We are REALLY sorry, now about that hard sell?

Some weeks ago I received the attached message and new credit card form Citicards:

I was not happy to hear that my personal data may have been compromised, but at least I live in a State that requires that a company tell me when such an event happens. In too many places that is still not the case and such an event can be quietly forgotten, more than six years after California became the first state to require such disclosure.

As usual, I’m required to activate the card by phone. I call and my home number is recognized and the activation proceeds smoothly. Till I get the message ‘Please hold for a representative.’ Oh, oh. It’s a cunning move as I can’t drop the call just in case the activation isn’t completed properly.

Turns out that there isn’t a problem with activation, but Citicard – in their misguided wisdom – want to do the hard sell on me. I’m pressured for additional services that I neither want or need. This in response to a major cock up in their systems and processes. Who on earth thought that ANY message other than a contrite apology for all the hassle that comes a credit card number change was a good idea?

Is that how you would treat your customer? I hope not. If one of my clients is ever in that situation my advice is to apologize, be contrite and ask what the company can do to make amends. Not to apply the high pressure sales tactics, with not so much as a ‘by your leave.’

And to add insult to injury, I can no longer download transactions from my Citicard account into Quicken which I use for my business and personal finances. 12 weeks later, I still can’t. ‘Customer Service’ tells me that they don’t know when it will be fixed.

Hey it’s only three months, for a feature that I’ve come to depend on. Fortunately, this is not a card I use a lot, so the volume of transactions can be hand entered, but it is a pain. And each time I have to do that for a monthly reconciliation, I’m reminded about the abysmal customer experience that Citicard makes me go through.

Compare and contrast with the customer experience at my other credit card – American Express – they have invariably done the right thing.

Citibank can send me as much marketing bumf and encouragement to spend. It won’t make me use their card, except when I have no alternative. Oh, and the last statement came with a notification that my APR is now 29+%!!!

Definitely feel like a valued customer!

So, how do YOU treat your customer when something bad happens? Do you go out of your way to make amends? And to make sure that each interaction thereafter reinforces the positives – and doesn’t keep rubbing salt in the sore wound?

Are you SURE?

How do YOU treat YOUR trapped customers?

Since I set up in business on my own, I’ve had an office at my photographic studio. When I moved in, there was no phone or internet service, so I scouted around. In short, I went with Comcast, they had a deal on, $21 for six months and $45 thereafter (more on THAT later), which was much better than paying for a phone line plus DSL.

We had some installation issues (the installer turned up with no ladder – it wasn’t clear how they thought they would reach the existing wires on the poles to make the connection – but I laughed) and eventually the service was installed. A couple of glitches – isn’t it interesting how we have such low expectations that a couple of glitches are expected – and I’m working.

Lately though – at the one year anniversary interestingly, I’ve been getting drop outs and no internet. One day I had had no connection for over an hour. I called Comcast. No system problems they said. I still couldn’t connect, whilst talking to the support rep. ‘I can ’see’ your device’ she said. ‘Nope, I can’t get anything’. They insisted there was no problem, but I couldn’t get out. They suggested that I swap the cable from the wall to the modem ‘end for end’. I asked how that could possibly help – no answer.

I was getting frustrated, and asked what the options were. ‘We can send out a technician.’ Progress! Friday morning or afternoon (this is Tuesday). We established that really was the earliest – three days is very poor in my view. And I was due to be in Yosemite making pictures, so Monday it would have to be. We book for a 9-11AM slot.

I’m in a very happy frame of mind on Monday (Yosemite in winter is absolutely stunning), arrive at 8 to make sure that I have everything covered. I connect – the internet is working! I work away whilst waiting for the tech. I’ve cancelled my lunch appointment just in case.

By 12:30 no one has arrived. I call Comcast. I wend my way through the voicemail (the one that insists on requiring the phone number we do not posses as an identifier) and get to a technician. I enquire where the technician is. ‘What are the last 4 of your social?’ ‘Why do you need that?’ I ask. ‘I can’t release any account information without it’. ‘I don’t want any account information, I just want to know where the tech is that should have been here between 9-11.’

We go on with nonsensical security questions (not that security is nonsensical, but that it’s needed for such a query). We get through that (by this time I have been on the phone for over 10 minutes), to be told that the call was cancelled. I asked ‘By whom’. You, I’m told.

I bit my tongue and didn’t point out that I’d hardly be calling if I had cancelled the visit. I can hear Barbara ‘breeeeeath.’ I ask what the options are, ‘Is your internet connection working?’ I advise that it is. ‘Then there is no problem.’ I point out that I’m having consistent intermittent problems, which is why the etch was coming in the first place. I can send a tech, but you will be charged if he can’t find a problem.

By now ‘m fuming, no apology, no sign of sympathy. Just ‘it’s working now and if someone comes out we want money.’ More money – it turns out the $45 price tag is only available if you also take cable TV service. There is no way to get the advertised $45 service alone. But i gritted my teeth and stuck with it.

And here’s the point, I’m sure Comcast have me in that ’satisfied customer’ column on the tick sheet – after all I’m still a customer am I not? I am, but not because I’m delighted. Because the switching costs and alternatives are too hard, or expensive, or both. Or maybe I just know, deep down, that going to AT&T would not be any different. How sad.

Market pressure, you say. True. Sorta. I have Comcast at home and am resisting the HD upgrade (a jump I HAVE to make next year, the analogue services go away), but Copmcast want an additional $25 just to be able to receive HD (about a 22% increase on the monthly bill). So, I’m actively looking at going with satellite when we do move. So Comcast, you might have a tick in your customer column, but I won’t upgrade my TV service, I won’t take internet services from you at home, and, and……

To my learning point for you, dear reader. How many of your customers are with you because they are delighted? And how many of them are trapped because the alternatives are few and poor?
You may say you don’t care, you still have them. And I would argue two things: One, you WANT delighted customers talking about you, your products and services, that’s what builds sustainable business. Two, what happens when a viable, or just a little more attractive alternative comes along? They (customers) bolt, that’s what happens and you will NEVER get them back.

Which category are you in? Which do you want to be in?

KQED the last word?

It’s interesting how much I enjoy the programming of NPR and how much I abhor the commercial / process side of what has become a large, impersonal, disconnected corporation.

I keep ‘making allowances’ and finding excuses on KQED’s behalf, and then they work extra hard to show that they are totally disconnected. This is my last, last, last post on the KQED topic.

So, my last word? Just after I got the last communication from KQED (which said to check my credit card statement for a refund, despite the fact that a check was included), I got another letter. This one (received at the end of November) said, in part and paraphrased, ‘Thank you for your pledge of February 23rd……. due to a problem charging your credit card….’

I rolled my eyes, sighed and then burst out laughing – laughing in that belly laugh way that happens just once in a while.

The letter writer’s title? “Total Quality Control Coordinator.”

Back to sighing and shaking my head.

Bad Customer Service, Brand, Customer Experience, Customer Service, Marketing, Media, media, User Experience, WOM

The eFax experience

I have been an eFax user for many years, and stuck with it even though it’s not a medium I use much nowadays – and more importantly nor do my clients. Email, Adobe’s PDF, messaging and devices like the Fujitsu Scansnap make fax – plus the fax spam that I get – a medium of the past.

As a smart marketer you would think that awareness of your products maturity or ‘ageing’ would be top of mind. You might do mid life enhancements or add services that keep the product relevant. Integrate it with other services or products perhaps?

Maybe it doesn’t look like that from the inside? Maybe eFax has a nice ‘annuity’ revenue from it’s existing base and it’s slow to recognize the problem I see? Maybe.

I stuck with eFax for the same reason many customers do with such services: – it was easier to just renew than to fill in complex forms about the spam, or to cancel for that odd time when I DID use fax. Then I got the price increase notice. Note to self ‘when you have a nice annuity revenue stream, don’t do anything to cause customers to question the service’.

So, being a good GTDer, I made myself a note to downgrade to free service, or to cancel. No urgency, just one of those fill in tasks to do when I was bored.

I was bored. I went onto the eFax web. No way could I find out how to cancel. Nothing in ‘My Account’. Nothing in FAQs (nobody will leave if you don’t tell them how, right?). Nothing.

eFax has one of these fancy ‘Talk to live operator’ facilities. I click the button. It opens a special window and i type in my question. Nothing. I get one with other tasks, type ‘Hello’ once in a while. 30 minutes later I give up.

But now I’m on a roll. This is reinforcing all the ‘ease of use’ issues that I had when starting up with eFax. But then you learn how to cope and they fade away. Now they are back – with a vengeance! There is a link to email sales, so I email them. “I wish to downgrade my account to the free version. If that is not available for any reason I wish to cancel. How do I achieve that?” The reply is “Customer Service don’t read these emails’ and an explanation of how to get help (the ones I had already tried).

My bad side was piqued I had to reply ‘Silly me! Fancy expecting sales to deal with a customer issue! Having sat on the end of your ‘talk to a live support person’ for over 30 minutes with no response, and no way to remove my credit card information from within my account it seems that customers cannot leave.”

No answer to date! Wouldn’t you read that as a red flag? I would. I did, every time I saw an email from a customer that looked even vaguely dischuffed (an English term – head for Google), I would leap in and regard it as a challenge to bring them back on board. Not Efax, no response was ever received. And even if it’s not a part of sales’ remit, wouldn’t you forward the email, or have someone call. As an aside, I ordered form Land’s End recently and pressed the ‘Call Me’ button and had a very smart and on the ball woman call me, literally within seconds. Compare and contrast.

I tried phoning and end up (many times) in auto response hell. I won’t go into how bad it is. Suffice it to say, it refers me back (after many branches) to the web site that I can’t make work.

Onwards! By now the bit was between my teeth. I had a hunch that the ‘talk to me’ may be to do with the fact that I was using Safari web browser on my Mac. I check the eFax web (the rest of the web appears to work fine, BTW) for a FAQ telling me to use Microsoft or some such – nothing. I download Firefox and install it on my Mac. I click ‘Talk to me’. Viola!

Progress, I get to ‘talk’ to someone at last. But my woes are not done yet. The person I’m talking to doesn’t ‘get’ my problem. They “cannot downgrade my account due to the architecture of their system”. Huh??? I should just get in touch when the annual agreement expires, and they will cancel it. The short version is that I was getting quite angry and told him to do whatever it took to cancel the account RIGHT NOW. There never was an attempt to understand WHY I was unhappy, if there was a way to fix it, if they could find a way to keep me.

So if I had stock in eFax, I would be ditching it very fast indeed. I’ll watch with fascination what happens. i do hope they wake up in time…..

{WOM, Bad Customer Service, Customer Service, Mac, Marketing, Product Management}

Technorati Tags: Bad Customer Service, Customer Service, Mac, Marketing, Product, Product Management, User Experience, WOM

United we ???????

I’m a VERY satisfied American Airlines customer, but it wasn’t always so. I arrived at American after being a high-mileage United flyer for many years. But United spent a year ‘convincing’ me that they didn’t want my business (by, amongst other things, discarding my long held business class seats to a family gathering at Xmas in Australia. Then after I reserved the only seats available, in the back, they abandoned the seta reservations and refused to do anything about it. My 14 hours in a middle seat was the final straw), I called American. They moved me over at the same status as I had with United (I just showed my mileage statement) and I have been there, happily, ever since.

I have many interests and friends in the aviation community, some of whom work for United, so I keep an eye on their progress. I was pleasantly surprised to get a letter from United telling me of a change to their miles expiration policy – I have a bunch of miles in a long unused account. Progress, I thought! And when I read it, I was even more impressed. Here is what you can do to keep your miles, the letter explained.

One of the options was to transfer miles to another member. Barb has continued to fly United (more because they fly nonstop to Europe than anything else) and has a mileage plus account. So I gave her the letter and said, ‘Do you want the miles in my account?’. Easy answer!

Easy Answer, hard to achieve! Turns out when she calls, that you can only transfer 15,000 miles – and there is a charge of $150 (plus $35 admin fee)!

So I need to plot another strategy – but what a way to treat your customer. Even Barb uttered the words ‘I can see why you say what you do about United’. What is my catch phrase for United? ‘How many ways can we find to say NO’.

Now Barb is flying to Rome on American, not on United.

{WOM, Bad Customer Service, Brand, Customer Service, Marketing}

Technorati Tags: Bad Customer Service, Brand, Customer Service, Marketing, User Experience, WOM

Bait and Switch at its worst….

I use Skype as my office number and also have it on my MacBook. Whilst quality is OK on my MacBook, I wanted the best I could get on business calls, and that means a handset. I researched and USRobotics do a USB handset AND – critically – provide Mac compatible drivers – most manufacturers don’t. So I order the handset via Amazon – it’s actually a merchant called Amperor Direct, but no matter. The order is placed and I get my confirmation. The package arrives and immediately seems strange. There is no name at all on the box or on the handset. It is, to say the least, cheap and shoddy looking. I check my order confirmation, sure enough it is what I ordered: Ordered Shipped 1 1 USB-P8D USRobotics USB Internet Phone (NAM ROHS) [Electronics] $33.87 Ship Date: 5/21/2007 Sure enough, when I try it out it doesn’t work on the MacBook. I email Amperor (via the Amazon web) and inform them that what they sent me is a no-name brand that is not what I ordered. The following day I get an RMA by email, but that leaves ME holding the shipping charges both ways. I email them back asking for a full credit, including shipping both ways. Nothing. Then I get a bulk email telling me that the drivers for the Yealink phone I bought have been updated. I reply to the marketing manager, expressing my displeasure. I get a response: “ Thank you for contacting us again with your questions and comments.

Replies to your Amazon.com inquiries were sent to you on 5/21/07 and 5/24/07. In the replies you were given status information about your order and an explanation regarding the nature of US Robotics branding their name onto a 3-rd party product as well as requesting confirmation that you still wished an RMA for the unit, minus shipping charges as per our return policy. This has been the first contact we have received from you since then and we assume you had not received the other two messages.

US Robotics, like Fonaso and about a dozen other retailers have taken a product – or series of products – made by a company called Yealink and have had their name printed onto the device so it will sell under their ”branding.“ Some companies have in-house technicians who will take the driver software provided by Yealink and change the names inside to suit their companies needs, but main support is not by that company. US Robotics has followed this practice for the past 15+ years with modems, etc.

Other companies do this on a regular basis as well. Take for instance the recent peanut butter issue which affected several name-brands as well as several generic brands. All were produced in the same factory by one producer but sold under numerous names.

Even under USR the device only has a limited Mac compatibility depending on the OS X version, processor being used, and version of Skype software being run.

We shall be happy to provide an RMA to you for the return of the unit for a refund minus shipping costs. We shall issue one to this e-mail address shortly.”

All fine, but that’s NOT what I ordered – and I hadn’t had an explanation, and even if I had it’s not OK! To crown the lack of understanding, it turns out that what I got was a forwarded email. The marketing manager’s comments were still in the mail: “The downside to sending out a mass email.. you want to issue an RMA to the guy below… I don’t have the energy to explain that the product is identical and the listing shows ‘this item is labeled VoIP’.” So I repeat in my reply that I want them to make a full refund, including shipping. I tell them that I’ll also file complaints and send the product I did receive to USRobotics intellectual property department if they will not do so. No response….. So I contacted USRobotics and they now have all the details…. What a way to run a business, they are still on Amazon, still appear to be trading – and I’m not the only one to complain about this issue. In the end I bought a Futiro phone, great service, great responsiveness and a stylish product.

{Marketing, Bad Customer Service, Brand, Phone, Product}

Bad Customer Service, Brand, Customer Service, Marketing, Phone, Product, User Experience, WOM

KQED – the tale continues…..

I keep thinking that, perhaps, I’m being a little harsh on KQED. But every time I have the slightest doubt, they manage to reinforce that they are at least as bad, if not worse, as I portray them.

After my previous two experiences (documented earlier in this blog), this week I got a letter. “Yay, I’ve finally got through to them” I thought. I open the letter.

“Dear Mr. Graham Bird
On behalf of all of us at KQED, I want to thank you for your continued support. Clearly, it is members like you who are the real strength behind outstanding Northern California Public Television and Radio.”

What can I say? This is from Robin Smith, with whom I have not communicated directly, but it still says a lot about KQED and it’s ‘customer’ responsiveness. A letter to the General Manager (with a copy of the associated blog), followed by a pack to the member department (two blog entries, a copy of the GM letter, plus another letter explaining the previous ones, and still they charge me and thank me for my continuing support!

The PS to the letter is interesting,

“ Due to revised circulation requirements set by the publisher of San Francisco Magazine, KQED can only provide this benefit to members who give $150 or more annually. In its place, we will send you The Guide, KQED’s complete printed program schedule.”

KQED is so in tune with its members that it spends the hard earned member subscriptions to print and mail a program schedule. Haven’t they checked on how many of us have the internet and check program listings that way? They could save a huge amount by checking and confirming, if I’m right, that most of us throw them away as they deliver zero value.

But alas, the problem is a bigger one really. I’m describing symptoms. KQED has real issues and problems in communicating (that is, a two way dialog) with their ‘members’, but I don’t see what could be done to get them to realize that there even is a disconnect. And there, my diligent reader, is the problem that many organizations face. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, they don’t even know that they have an ‘unknown unknown’ – what their customers really think.

{WOM, Bad Customer Service, Marketing, Product}

{WOM, Bad Customer Service, Marketing, Product}

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Bad Customer Service, Brand, Customer Service, Marketing, Media, User Experience, WOM

Finding the Ideal Phone Company – Virgin Mobile

I’ll cut to the quick. Unusual for me, I know.

The purchase experience – at Radio Shack left a lot to be desired, but that is, perhaps, the subject for another day. I bought a pay-as-you-go phone as a standby after loosing my Treo in London (way back in November for those following this thread – the fact that my ’standby’ phone is still not working two plus months late is the clue) I wanted something that I could use easily and simply.

I’ve long been a Virgin admirer, I love the brand and many of the fun and slightly irreverent attributes it portrays. So a Virgin Mobile phone fits the bill. Cheap – $50 – and I use it when I need it. The second phone – I’ll write about the first one soon, I promise – is registered (by me this time) on the web. Fairly well explained, fairly good user experience, no problem. I finish the process and sit back, waiting for the promised text message that will tell me the phone is live.

It doesn’t come. I try the phone. I get a service, ‘Virgin Mobile’ it says on the screen. I smile. I dial.

“ Soandso’s Roaming Network, Calls will be charged at $2.99 and $1.99 per minute. Please dial the number you require.” Not bloody likely! Where is my 18c per minute?

I email support. “Please call us.” The response I was dreading. I call. The first day I call EIGHT times (line dropped, voice response hell and dead ends in the voice response option chain) in order to speak to a human. The last call was 23 minutes before I was unceremoniously dropped. And the problem remained. Everyone – very politely, perkilly, and informally ‘Hi Graham, yes I understand your problem“, responded but no-one fixed the issue. They all knew what the problem was, the serial number of the phone wasn’t being properly recognized, but no-one could fix it.

After being finally dropped, I calmed down till the next day. Put on my best calm customer head and called again. The voicemail system is as bad as any I have met for complexity and befuddlement – it takes me on average five minutes to get to a human. Remember, I’m an independent, this is not fee earning time and this is my tenth or twelfth time of calling. I asked for a supervisor and got put through without question (excellent). Sean, it turns out from Spokane, is calm, professional, and helpful. He knows what the problem is. I smile. But he doesn’t fix it either.

”OK it looks like this is not going to work, please just refund my airtime payment to my credit card.“ I say.

”Oh, we don’t give refunds“, say Sean, ”It said so in the terms and conditions.“

”But you can’t make it work, it seems unreasonable to charge me when you can’t provide service.“

”We don’t give refunds, he says…….“ I’d got the drift by then. Virgin Mobile take your money – and they keep it, even when they admit they can’t provide service.

”I’ll take it up with American Express (the card I used to pay for service) if I have to.“ I say.

”Please do.“ says Sean. ”I can escalate the problem and it will be fixed in 48 hours.“

I’m all out of choices, so I quit.

Sean I can tell you that much beyond the 48 hours, the phone is still not working.

So I shall call Amex and I’m sure they will credit me. But why do I have to? The problem is Virgin’s and should not be given back to the customer. Why do I have to do battle with a company that presumably set out to want me as a customer?

Pretty shoddy set of terms and conditions – I paraphrase – ”Give us money on trust and even if we can’t provide what we promised to, we’ll keep your money“.

Richard, you need to get back to the straight dealing you are famous for. It’s your brand they are messing up.

{Brand, Bad Customer Service, Customer Service, Phone}

Technorati Tags: Bad Customer Service, Brand, Marketing, Product Management, User Experience, WOM

When you have a choice……

As part of my move to a MacBook I’ve had to find software for various tasks. Since last year all my business sites (for my consultancy and for my photography) have been hosted – a long story, perhaps for another blog entry – and I need software to move files to the host site. So I search for ftp software. The first, and it seems popular product, is ‘RBrowser’.

It has a crippled version that doesn’t allow me to create directories – a pretty fundamental task – so I purchase the full version. It’s a modest cost, $35 I believe. Except that I don’t get my key (turns out the spam system has eaten it). I find it eventually, and even with the full version, it is – to say the least – a disappointing product. So I uninstall it (having made my living in Intellectual Property (IP) for the last ummmmmmm years, I’m pretty anal about licensing and removal, etc, etc.) and decide that it is bad enough that I should write and request a refund – making clear that I have removed and destroyed the software.

In the meantime, I download CuteFTP – not a product I was fond of on the PC, for reasons I don’t remember – and use that to upload my files. A full working version, but time limited. I like it, so I buy the license. OK, except that the license install is, let’s say, poor. It doesn’t work. I email support and they are not instant answerers. So I call. The support guy tells me that the Mac version isn’t perfect (not my experience except for the license problem) and instantly offers a refund. I persist! The email from support arrives and gives a working alternative, so I have my working product and have used it ever since.

My request to the Rbrowser support (it looks like a single individual who writes AND support) and get the most amazing response:

“Sir, you have agreed to the license terms before purchase. On the terms page you had to go through, it was thorougly explained that 1. You can try the software for free for 20 days. 2. From the license agreement ‘Once the permanent license is delivered there is NO refund.’ The reason is that there is no way for us to take back a license string once it has been sent out. When you bought the license it was explained to you on the confirmation page that SPAM filters often eat the license email, so if you do not get it on the same day, please alert us and we will resend it to you.
To request a refund now is against the license terms you have agreed to, and it is grossly unfair, it amounts to an attempt to steal the software. Please reconsider your request. We have tried to make the terms as acceptable as possible, we give people plenty of time to make up their minds before any purchase.
Thanx for your understanding.
Robert Vasvari”

So a request for a refund for a product that doesn’t work properly is “AN ATTEMPT TO STEAL THE SOFTWARE”. Well Mr Vasvari, I’m very ethical – to the point of anality – on IP. Your product does not function fully – personally, I’d regard the creation of a directory as a basic, working element, and my (polite) request made clear that I was not trying to rip you off.

So what’s the answer? As with many other products, companies and services – Suck It Up. But from an individual, running his own company? To be so directly rude to someone seems outlandish to me. Rub your (now ex) customer’s nose in it…

So, DO buy CuteFTP, great product, great honesty, great (well sort of!) customer support.

RBrowser? Crap. That’s as pointed as I guess I can say it in a business journal. If you are a Mac user, avoid it and Mr Vasvari, like the plague.

{Product, Bad Customer Service, Customer Service, Product Management}

Technorati Tags: Bad Customer Service, Customer Service, Product, Product Management

How to P$#@ Off your customer – Sekonic non-service

I’m an ardent photographer. I’ve been the owner of a Sekonic L-358 light meter for a number of years and found it a good machine. I started shooting with studio strobes earlier in the year and tried use the meter to fire them, as it’s designed to do. No joy, either with a cable or with the wireless system.

The meter sat around for a while and I eventually the note to get it fixed reached the top of the to-do list and I sent it into the importer MAC Group. They have a form on their service site that i filled out (important for later!) and I send it off via UPS.

A month later, a tickler comes up to check (I’m getting VERY good at implementing David Allen’s GTD) and lo, nothing heard, no meter back on my desk. So I call MAC. Usual hold and voicemail crap, but eventually I get through.

‘You don’t have it?’

“No I wouldn’t be calling if I had”

‘Oh, I see it’s a grey import, we just rejected it and sent it back. We won’t touch it’ ‘We’ll give you 15% off a trade in for a new meter’ ‘We don’t have an email or phone number to contact you.’ Not true, it’s on the form, which they must have as they did, five weeks after receiving it and doing nothing with it, deign to send back to me – at the address on the form.

“I was asking for it to be repaired as a charged item, not a warranty repair”

‘We can’t do anything with them, they are different, the boards are not the same, the frequencies are different.’ First I had heard about the frequency of light being different in different parts of the globe…….
I quote, directly off the US Sekonic web site “Optional Plug-in Radio Transmitter Module Simultaneously trigger your flash and measure the exposure.
Wirelessly — compatible with all PocketWizards”

I pointed out that as she could hear, I had an accent from a different part of the world too. I asked them what I could do. She would call me back. Want to run a sweepstake on how long that will be? Three days and counting so far.

So Sekonic, I bought, at retail prices, in good faith your product. Now, because you choose some arbitrary geographic limits – presumably for YOUR pricing and / or business practice convenience – I’m supposed to throw it away? Actually no, I’m supposed to give it to you, sorry trade it in, for circa $37 and buy the identical item for circa $260 plus the cost of the wireless trigger (a mere $50).

Let me think about that for a millisecond or less. I buy a product from you, you decide that – even though it is repairable for $90 or so – that I should buy a new one. I’m sure I’ll feel like a valued customer if I did so.

Sure I’m going to buy from you! After all, you cherish me as a customer that has spent thousands of dollars on your products (turns out they make/import other products I’ve bought too) by kicking me at the first opportunity you get. Sure I’ll do more business with you. Like hell!

So I’ll make my usual plea, vote with your checkbooks. I will. Even if it means (same importer / manufacturer) replacing my newly acquired PocketWizard studio system to fire the flash heads I have. You don’t deserve to succeed, let alone thrive.

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Product, User Experience, WOM