Conner's Blog

The Uhaul saga has come to an end. Thanks to Lacy, who happens to occasionally handle their Twitter account, Uhaul has at least partially appeased me. They got the truck being checked in on the wrong day issue resolved, and even refunded my parents half the rental fee. Overall they came through in the end to try and make things right. They didn’t quite go to the extent I would have liked for the amount of frustration they caused, but I’m dropping it, after this post.

I thought I would do something other than complain about the service I received, and throw out some ideas and suggestions that would have led to a quicker and happier resolution to the complaints. I copied the time line from my previous post and noted what I think should have happened under each event.

• Monday, my mother calls and reserves a 17′ truck from Uhaul in Belgrade, MT.
• 1 or 2 days later they call and ask if we would accept a 26′ truck. My mom says yes because they were going to give it to us for the same price.

They should have known at this moment that they were going to be very busy and might not have a truck available. Why not allow incoming renters to pay a deposit to hold the truck? That way if they don’t show you at least get something out of it. Just let them cancel 24 hours prior to the time they are scheduled to pick it to get the deposit refunded. If they are later than that they lose their deposit. Again, make it optional, but then you can guarantee the rental.

• Friday, my mom stops by to verify that a truck is reserved, she was told no trucks were available. But, they stated they would let Bozeman know they had messed up and they would give us a deal.

My mother should not have had to stop by to find out we didn’t have a truck. The second there wasn’t a truck available we should have received a phone call letting us know. It’s terrible service to promise something and not deliver. It’s even worse when you don’t deliver without a warning. I still don’t know what my parents would have done had we not been able to move out the day we did. They had renters moving in the next day and had to be out of the house.

• We call Bozeman’s Uhaul. They offer us a 17′ truck at the normal daily price price and mileage at 1/2 price. With one caveat, we have to bring it back to Bozeman.

Don’t pretend you’re giving someone a deal when you aren’t. 1/2 of the mileage with twice the miles to drive does not equal a discount. It’s insulting to your customers to pretend it is.

• I heard this and said, “No!” that meant we were paying the same price for the truck but someone was spending 3 hours(Bozeman is 100 miles from Helena) driving a truck back.

Again, I shouldn’t need to call you to raise a stink to get a deal to remedy your mistake. We didn’t fail to reserve a truck, Uhaul failed to keep it’s promise.

• I tweeted about Uhaul, they responded saying they would be in touch.

This was a comedy of errors in social media. First they should have followed me the second they contacted me so I could direct message them if I wanted to. Second, they continually asked for my phone number to be emailed to them. They should have given me a choice of how I wanted to communicate, especially once their phones went down the afternoon I first got a response.

• I talked to the GM at the Uhaul in Bozeman and told him we would pay 3/4 of the price initially quoted plus they needed to pay for the gas we used. They came back with a quote that I was ok with.

Again, I shouldn’t need to negotiate an acceptable rate due to your mistake.

• Uhaul on Twitter asks me to send them an email with my phone number, I did this.

I realized a few days later that this email got stuck in my outbox. My mistake, but still their was no follow up after this until I tweeted again. They should have contacted me 12 hour later to check why I didn’t email them.

• We pick up the truck. It’s been 24 hours and I haven’t heard from Uhaul so I tweeted again, they responded asking me to email my phone number again. I got busy and forgot

Again, my mistake on thinking I had emailed them, still as mentioned above, they should have followed up with me.

• We use the truck, bring it back on Sunday and dropped it off.
• Tuesday morning my mom gets a text message saying the truck was overdue. I immediately found the email address which was sent on Twitter and sent my phone number, Tweeted about it, and my mother called the Uhaul store who said someone would be calling us in 2-3 hours.

Here is where things went from bad to terrible. They are claiming we still have a very expensive truck and instead of showing a sense of urgency they make us wait.

• 24 hours later we had received no phone calls. I hunted down and called Uhaul’s customer service line. Spoke to a nice girl named Lacy, she said she had let someone named Donna (I believe I was told this was the regional manager) know about our problem and I would receive a phone call in 2-3 hours. Apparently the store had checked in part of the truck but not everything on Monday.

Again, why was it my responsibility to follow up? I understand the local store was very busy, but when a customer thinks you lost a truck that they dropped off two days ago, it’s a pretty big deal. This had some large financial repercussions if they continued to argue we didn’t drop it off when we actually did.

• 5 hours later I had received no phone call from anyone at Uhaul.

And again, no follow up. I didn’t call Donna the next day, which I meant to do. It took me sending out another tweet, getting that message retweeted by four other people until Lacy called me. To be honest she seemed to be the only one working for Uhaul that I spoke to that cared one bit about the situation. And though she was very polite and took action immediately after our phone call, she did make excuses for the local store during most of our conversation. Being busy is not an excuse for the service we received throughout the entire life of this rental.

I was really hoping, once Uhaul responded to my first tweet, that this story would be about a company leveraging social media to provide great customer service. Instead it became a story of a company in dire need of a customer service overhaul regardless of the platform.

I know a lot of my readers follow me on Twitter and probably saw my Uhaul complaints from my trip back to Montana. Not one to let a company get away with poor service, idiocy, and just basic business ability. I’m publishing a basic timeline of what happened with Uhaul.

• Monday, my mother calls and reserves a 17′ truck from Uhaul in Belgrade, MT.
• 1 or 2 days later they call and ask if we would accept a 26′ truck. My mom says yes because they were going to give it to us for the same price.
• Friday, my mom stops by to verify that a truck is reserved, she was told no trucks were available. But, they stated they would let Bozeman know they had messed up and they would give us a deal.
• We call Bozeman’s Uhaul. They offer us a 17′ truck at the normal price and mileage at 1/2 price. With one caveat, we have to bring it back to Bozeman.
• I heard this and said, “No!” that meant we were paying the same price for the truck but someone was spending 3 hours(Bozeman is 100 miles from Helena) driving a truck back.
• I tweeted about Uhaul, they responded saying they would be in touch.
• I talked to the GM at the Uhaul in Bozeman and told him I would pay 3/4 of the price initially quoted plus they needed to pay for the gas we used. They came back with a quote that I was ok with.
• Uhaul on Twitter asks me to send them an email with my phone number, I did this.
• We pick up the truck. It’s been 24 hours and I haven’t heard from Uhaul so I tweeted again, they responded asking me to email my phone number again. I got busy and forgot.
• We use the truck, bring it back on Sunday and dropped it off.
• Tuesday morning my mom gets a text message saying the truck was overdue. I immediatly found the email address which was sent on Twitter and sent my phone number, Tweeted about it, and my mother called the Uhaul store who said someone would be calling us in 2-3 hours.
• 24 hours later we have received no phone calls. I hunted down and called Uhaul’s customer service line. Spoke to a nice girl named Lacy, she said she had let someone named Donna (I believe I was told this was the regional manager) know about our problem and I would receive a phone call in 2-3 hours. Apparently the store had checked in part of the truck but not everything on Monday.
• 5 hours later I’ve received no phone call from anyone at Uhaul.

I’m of course going to call Donna tomorrow morning. I don’t expect much, Uhaul has proven themselves to be a horrendous company at communications. It’s been a series of screw ups, miscommunications, and unkept promises. I’m giving them another 24 hours to fix this, how they will do this is kind of a mystery. I can’t figure out a way that makes me or my parents happy. It should be noted that my parents are going to be potential customers in 6-8 months, my youngest brother will be in May,  and there is a potential for me or my other brother to need their services this year. Guess what company isn’t getting a phone call or a Internet visit?

PS: If Uhaul does want to fix this they can send a Visa gift card worth $130 to my parents, or refund their credit card. Plus send me, my parents, and both of my brothers coupons for 50% off our next Uhaul rental, and those coupons should never expire. Do that and I’ll even edit this post and not just comment on it letting everyone know they tried to fix the problem. Email me and I’ll send you the details needed to fulfill this request.

How do you get me upset? There aren’t many ways, but one is to provide me with awful customer service and then respond to my complaint in a childish manner. So here begins my tale of an attempt to get a camera repaired by Darn Toothy Sam.

Back in October I was out with a friend and dropped her point and shoot while taking a picture. Unfortunately, the lens was out and it ended up getting bent. After attempting to repair it ourselves and deliberating between buying a new camera or getting the broken one fixed we decided to get it repaired.  I checked a few different repair services and finally settled on Darn Toothy Sam due to it’s price and the fact that it is based in the Minneapolis metro area.

So I shipped the camera off on 11/18 to be repaired. According to their website they take 7-10 days once they receive the camera to repair it and send it back. Taking business days as the 7-10 days I expected to receive it sometime in the first week of December. Well that week came and not only did I not receive the camera, but I hadn’t heard anything at all about the camera yet.

On December 3rd I sent a status request using the company’s online form. I didn’t hear anything back for four days so on December 7th I sent an email to their listed email address for inquires.  Still no response so I called. One number did not provide a voice mail box and the other number was never answered though I was able to leave a voice mail. They also have an online chat function that for the first 2-3 days of perusing this never appeared active when I checked it. I emailed once again, and finally resorted to hunting for them on Twitter and Facebook to attempt to solicit some sort of response.

Finally on day five of attempting contact I checked the website and lo and behold the chat function was working. I logged on and chatted with someone named Eric who was sort of helpful. He told me the part for the repair had come damaged so they had to order another part. I requested an email when the part arrived and a response from management both of which were promised.

Two days later the camera shipped. It required a signature confirmation and it took me until Friday to pick up the camera. It works like new and I am satisfied with the quality of the repair. I received one written apology for the delay in the repair from the owner, but that wasn’t until I had to work my butt off to speak to someone. At no point did anyone offer to do anything for me other than mail the camera once it was repaired and let me know when it was shipped.

I should note that I paid for this using Paypal, I filed a dispute after the initial four day wait for a response as it was becoming my only recourse. This is the final message I received before I closed the complaint on Friday.

Thanks for the nice messages on Twitter. It’s interesting how we stole your camera and yet shipped it back the day after we got in the part and fixed it.

We attempted to deliver your item at 4:40 PM on December 12, 2009 in MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55405 and a notice was left. You may pick up the item at the Post Office indicated on the notice, go to www.usps.com/redelivery, or call 800-ASK-USPS to arrange for redelivery.

I responded to this final message

The problem was your lack of communication. You took longer than the promised time and did not give any indication of why this was. Once I attempted to contact you it took THREE days to get any sort of response from you despite multiple calls and emails. I appreciate the fact that it was delivered and repaired as promised but your overall lack of responsiveness leaves me unable to recommend your services to anyone. Additionally your response to this dispute has done nothing to help solve your glaring customer service problems.

The three days is actually incorrect, it actually took over 5 days and took me logging onto the website and finding the chat function working. I wrote the dispute response before I checked my email logs.

The whole reason I’m writing this is to either encourage Darn Toothy Sam to reach out to me and prove that they actually give a damn about customer service or to discourage anyone from using their service.  It’s quite disheartening to send someone money and a camera and not be certain if they even received it or are planning on repairing it.

Do you think I overreacted to their delayed response or was I right to be upset? Have you ever had a camera repaired, and if you had where did you get it repaired?

Hi Omar, Todd, and the rest of the crew:

I’m writing this letter because  I’m a huge fan of your beers. From Coffee Bender to Cynic, they are all delicious.  I’ve introduced a few friends to Furious, a couple to Bender, and one or two to Cynic and I intend to continue this.  You have a rabid fan base, and a growing market share.  I know there is a big waiting list for liquor stores that want to carry your beer. I’m happy for you, you’re local, a good company, and very much not mainstream. All of which make you awesome.

But you have a problem.  Your public relations or lack of PR is hurting you.  You may not notice it, and you may not notice it for years to come, but it will come back to bite you if you want to grow.  In the last few months, I’ve had three experiences that would have possibly kept me from continuing my patronage of your beer if you weren’t local and didn’t brew such good beer.  Now neither of these directly affects the quality of the product, but it does impact the perception of your company.  In a few years, if you want to continue to grow, this may be important.

The first happened a few months ago, around the time you released Hell for the second time.  First, at the time I, a new Surly drinker, thought this was your first release of this beer.  I headed off to Moto-i, excited to try out this new brew.  Well my friend and I walked into the bar, and it was apparent from the start that no one quite knew what was going on.  Only one bartender really knew what the plan was, the signage was minimal, and things just didn’t seem organized.  Things went smoothly overall, thanks to some great staff at Moto-i, but I was disappointed in the event, I expected a bigger deal to be made of the beer, maybe some giveaways, or at least some effort to make it a party.  Again, maybe I should not have had these expectations, but when an event is billed as a “Release Party”, the party aspect seems like a legitimate expectation.

The second thing that happened followed this very closely.  I’ll admit I was disappointed in Hell.  I wrote about it on my blog, and then commented on a post written over at The Captain’s Chair.  I stated that though I liked Hell, I was disappointed because I had expected something crazy and instead got a light, though tasty, beer.  During a back and forth on the Captain’s Chair’s post though, we continued to get defensive responses that seemed to complain about the perception we all had and that it’s not fair to you for us to have this perception.  Those of us commenting really wanted to give you advice to help and instead we got defensive answers.  Of course, the readers of Captain’s Chair are going to be big fans so I doubt you lost any drinkers, but an exchange like that with less enthusiastic fans might lose you a few customers.

Finally, Monday night I went to the Darkness Release Party at Hell’s Kitchen.  From the moment I walked in the door, it was obvious that at yet another release party, no one really knew what was going on.  Our bartender only knew he was selling Darkness, from what my companions said when the Surly reps came in the door you seemed confused and didn’t know how the bar was laid out.  Other than a band in the restaurant side, you wouldn’t have known anything was going on.  Also, like at Moto-i, no one from your brewery stopped by to say hi, even though I was at a table of six people all enjoying Darkness.

So, here is what I recommend.  Hire someone who knows a thing or two about public relations and event planning.  Your events should be exciting.  When you bill something as a release party it should feel like a party.  Giveaways are not necessary, but at least make those who set aside a Monday night to enjoy a glass of your beer feel like they are not just there to buy your product.  You also need to work on your public responses.  It is great that you do your own PR and you want to keep you voice as inline with your company culture as possible.  Just try and do this without sounding defensive.

I also think you need to look at your marketing.  As I mentioned when I wrote about Hell, I had a misperception due to the name that caused me to be unimpressed with Hell.  This would have been easy to avoid had you either named it something differently, or just spent a little time promoting what you were trying to do with the beer.  You are a company that has built itself into a box by brewing big beers.  You can get out of that box, just make sure your customers know when you step outside of that box so we aren’t surprised.

I am no expert so my advice may be complete crap, but I hope it’s not.  Keep up the good work and keep making great beers, just pair it with some better events and public relations.

Warmest Regards,

Conner McCall

There has been quite a lot of chatter the past few days about newspaper comments and what to do about them.  If you’re like me you probably rarely read the comments in the Star Tribune or Pioneer Press, let along CNN or other major media outlets.  I do occasionally read them but always walk away shaking my head at the insanity.  This isn’t to say there are no good comments on newspaper sites, but when people are calling sources pedophiles, as Dave Bauer mentions in his recent column, something is wrong.

Newspapers are put in a tough place though, they need traffic to sell advertisements and comments are one way to get pageviews.  Yet unmoderated comments don’t work and moderated comments lead to calls of censorship.  What are the papers supposed to do.  Here are a few ideas I’ve considered while reading these articles.

1. Pay to comment.  How about $5 per year to comment.  Pay walls are annoying but if your giving your content away for free why not make people to pay for the right to participate.  Even better why not charge $5 and then for every 5 comments that are starred/faved/voted up by fellow paid commentors you get a dollar to go toward next years fee.  Take it even further and for every 5 comment flagged/voted down by fellow commentors you get a dollar taken away from that pot.   If enough comments get voted down you have to pay the difference to rejoin next year.  If you get more than $5 in votes up you can choose a charity the newspaper donates the excess to.
2. Disable comments but actively seek out and link to blogs and other sources that comment on your stories.
3. Recruit local bloggers as commentors and moderators.  Local bloggers are your best source for insightful comments and they also have experience dealing with comments that cross the line.

The largest issue I see with newspaper comments is that those who can add a lot to their discussions are writing on local blogs.  When I want to comment on a newspaper story I either use Twitter or blog about it here.  I don’t comment on their site because the quality of the comments are so poor.  It’s not fun to comment on a story only to have the next comment be someone claiming Obama’s birth certificate is a forgery or posting rude comments about Michelle Bachman.

Personally I see forcing commentors to pay to comment as being the best solution, it’s one reason a site as large as Metafilter has grown so successfully.  People who are willing to pay to comment are usually going to add something useful, even if all they pay is $5.

Any thoughts on the issue, let me know I may not be a newspaper tycoon, but I love a good discussion.

The last few weeks I had been fighting the itch to search for a new job.  When I say fighting, I mean it, I’m content in my current job.  I have a secure position which is something I’m thankful for every day.  I get to help people and get a few really nice perks that would be hard to give up.

But I tend to get the urge to search for jobs occasionally.  A few things recently prompted this latest search; first, one of my best friends had an interview a few weeks ago for a new position, second, Emily wrote about her recent job browsing.  Those things, along with the fact that until I got this job I was job hunting for 18 months straight.  When you are looking for a job for that long, you tend to keep your eyes open, even if you really don’t need to look.

So last night I finally gave in and jumped on a few job search sites to see what is out there.  Looking through job listings I realized a few things.  First, most job postings are written by people with little marketing skill or by a someone using MadLibs and a collection of buzzwords.  Second, as far as I can tell there aren’t any jobs that excite me.  I would love to get back into a full time technology job.  The funny thing is, I wish I could do what I currently do in my present job in my downtime for a full time gig.  Right now, I basically just put together little tools that solve everyday problems.

The last thing I put together was a little app that backed up some settings that are pretty vital to productivity but our Help Desk won’t help anyone back up.  We had a rash of computers fail recently and everyone was a little panicked about losing these settings.  It took me about 15 minutes to put it together and if anyone needs to use it, it will easily save them 15 minutes of headaches trying to get things back to where they had them prior to a crash.

So what do I want in a job?  I think I would love to work for a larger company.  I want to be separate from the IT department and work directly with every other employee.  This way I could see their every day frustrations or time wasters.  Instead of putting them into a business process needs document, I could just sit down and try to solve the problem using the multitude of free tools available.

Now I know this will never happen, once a company gets large enough for a position like this to be viable, management is going to be  worried about “security”, “support”, and “measurable results” all things that this wouldn’t really offer.  But, if someone is looking for a “Duct Tape Tech Solutions Creator” for your company, let me know, I would love to put my skills to work for you.

Image Courtesy Flickr user Muffet.

Inspired by comments to  my post on Customer Service Rules.

You walk into a retail store/restaurant/bar/grocery store, what do the sales people expect of you?  Here are a few tips to get the best service when your out spending your hard earned money.

• Remember the sales people are people -  Just because they work in sales doesn’t make them a lesser person.  Treat them with respect, they want to help you, make it easy for them.
• Educate yourself – Don’t walk into Radio Shack looking for that thing that connects your DVD player to your TV.  Sales people aren’t mind readers, if you don’t have at least a passing familiarity with what you want, expect them to sell you the wrong product.
• Don’t waste their time – If you’re having a bad day and need to talk to someone, get a haircut or go to a bar.  Don’t walk into a store and spend 15 minutes talking to the sales person without intending on to buy anything.
• No swearing, yelling, or name-calling – Even if you do these things regularly, if you can’t shut it off in the presence of those you don’t know, don’t expect respect.
• Get off your phone – If you are really that important, maybe you should pay more.
• Listen – You expect the sales person to, so you should to.  If they tell you they can’t do it, don’t have it, or it will be in next week, don’t ask them if the item will be in tomorrow.
• Stand aside – Especially if it’s busy, if you want to look a product over and can see the salesperson has other customers waiting, tell them it’s okay if they take care of the other customer.
• Be clear – Sales people are generally good at deciphering things, but don’t ask for the thingy from the doohickey, that’s just incomprehensible.
• Be appreciative – A simple thank you can make anyone’s day.

Getting great service isn’t always possible, sometimes no matter how forgiving you are your experience will be horrible.  Still, it’s a good idea to remember you are in a business transaction, if the opportunity cost to the sales person is too high because your a pain, they aren’t going to give you their full attention.

I’ve been having some horrendous customer services experiences as of late.  In frustration I’ve written down my 11 rules for sales.

1. Smile -  Nothing dampers my mood to buy faster than a sales person who looks like he’s about to go on a shooting spree.
2. Listen and pay attention – Do not assume you know what’s going on.  If you hear someone talking about cell phones and cameras and whether something works on one when it’s labeled for the other one, don’t assume it’s a memory card.  They could be talking about LCD screen protectors.
3. Don’t lie – This should be obvious, but I’ve had it happen.
4. Don’t make things up – If you don’t know the answer either find someone that does or look it up.  If you cannot figure it out let the customer know.  I’m more likely to come back if I know you’re willing to admit you don’t know.
5. Don’t just read the box – I’ve had several experiences where sales associates didn’t see Linux written on the box and just said it wouldn’t work.  I’ve asked them to do a quick Google search for me and have always been denied.  Google is your friend; just tell the customer that unless the manufacture supports it, you can’t provide any support.  Chances are, if they were willing to purchase it unsupported by the manufacture, they wouldn’t come to you anyway.
6. Know your co-workers – When I used to sell computer components, I knew which one of my fellow employees would know the answer to certain types of questions.  Everyone has their area of expertise, don’t hesitate to use them.
7. Never ignore the low cost items – Your customers usually want to spend as little as possible.  Show them the lower priced items, and then tell them what benefit they get by spending a little more.  No one enjoys looking at a $400 laptop and having the salesperson push a $1200 laptop.
8. Never answer the phone – Ok, maybe never is a bit much, but if you have customers in the store let the phone ring.  The customers in the store can buy something now, the person on the phone is most likely price shopping.
9. Learn to handle more than one customer – This may seem like bad service, but if done right you can do it.  Pay attention and know when to say “I’ll give you a minute to think about it” or similar.  Walk over to the unattended customer and let them know your there.  Just acknowledging the customers presence goes a long way toward making them happy.
10. Know your competitors – This does not mean you should go wander through their stores on a weekly basis, but you should know who would have something you may not have or be able to get.  Also knowing things like who has the best cable prices will earn you repeat business, even if it is not for cables.
11. Break the rules -  If your customers aren’t walking out the door happy change something up.  What worked yesterday may not work today.

I recently applied for a new position within my company.  I had applied for this position previously, but failed a written test necessary for consideration.  Thankfully, the position reopened this month and I was able to retake the test, and this time I passed easily.  The second part of the selection process is a behavioral based interview (BBI).  This is what I was doing today.

The BBI was one of the most stressful things I’ve ever done.  A few factors played into this.  First, it’s not like a normal interview.  You don’t just sit down and discuss your work experience, what you feel is your best strength, and other such nonsense.  Instead, they ask you specific questions and want specific answers.  They want you to talk about what you did in a specific instance to illustrate that you have a specific quality.  The interviewers give you a score based on your response, and you need to score well to advance.  Secondly, all of our current supervisors recently had to pass this exam (don’t ask, it’s a long story).  Out of seven individuals, only two passed the first time around. This shows just how difficult the process is.

I walked into the interview this morning incredibly nervous.  I ended up doing ok in my estimation, but I don’t know how I actually scored.  I will be honest and say that if I don’t pass the interview I won’t be surprised.  I can retake it again and the process was great experience.  On the other hand, I would really like the opportunity to advance my career and passing this step would put me in position to do this.  I also hate when I hear I fail, so even though I’ve prepared myself, I still know it will hit me hard if they tell me I didn’t pass.

One of the things I realized when preparing for this process, was I don’t do well at tooting my own horn.  Granted my friends will tell you I think I know everything, but in all honesty, I don’t ever think about things I did as exceptional.  I hardly ever remember things I did that showed my leadership capabilities, or times I had a disagreement with my manager.  I let things like that just happen and don’t remember them.  I think I need to start keeping a list of the things I do so I can refer back to them in these situations.  Do any of you keep track of times you stood out in your job, even if you don’t think you went above and beyond what needed to be done?