Posts from September 2005

A lot of people make a lot of money out of customer relationship management (CRM) but here is a real-life example of how customer service affects the relationship with the customer.

A few weeks ago I ordered a wireless USB card and a CD (Antics by Interpol) from Amazon. I received the normal 'Your order has been dispatched' email within 24 hours. I waited for 10 days but nothing turned up which was unusual because normally Amazon deliver pretty promptly (even with the SuperSaver option).

I know the package hasn't been left on my doorstep in the pouring rain by the postman and subsequently stolen as I specified the delivery address as my place of work, specifically, to avoid this.

So I send Amazon a polite email informing them of the problem and asking what can be done.

Amazon replied promptly, helpfully confirming when the package was dispatched and that, unfortunately, there was no way of tracking the item.

Please note that we take full responsibility should any item become lost or damaged while being delivered, and we are more than happy to replace these items at a cost to ourselves. If your package does not arrive by September 23, 2005, please contact us to confirm that it has not been received and that your delivery address is correct for your order, so we can investigate and take the appropriate action.

Now what was interesting about this reply was:

• Amazon actually read my email and answered my specific questions. It was not a standard form letter.
• If, after waiting two weeks and checking the delivery address was correct, the package still did not turn up, Amazon were prepared to send me the goods free of charge for a second time.

Anyway, this story had a happy ending as the package was actually sitting in the post room at work and they had simply forgotten to inform me.

Now, after I made the initial order I discovered I could have got the identical wireless USB card off the shelf for the same price, without any delay in Tesco and I could have saved a whole three pounds (33%) on the CD (at CD-WOW!).

However this excellent customer service gives me a increased level of confidence of buying goods from Amazon. Could I be guaranteed the same response if another, more expensive package from another retailer went missing ?

According to Technorati, a new Web log is created every second which is an amazing statistic and about 55% remain active which is even more staggering.

The creation of my blog was actually a little experiment to see what all the fuss was about and, secondly, to see how long it would take for someone to wander along and be motivated enough to add a comment to the blog.

I did not publicise the blog in any way (mainly because I haven't got any friends) apart from adding it to blogger listing and I was curious to see if it would ever generate any traffic or interest.

So today, one month and eleven days after I created this blog, I received the first comment from someone in Germany. My life is complete - almost.

Recently, I was watching my daughter doing some homework on the PC and noticed that she was listening to music from a radio stream over the Internet, talking to her friends in real-time using Instant Messenger, uploading photos of her holiday to her Web page, ripping music from a CD ready to copy on to an MP3 player and integrating an chart from Excel spreadsheet into a Word document.

A couple of things struck me:-

• Females are indeed better at multi-tasking than men.
• Where was the homework ?

There was an interesting program on ITV last night called The Shot That Shook The World about photographs of historic moments.

9/11¶

Mesmeric, tragic, horrific and yet somehow those images are always compelling. I guess this was the JFK moment for my generation where everyone can remember exactly where they were and what they were doing.

I was working for a small Internet company and a colleague was idly surfing and memorably announced 'A plane has just hit the World Trade Centre'. The internet soon ground to a halt and we watched the tragedy unfold on portable TV in disbelief.

I remember early editions of an English newspaper carried photographs of two people holding hands jumping to their deaths that were subsequently pulled when they realised that this was real people in real life with real mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters.

Sport¶

The Brazil goal against Italy in the 1970 World Cup. My favourite goal of all time. The way Pele flicks the ball to Carlos Alberto. Pure art.

Moon Landing (1969)¶

I remember the whole school being assembled in the hall to watch these grainy images on a black and white TV.

Challenger disaster¶

I visited the Kennedy Centre a few years ago and there is a nice, simple, understated black memorial to all the astronauts who have lost their lives during the space program. Ironically, one was killed in a car crash.

Concorde crash¶

Interesting as this footage was shot by a member of the public from a moving car. This is much more prevalent now with the widespread use camera phones which provided almost immediate access to photos of the London bombings in July 2005.

Hillsborough¶

This wasn't actually featured but those photographs on the front page of The Independent newspaper of ordinary people dying, squashed against the railings in the Leppings Lane terrace at a football match in Sheffield had a big effect on me.

Just submitted my tax return online which was pretty painless and quick. On the final page, I entered some additional information with a minor query. When I submitted the form, there was a data validation error. When I read the error message more carefully, I realised that the carriage return character is not allowed in the free form text box so I removed all of them. However, the form was still rejected until I realised that the question mark character '?' is also not permitted.

So, rather like Tom Kyte, the Inland Revenue is not currently accepting questions.