutions. So I began to evaluate all the registrars in an effort to consolidate my domain under one roof. I ended up selecting GoDaddy as my registrar of choice. Their costs are much more reasonable than Network Solutions and their control panel is much more straight forward and clear… and then my woes began…
I started by logging into my Network Solution, 1and1 and M6.net accounts and setting my domains to "Unlocked" status so that transfer can occur. I then requested and got a confirmation key code for each domain, except M6.net who is STILL holding my domains hostage. Then I signed up for a GoDaddy account and requested my domains be transferred, using the confirmation keys that I had previously received. True to the process, I received an email from my current registrars asking me to confirm that I'm moving my domains to another registrar. I clicked on the links provided and logged into the confirmation pages where I then confirmed that I was making the transfer.
OK, that should be it right? That should be all that's required to allow my domains to switch to the new registrar. I even configured GoDaddy to keep the existing domain settings from the original registrar so that services would not be interrupted. That should be it right? WRONG!!!
I will say that 1and1 released and relinquished their domains without hassle or fuss and the transfer was pretty seamless. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of Network Solutions. If it wasn't for the fact that M6.net was holding my domains hostage, I would say that Network Solutions was the worst registrar in my book. As it is, they are only slightly better than M6.net. Why do I say that? Where do I begin? OK, here goes…
To start, Network Solutions noted that the transfer could take up to 4 days to complete. Up to? It DID take 4 days to complete! Even after I logged into their confirmation page and explicitly confirmed that I wanted to transfer my domains, it still took 4 days after that! Why? I just don't get it. Alas, that's not the worst of it. In what I can only think is sheer spitefulness, Network Solutions moved my domain settings from their DNS pointers that point to my blog, email and other locations, to the default parked domain settings. Then they stonewalled the transfer for 4 days before finally handing it over to GoDaddy. Besides the fact that this action dumped my online activities such as my blog, email etc. into darkness for 4 days, I had to reconfigure all my settings from scratch once I got the domain to GoDaddy! There must be something illegal about what Network Solutions did…
Given my 4 days of darkness, you may have noticed my blog disappearing. At least I have it back up and running again and everything at GoDaddy works really great. No if I can just get M6.net to respond to my email, since they do NOT provide a phone number. Actually, I lie. They DO provide a phone number to contact for support. Of course when you dial it, you simply get a fax tone!
And so the trials and tribulations of domain consolidation continues…
Later
C
Kick it Fave it Digg it Reddit Del.icio.us 6/20/2007
Well, besides idiots clogging up intersections when the light turns red of course… I know this sounds silly, but I just can't stand it when people don't know how to SPELL product names. I don't know why it drives me up the walls, but it does. At my firm, I'm constantly waging a campaign for getting people to spell product names correctly. By spelling I mean, proper spelling with the right letters capitalized! (Told you it sounds silly)
The one that always trips my wire, because it's my product that I love, is when people spell SharePoint with a lower case "p" as in Sharepoint. Ug, it's hard for me NOT to correct that last one in my blog! ;-) Here's a good example I stumbled upon this morning:
Now this dude is "blogging all things" SharePoint. And it's not like he DOESN'T know how to spell it either. The arrow points out where he clearly got it right the first time. But then it all just went downhill after that. This guy really doesn't have ANY consistency to his spelling of SharePoint. At least most people are consistent in using an upper case "S" and a lower case "p".
So I beg you PLEASE! If you're going to use product names, not just SharePoint, please, PLEASE spell them properly! :-)
Ah, it feels good to get that out of my system!
Later
C 4/16/2007
Maybe it's all the rain we've been having, or the fact that old man winter gave us a sneak peak of summer and then came storming back, refusing to let go, that makes me more "sensitive"… more susceptible to getting really ticked off… whatever it is, it seems like April is my month for outbursts. What is it this time? The simple little concept of "customer service".
"Customer service" is everywhere. You hear about "customer service" every day. Most companies have a "customer service" initiative and/or focus. There are "customer service" training courses. There are statistical and analytical tools built around "customer service". There are even "customer service" gurus! The problem is… nobody seem to REALLY get it!
You would wonder what I mean by that and for a long time I didn't know myself. Over time though, as I experienced more and more of the wonderful "customer service" that companies provide me as a consumer, the ideas and thoughts began to crystallize in my mind. At first, I just knew that I was not happy with the corporate version of "customer service". It didn't feel like it meant anything to me when it actually should. I began to ponder this "customer service". If I wasn't happy with the world's version of "customer service", then what would my version be like? Before I could criticize and classify current "customer service", I had to develop and solidify my own impressions of what REAL customer service would be.
That took time and is in itself not completed process, but an evolving, learning process as new information affects my current perceptions and influences my theory subsequently. As such, I'm sure my theories and opinions will change over time, but I have gained enough solidity of thought to express my theory by now. As the title indicates, I don't believe that anyone actually knows or are in touch with what REAL customer service is anymore. Instead, we're left with some gray, lifeless imitators that shamelessly pass for "customer service" today.
First, let me begin by noting my most solid life experiences, the ones I cognitively am able to recollect, as examples of the total lack of REAL customer service…
We begin in May 2006 with the good old telephone company. AT&T and all the baby Bell's have a sure fire monopoly on land line phone service and with the high infrastructure construction cost, will maintain that for a long time to come. Note that I emphasized "construction" because as long as these companies have been in business, that cost has been recovered many hundreds or even thousands of time over. Anyway, as I noted back then, the VoIP company Skype had announced that they were offering free Skype Out calls to US residents to all of the US and Canada until the end of the year. I figured we would save almost $300 before Skype Out calls became charged calls again and we made the switch. Call quality over our trusty Linksys CIT200 phone was acceptable. At the time my plan was to switch right back to long distance with SBC (since taken over by AT&T or should I say they took over AT&T and took the AT&T name) but the absolute torture that I had to go through just to cancel our long distance option on our land line, left me feeling exploited.
Is it REAL customer service to make a loyal, paying customer pay additional fees to discontinue the use of a service for which they have no use?
Then there was the case where I was about to close on the purchase of an investment property. As you may know, part of that process involves securing insurance for the property. The first insurance company that I called, which was recommended to me by my former realtor, pulled up my insurance history and what do you know? It seems we had a claim recently. Well yes we did. We were burglarized remember? Well as a result of that single claim, they refused to even write me a policy on the new property.
Is it REAL customer service to totally distrust your prospective customer over something that was totally outside of their control?
As we come forward in time to the present day, we find the quality of "customer service" that is provided by cell phone companies. I've been suffering with crappy T-Mobil cellular service for far too long now… almost 3 years…
<rant> Not part of "customer service", but just service quality in general, all the dropped calls have been driving me insane! I live in the city. I work in the city. Their maps clearly show that they have the city covered. So how come I religiously get my calls dropped as I'm traveling down Meridian Rd?! </rant>
I'm not nearly as heavily into the whole texting thing as most other people are, but I will send the occasional response to my wife's occasional txt. When the cell phone bill arrives, what do I see? But of course! $0.10 PER every single text message sent. Now I just KNOW that there are plans where texting is free! OK, if not totally free, like Revol, then at least the first 10 messages or so are free. But NO, here's a chance to charge the loyal, paying, sucker of a consumer another 50 cents so let's not let it pass by unexploited!
Is it REAL customer service to charge a loyal, paying customer for something seldom used that doesn't cost the provider anything to provide?
The final straw was this past weekend when we were driving my wife's car to the store. I noticed immediately that the "Coolant Low" light was on intermittently. I thought that was strange because just last weekend we had it into Sears for an oil change and a tire balance and rotation. On top of that, just this past week we had it in at the Chevy dealership to have the entire air conditioning compressor etc. replaced… a $1200 job! So surely one of those two would have at least checked and topped off fluids in the car right? My wife also mentions to me that the power steering isn't working as well as it used to. I checked the fluids and what do you know? Coolant is almost bone dry and power steering fluid needs to be added as well. Washer fluid is also low. We stopped and got what fluids we needed for the car on the way to the store.
Is it REAL customer service to provide only the services you charge for when a couple of seconds in time and a couple of pennies in goods would save your loyal, paying customer from possible damaged or even worse?
So I've listed my short list (what I can remember) of gripes here depicting my doubt in "customer service". So if that is "customer service", what do I see as REAL customer service?
REAL customer service is where the service provider actually CARES about more than just the service consumer's financial purse.
REAL customer service is where the service provider ACTIVELY looks out on behalf of the service consumer.
REAL customer service would have been if SBC/AT&T would have allowed me to drop long distance from my bill WITHOUT any fuss or any additional charges instead of driving my blood pressure through the roof.
REAL customer service would have been if that insurance company (the name eludes me) had acknowledged the fact that there was a claim history and maybe write a probationary policy with higher premiums for the first year or two instead of flatly denying coverage.
REAL customer service would have been if T-Mobil would have looked at my accounts, noted that we don't have a current contract, noted that our outdated contract can be changed to something much better that could INCLUDE the first couple of text messages for free instead of just sitting back and collecting the cash.
REAL customer service would have been if any of the companies that serviced our vehicle that week had simply taken 10 seconds to check the fluid levels and generously topped it off for us. Heck if you really wanted to build some good will you could even put it on the bill, but NOT charge for it. Simply note it as FREE.
My conclusion has been that REAL customer service is meeting someone's need, BEFORE they even become aware of it. That doesn't mean meeting needs that don't exist. The needs are real, but we all have busy lives and don't always know that we have these needs. Having these needs met without us having to worry about it and before we even notice it would only build greater loyalty in consumers.
Alas, we are left with the grand imitators of "customer service" and as a result, consumer lash back occurs. I believe it occurs more frequently than companies know. In my case, SBC/AT&T lost our long distance business for good. The intention to go back was spoiled by the drama encountered by leaving. As a result, we still have our Skype service and if audio quality is low, we use our cell phones instead.
The insurance company that wouldn't write me a policy lost my business and instead, I approached our current insurance agent, Vince "Chip" Felton of State Farm. Chip and State Farm has been nothing but good to us and deserve all the praise and loyalty that we can give them. Chip actually is one of the very few people I've found who knows the meaning of REAL customer service. He'll review our insurance status and policies annually and will contact us when he finds a way we can save money or improve protection at no additional cost. Besides that, he's just a great guy!
T-Mobil is also losing our business… probably forever! Instead, we're moving over to Revol. Why? No fuss billing. For a flat fee of $37 per month each we get UNLIMITED txt, UNLIMITED pics (what would T-Mobil not be charging us for THAT?), UNLIMITED minutes and UNLIMITED long distance. That's right. For one flat fee you get to use the phone as much as you want. Isn't that how it should be?
We don't have options for vehicle service but I'll be talking to my client reps and expressing my extreme disappointment.
So given some of the options we leveraged, is REAL customer service really dead?
Maybe not quite yet, but the flame is dwindling very, very fast amidst a vast sea of "customer service" darkness…
Later
C
Kick it Fave it Digg it Reddit Del.icio.us 4/6/2007OK, OK, I'm getting on my soapbox about Lotus Notes again! My company uses Lotus Notes for the most part but there is a group on an Outlook pilot. Of course I'm in the pilot group! :-)
Anyway, I can endure Lotus Notes, only barely, when it's tucked away in a corner where I only have to use it every so often.
So it happened that I found myself the unfortunate victum of a Lotus Notes 7 upgrade push. The upgrade was pushed out to my laptop and the most obnoxious dialog window was displayed right center OVER all my work. Try and move it and it just jumps back to the center spot. Of course it's modal so you can't hide it either. That effectively rendered my work ability useless for the duration of the installation.
Now granted the dialog window might have been from the tool used to push the upgrade, but then again maybe not...
That was one iritation to deal with, but what I found this morning, just blew me away!
I go ahead and fire up my laptop this morning and want to start Outlook, my DEFAULT email application right?
WRONG!
Lotus Notes had BOLDLY and WITHOUT my permission just replaced Outlook as my default application.
First it removed Outlook from the Start menu:
And then secondly, Oulook has to reset itself as the default email and calendar application:
Now is it just me or didn't Microsoft get sued over setting IE as the default browser without the user's consent?
If I go running to the FTC, will they sue IBM and make them stop doing this?
Later
C
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