Exceptional Customer Focus

I tried out Filemaker’s new personal database, Bento, and am not only delighted with the $49 product, but also the service and support.

All this in spite of some really, really horrible messups that would usually be reported here in much stronger terms.

The story:

I downloaded the preview version and was impressed enough to start on a household inventory (actually, I was sold the moment I could manage all my x years history in iCal – deleting only up to the start of 2006 and having it work perfectly – all from within Bento itself). The product is largely self evident (that is, you don’t need a user manual) and the forums and feedback was excellent to product requests, enhancement suggestions and cries for help. TSGal deserves a huge pat on the back for her work there (and a bonus!).

There were some howlers – the ‘Buy Now’ link resolved to a ‘page not found’ error. A killer for the marketing guy in me, even though this was beta software. There are still some of those (read on) in the released product.

I made a couple of suggestions and had questions (from TSGal) to clarify and feedback that my requests had been passed to the development team. Wow, a response! Score 1.

The initial release is announced and I sign up. Filemaker incurred my wrath for stupid (that is information that MAY be valuable to them, but that i should not be OBLIGED to disclose in order to buy) mandatory questions on the order form. For example, this is a personal purchase but the form would not let me proceed without entering a company (as an aside, MacWorld got a repeat of last years silly inputs to its sign up form again – this time the check in crew had a sense of humor and laughed at my company – MYOB). So I wrote ‘This is not a mandatory field’ in the company slot, and sure enough I was allowed to spend money.

I think there computer has a wry sense of humor though. My purchase completed, I scanned my email for the unlock key. Sure enough, it arrives. I enter my name, as requested, and my software key – carefully cut and pasted to ensure accuracy. Nothing. The unlock button stays stubbornly grey. I continue to use Bento in ‘Try’ mode.

I read the forums, sure enough I’m not the only one with problems. I carefully follow all the suggestions – the cause seems to be that those of us who used the preview version, then installed the trial to unlock were struggling. But that IS what we have to do. So I download the trial again, make sure I delete the old installation and install again (at least on a Mac this stuff is trivial and simple). Same result.

I read the forums, make an entry saying that I’ve done all that is suggested, and still had the problem. More suggestions, try them, comment on the forum. TSGal is there, with good suggestions. None of which worked for me. ‘Send me a private message with a number, dates and times our support can contact you’ says TSGal. Are they kidding? They’ll call me? I respond, and sure enough a great tech support person called me.

Turns out that the unlock mechanism didn’t want my name (I tried all the suggestions: use lower case throughout, use two spaces between first and last name, etc., etc.) at all. For some reason – that is still not clear – the registration mechanism wants the Company details, not my name. This is a bit of a surprise, as it’s supposed to be an optional field. So my software is now registered to ‘This is not a mandatory field’. Who says computers don’t have a sense of humor.

I’m a delighted customer. Really.

The lesson here is that our expectation is not for perfection (especially in beta software), but how a company reacts to correct a problem. Filemaker’s people were exemplary. They replied to posts on the forum, they took the problem and owned it, they called me (I still can’t believe that) and they laughed and treated me as a human whilst solving the problem. The support lady who called me said she would report the problems to the dev team. I believe her.

What an organization – represented by extraordinary people.

Apple, Brand, Customer Experience, Customer Service, Mac, Marketing, Product, Service, User Experience, WOM

Business Week catches up?

Stephen Wildstrom, whose column in Business Week I read every week, got to talking about the non-technical aspects of tech in a recent article. I’m delighted that the mainstream press – and especially someone as well informed and as widely read as Wildstrom – is picking up on design issues. I hope he gets to the whole of the user experience (rather than just the – important – aspect of design), as tech is the area that needs it more than most. Design needs to be applied to the WHOLE user experience – from start to finish – in the same manner as the product and the packaging. That has been my theme here since day one. It will remain so! I comment in Wildstrom’s blog with a link back to this article that I wrote in August 2006. Let’s see if it makes it through the moderation process as I included a link to my original article. It often feels like a slog to get organizations to confront the customer’s truth, but hey maybe it is starting to happen! Onward and upward!

{Product Management, Apple, Brand, Marketing, Product}

Apple, Brand, Marketing, Product, Product Management, User Experience

All Our Yesterdays – Trade Shows

One of my clients is planning on attending a couple of trade shows as part of their 2007 marketing plan. It was a case of recalling all my past learning and trying to formalize that so that we made the investment worthwhile.

In the middle of the planning, I attended MacWorld in San Francisco. I’d forgotten the sheer exhaustion of attending – let alone exhibiting at – one of these events. It all came pouring back!

So did the glaring shortfalls that seem so obvious as I walked around. Clearly organizations go to such events to generate business, awareness, or to reinforce a purchase decision. There were companies there who, it seemed to me, had not thought about any of these things. Many clearly had. I’ll focus on the sins I saw:

* I’m a big Tivo fan and TivoToGo has just been announced for the Mac. To use it you need a copy of Roxio Toast (a multimedia application and CD/DVD burner) and Roxio had a booth with the product for 1/3 off – way to go! Now the MacWorld folks are one of the many who believe that in order to register and pay them money, I must be forced to submit (i.e. it is mandatory on the form) all manner of information.

As an aside, this is one of the things that pushes my hot buttons (the fact that it is mandatory), so I, as a marketing professional I always doubt the efficacy of such data as I assume that there are many who do as I do and put in information that the recipient, presumably, takes as gospel but is in fact meaningless. So my occupation on this one was Coronation Programme Seller. For those of you not in the know, we haven’t had a Coronation in the UK since 1953. I have also been a chicken sexer and other dubious occupations. I have data for each of the other, in my judgement, intrusive or unnecessary questions. So when YOU, the customer buy this data, be very aware that I, and I believe many others like me, exist. You may not get what you think you are paying for…….

Back to MacWorld; so, I filled in this web form and the basic data (name address etc) are correct and encoded onto my badge. I’m at Roxio, you will recall. I want to buy their product, I really do. So I fight (really!) my way to the front, and ask one of the staff. I get a huge form. “Still using paper” I joke. I look at the form askance, this is like War and Peace.
“Why do you want a shipping address?”
“So we can ship the product to you.”
“I’ll just take it with me.”
“Oh, we don’t have any here.”

End of conversation! How can you go to a trade show to sell and not have product? They tell me I can order on the web, at the show price. Guess what? I can’t. Do you think I have bought their product?

* More booths than should be the case have NO information to attract an attendee to talk to them. Nothing about their product, nothing about what they do, or why I could/should be interested in them. Why be there?

* There were some booths (mercifully few at this show) that have obviously temp staff who have no idea about their products and services. They can’t answer questions, they don’t ask me for my information – what is the point of being there? It is arguably a negative brand touchpoint.

* How many booths have no product information or literature? More than a few. What was the objective in attending?

* Some get it right. I use (or rather used) a product that was in attendance so I went over. I am a happy mapping advocate with attached GPS on the PC. On the Mac it’s a poorly served segment. I was overjoyed when I saw a review of such a product, and bought it (expensive too). It’s a good looking program, it’s just that it is functionally poor (read unusable) for what I want to do. Put in a street address and find it. It doesn’t do that (you have to put ion a lat/long). Anyway, I removed it and vented – quietly – at one of the staff. I had no expectations beyond venting. I got an email from the CMO this week, thanking me for my feedback and asking me to stick with them. Impressive. Maybe I will give the new version another chance.

So all in all, I remain dubious about the ROI of trade shows. We shall see how my client does……

{Product, advertising, Apple, customer, customers, Marketing}

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