blog364

I recently changed my mobile plan to a family one. Not getting all the information about it that I wanted online, I decided to go down to the nearest AT&T store to get more information in person. After finding a suitable plan I decided to make the change on the spot. The sales person helping me was very easy going and patient with all my questions and explained the entire plan in detail, including what kind of new monthly bill I could expect.

Everything was good until yesterday, when I received an email with my monthly bill (the first one under the new plan). Upon opening the bill, there in plain sight was the total monthly cost. Problem was… it wasn’t what the sales associated had told me it should be. I figure there must have been some kind of error (Yes, I did try to read/understand the bill, but they make them harder to decipher than an Enigma machine, and for good reason!), so I called AT&T customer service to find out what it was.

Sure enough, there were three “extra” charges that the sales associate had forgotten to mention (and I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt!):

1. Activation fee ($18)*

2. Internet access fee ($2 PER occurrence) – even though I had explicitly said that I didn’t want this option active in my mother’s phone

3. A strange pro-rated charge ($22) that the customer service person on the other side of the phone could not explain (not at least in a believable manner)

So there it was, an extra $42 added to my bill without my consent or knowledge. That totaled an extra 40% above what I was told the monthly bill would be. I explained to the person helping me that it didn’t seem fair to be getting charged for things that: 1) I wasn’t told were part of the deal, or that I had explicitly said I didn’t want, and 2) they couldn’t explain what they were, how they got in my bill or why I should have to pay for them. So he did the right thing and removed the extra $42 from my bill. Well done AT&T!!!

Apathy

I’ve always been of the opinion that if you can ‘pitch’ you should be able to ‘catch’. The same goes, if we can trash companies when they don’t behave ethically and treat their customers properly, that we do recognize when they do the right things (after all is not “that” often). So, once again, well done AT&T. You made me feel heard and that resolving my pain was, at least this time, more important than an extra $42 in your quarterly revenue report. Keep it up!!!

But, this post is not really about how AT&T changed, is changing, might change or what. No. This posting is about us, the consumers, buyers, customers, the ones that keep the business in, well… business. And how we seem to have grown used to, somewhat tolerant and, worst still, expectant of certain level of mistreatment from the companies that we used to provide us a product or service.

We sign up for services without reading the “service agreement”. We accept what comes on our bills without second thought or consideration. And most of the times, when we notices an impropriety (i.e.: extra charge, poor treatment, etc.) we don’t even bother to speak up. No wonder then, that companies are not chaining and still getting away with this type of behavior…. it’s call conditioning, and we have no one to blame but ourselves. And that’s sad.

But it doesn’t have to be like that. From Dell Hell to Antennagate, we’ve seen how making a stand for what’s right can make even the largest corporations stop, listen and, more and more often now, make changes that will have a long term positive impact, not only on their customers but, by association, on their bottom lines. The Internet, with all it’s tools (i.e.: search, email, Twitter, blogs, forums, etc.), is allowing customers to come together (there’s strength in numbers, and the Internet’s numbers can be mighty forces of change!) and hold companies accountable to their actions and demand changes. And that’s a good thing. But a tool is only as good as the person handling it and if we don’t continue pushing forward and demanding better treatment from companies then the momentum will be lost and it will be back to the status quo.

Our silence would just continue to reinforce that they are in control. But that doesn’t have to be the case. We are entering a new era of “customer empowerment”. This is a time to make our voices heard, specially when we feel that we’ve been wronged by a company. Companies need to come to terms with the fact that in this always-connected world, one bad customer service experience or “extra” charge can no longer be swept under the carpet. And that when these situations do occur, that we won’t stay on the sidelines and send, yet another, check in the mail. No. Now we’ll be tweeting, writing our blogs, posting on forums and sending emails all around the world. We’ll be asking for change and we shall receive it, because the price of doing nothing will be more costly to the companies than any short-term financial loss.

But for this change to happen we, customers, need to change too. And this starts by standing up, picking up the phone (or email, or whatever means of communication you deem appropriate) and contacting the offending company and requesting that they fix their errors. I know it sounds crazy, but it really is that simple. Call the company (be nice about it), explain what the issue is and how you’d like it to be resolved/fixed. Don’t accept NO for an answer. As long as what you are asking is reasonable, just and fair you shouldn’t feel bad for asking. You’ll be surprised how many times they’ll correct the mistake. Just be prepare to present a valid reason!

In the past month, I had three instances where I felt that I wasn’t being treated properly:

1. Over-billing

2. Negotiating a new car lease

3. Bad service experience at a restaurant

Each of these times I found who the correct person would be for me to talk to. I explained the situations and how I’d like for my needs to be resolved. Each time, I got exactly what I wanted. Had I not ask, not only would I have felt that I got the worst end of the bargain but I would have felt that I let myself down and that I didn’t have any control over a situation that I was part of.

We seem to have forgotten that the easiest way of getting what we want is by simply asking for it. Not doing so will cost you more in the long run, not just financially but emotionally too.

You are in control. And that’s not something that you need to ask for!

—
* This ‘activation’ fee is wrong for several reasons, and here are two:

1. No activation, no service. No service, no customer. No customer, no revenue!

2. Why should I pay to activate a phone/line which is already active under a different plan

NOTE: These ‘activation’ fees are the same as the typical gym’s “sign up” fee. It’s 100% profit. I know because I used to work at a gym. All it takes is for the sales associate to punch the new customer/client’s information on the computer and hit <ENTER>. So next time you sign up at a gym tell them that if they want you as a member, they better waive the fee!

I love Apple products. I love how they look, I love how they function and I love how they make me feel when I use them (Seth Godin was right in All Marketer are Liars when he said that we don’t buy products, we buy the stories that we tell ourselves about the products we buy!), but please don’t call me a “fanboy”. A “fanboy” has nothing but great things to say for the brands/products he/she loves. As much as I can see and appreciate the greatness in Apple (whether you like it or not they’ve come back from an ‘almost’ assure extinction), I can also see its shortcoming, mistakes and fumbles. From the app store approval process to the recent “antennagate“, Apple has had and will continue to have its share of issues. But one issue that no one seems to have brought up or made much fuss about is the current inability to delete any one of the pre-installed Apple apps on any of the iPhones.

My iPhone 3G came with 20 pre-installed apps. Of all these, there’s only one that I can think of that shouldn’t be deleted: Settings. This would be the same as deleting the Control Panel on a PC or System Preferences on a Mac. Clearly there’s a need for it. But why can’t I delete any of the other applications, such as: Weather, Stocks, Clock, Photos, et’al? Certainly, there are thousands of other applications in the App Store that can do the same things that these pre-installed apps can do and better. Why is it that Apple will let me uninstall pretty much any application that came pre-installed on my MacBook Pro but won’t let me do so from my phone?

So I decided to call Apple Care (I paid a pretty penny for it, so I figure I’d put it to some good use). After a little bit or “routing me around” I finally heard what I was expecting: “We don’t support that functionality. If you don’t want to see the pre-installed apps, just move them to the last ‘page’ on the phone.” Again…. F#$*ING LUDICROUS!!! Move them? Shove them under the proverbial “carpet”? OMG – LOL! This to me sounded much like the, now infamous, email from Steve Jobs to the user complaining about the iPhone 4 reception issues where he tells him to “Just avoid holding it in that way.”

I’m not saying: “don’t give me any pre-installed apps with my new phone”. All I’m asking is to have the choice to remove them if I want to. It’s my phone, I should be able to have a saying in what I put in it and what I remove. Can you imagine Ford telling you that you cannot change the tires on your new car or the stereo? Ludicrous!!!

Not too long ago Microsoft was made to capitulate about including Internet Explorer with Windows OS. Microsoft argued that it needed to include IE with Windows for the OS to work. The courts didn’t buy the argument and Microsoft had to provide a way to remove the intruding program (albeit in a way that made you feel that you were better off WITH the program rather than trying to go through the week long process to remove it!). That was ONE program. My iPhone has over 10.

To: Steve Jobs, Jonathan Ive, Apple designers, et’al: your customers are smarter and more capable to make choices on their own, even if you don’t agree with them, than you give them credit for. Exercising such a tight control over your products long AFTER they have left the factory and been paid for will only help, in the not so-long term, to alienate your core supporters and only leave the “fanboys” behind. Of which, I’m sure aren’t enough to sustain your delusions of grandeur. You created the BEST MP3 player in the world but you didn’t tell us how to fill it up. You gave us great laptops but trusted us to fill them with useful applications…. please trust us that we are equally capable with your….err…. OUR phones!

Sincerely,

A loyal Apple user, but NOT a “fanboy”

There’s been quite a bit of fuzz and buzz in the last year or so about whether “Googling” someone before an interview should be legal/accepted and/or used in making hiring decisions. I have several friends that work in HR for a few startups and established companies and they’ve been going crazy training employees and managers on how to conduct themselves online and how to go about performing a background check on a candidate and what can and cannot be said or used during the interview. Is all this really needed? All this “don’t ask” even though “they” (the “will be” candidates) are telling (by posting their lives on the web)? Have we become so incompetent at following basic social and democratic guidelines that we need laws to save us from our own stupidity?

Now, I’m all against discriminating (whether be it for a job or in any other situation) based on skin color, age, gender, social class, religious affiliations, etc. and I understand why managers have to be reminded to stay clear of these areas during an interview. But, what’s the real harm in “Googling” someone?

Here, let me paint a scenario for you: You have a 16 year old daughter and she’s very pretty. She has never gone out on a date before, but you know that day is coming. Until one day it just happens: the family is sitting at the table having a nice dinner when she says: “Today Chuck Waggon asked me out on a date. He’s picking me up at 8 pm” – It’s 7:30!!! You dash out of the room…. Where do you go? To your office. What do you do? You Google: “Chuck Waggon”. It doesn’t take you too long to come across his Twitter/Facebook/MySpace/Hi5/etc. profiles and updates. You recognize that smug face. There, for the whole world to see are pictures of “Chuck” with some “ladies” in some interesting “situations.”  His Twitter one-liners aren’t much better…You’ve seen and read enough. You run to double-bolt the front door, set the alarm and fetch the family dog. You sit back at the table and your look says it all: “He’s been GOOGLED! You are NOT going out with him!”

Now, this might be a little bit funny and not very related to an interview situation… or is it?

We live in a 24/7/360 digital, always connected world. The barriers (barriers? What barriers?)… never mind… There are NO barriers to keep us from dumping every little detail of our personal and professional lives online. Tweeter and Facebook have proven that. We use the “my First Amendment rights say…” excuse to justify and explain why we feel that we should be able to say/post anything we want online. The only problem is: We want people to find and read it but NOT to judge us by it.

Let’s not be hypocritical here! If you want the right to say/post whatever you want to (clearly with the intention/understanding that it will be found – otherwise you’d be keeping an old-style paper journal in a safe at home) then you should do so knowing that it will be found and that, YES, people will read and talk about it and, very possibly, JUDGE you by it. We need to learn to respect other people’s points of view and ideologies, but we don’t necessarily have to agree with them. As much as we are all free to write/post whatever we want to; we are also all free to form our opinions based on what they post and make decisions/take action based on what we learn about them.

We are constantly searching for information and using what we learn from it to make almost every decision about our daily lives…So, now we need to hire the best possible candidate to fill in a position but we are not allowed to use what we learn on Google/LinkedIn/Facebook/Tweeter et`al to make the decision? That’s not only crazy…. it’s STUPID!!!! We have access to one of the best resources of information available in the history of mankind but we cannot use it for what’s intended (i.e.: search, gather, interpret/analyze, use information)?

We Google the movies that we want to see and the books we want to read. We Yelp a restaurant that we want to try out before making a reservation. We listen to previews on iTunes before downloading. We Bluebook a car before we buy it and read the MySpace/Facebook/Twitter/eHarmony profile of our next date. And we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Like Joshua, the computer, said in War Games “the only way to win is not to play.” If you are so concern about the possible repercussions of something that you are about to post on the web, then take a moment to think it over before pressing the SUBMIT button. We own our silence but are slaved by our words and in this day and age of great technology we are slaved by everything we post online!

—

I’m not sure if what I’m about to say and do has any legal standing… but there’s only one way to find out. So here it goes:

i. I, Diego Schmunis, hereby grant permission to any and every future employer to “Google me” (let me make it easy for you, here’s my Google link) . That means that you can search and re-search me online to your hearts contents and use this information in my interview/hiring process.

ii. As long as I’m being treated fairly, the information about me is not being misconstructed in an unfairly manner and am given a chance to explain and/or answer any questions regrading information that you might have found about me online, I resign any and all rights to “sue you for discrimination”.

Happy now? You can know as much as you want to about me… anything that I’ve posted online is fair game and you won’t get in trouble for knowing about it or asking me.

But let’s take this a bit further: “Googling” me is a REQUIREMENT if you want to hire me! That’s right. As much as you, my interviewer, expect me to know about the company I expect you to know about me. It’s a two way street. Besides, you know that I’m going to “Google” every name in the company directory that I can find and find out as much about them as I possibly can. If what I find out about my will-be manager and team mates isn’t good, chances are that I’ll decline an offer no matter how good. That is NOT DISCRIMINATION…. it’s being smart and avoiding making a bad decision.

It’s time to even out the tables and stop the hypocrisy. If they can post it, then we can use it.

Good night.

WARNING: this is may be or may be not a rant

WARNING: this may or may be not a “conspiracy theory”

NetFake

Ok, I just canceled my Netflix service. I had it all of three short months.

How many movies did I watch?

ZERO!

Why?

There was nothing worth watching! For real!

Ok, here’s the deal: I signed up for the one DVD at a time plan. The real reason why I signed up for it was because they advertised that for $8.99 a month I could access and watch as many new releases movies online (TV or computer) as I wanted to. I really didn’t care about having to wait for the DVDs to arrive, however quick the service might be. The real appealing idea was to be able to get online, select a movie that I’ve missed on theaters recently (I have a kid at home and if you do too, then you know how hard is to catch the latest releases on the big screen) and watch it immediately on my laptop in bed or on the TV.

Ok, you say…”but they have hundreds of movies that you can ‘watch now’!”. Yes, they do. But what part of “new releases” didn’t you get? Go to the previous paragraph and read it again. This time, slowly!

Here’s a screenshot of their “New movies to watch instantly.” Go ahead, take a look… I’ll wait

New releases?

So? What do you think? Did you see any “new releases”? And by new releases I mean movies that have been in the theaters recently, NOT “new releases” as in straight-to-DVD release.

For all of 2009 they have 19 movies. Go ahead count them…

Do you see any “hits”? Anything that’s gonna make you wanna run to make some pop-corn?

Didn’t think so.

So that, in short form, is why I canceled the service. It didn’t provide the “service” that it said that it would. It was misleading and because I’m the one paying, I choose not to do business with misleading businesses.

Now, to say something positive (before really slamming Netfake) about them: Their account cancelation process was one of the smoothest ones that I’ve had online in al long, long time. And so far I haven’t received any annoying “please come back” calls, thought I don’t think I’ll be disappointed!

So, it could all end here. I tried the service, they didn’t delivered, I keep my money.

But it won’t…

After canceling I started thinking (Yes, I know… funny. Just one of those exercises that I like to do from time to time to find out if the Alzheimer’s is kicking in yet or not!).

So I thought… (Nope, no Alzheimer’s yet!)

How come I can get a lot more new releases on Comcast on-demand but not on Netfak…ok, I’ll be nice just this once…Netflix? I mean, come on… Netflix must have 4:1 ration of movies over Comcast, at least. So it’s not a lack of movies. No, it has to be something else.

Well, one reason why Comcast has a lot of new movies on-demand is because they don’t have a DVD delivery/distribution channel like Netfake does. Nor should they. They are in the business of Cable TV, so that’s fine for them.

Netfake HAS the movies (I know because they are available on DVD) and HAS the technology to stream them directly to me (I know because THAT’S THE SERVICE THEY ADVERTISE!)

So how come they don’t do it? It can’t be cost. It cost the same to stream a one hour forty minutes bad movie as it does a new one (also Netflix offers to stream HD movies, so bandwidth is not an issue).

Ok, you guys ready for the “conspiracy theory” part?

They are using the “watch instantly” product as a kind of”loss leader“, with the added functionality that by not making new releases (the ones that you actually want to watch) available for streaming over the TV or computer they are hopping it will motivate customers to sign up for a “larger” DVDs per month package, so they can get the latest movies. They make more money by sending DVDs to your home than they do by streaming them.

Think (you need to check for Alzheimer’s too)… If you could watch as many truly great new releases for $8.99 a month as you want to, they’d go out of business. If you could truly watch all the “new releases” on-line, unlimited, for $8.99 then no one would ever upgrade to get more DVDs at the time delivered (‘cos lets face it… we live in America. Why get one DVD in the mail at the time, when you can get 3, 4, 5, etc?). No big DVDs per month packages, no great revenue.

So, the solution? Control, without saying it of course, how many movies your customers really may want to “watch” online. How? Simple, offer the “lesser” quality movies online, and keep the best ones for the delivery service (which of course, makes more money for them)!

You see, someone, somewhere inside Netfake’s belly figure out that many people might sign up for the $8.99 package (for what they ‘advertise’ it as, is a great value) initially but that after seeing the “poor” selection, they’d want to “upgrade” their accounts to get a “better” selection. Caching, caching, caching… all the way to the bank!

The problem with this “business model”, OTHER than being dishonest, is that it opens the door big and wide for another competitor (Comcast and Apple come to mind – major problem: COST. Comcast charges anywhere from $3.99 to $6.99 per movie, and Apple’s pricing isn’t too different. Also, I wouldn’t be too surprise to see Google or Amazon give it a go and Oh boy! If either one of those two companies want it, I don’t think there’s much Netflix, Comcast or Apple could do to stop them or even slow them down – but if Comcast and/or Apple could drop the prices to $1 or so, Netflix would be out of business over night!). May be the guys running Netfake haven’t noticed or heard about something called “cloud computing“, or noticed the fact that the cost for online storage and bandwidth are dropping even faster than house prices in the Bay Area (I know bad joke, I own a house here!). So why? Why when everything is moving online, set your business up to keep it the old and slow way (after all, I could watch, God… I don’t know… over 12 movies BEFORE the next DVD arrives. Oh, wait… right…. there are NO good movies to “watch instantly”!). Well, I don’t know but also don’t care to find out. I’m sure that the other companies mentioned above are just drooling at the opportunity!

So there you have it. Why I closed my (I’ll be nice one more time) Netflix account and why I’d never go back!

And, please! Don’t call yourself “Net” anything when you still rely on snail mail for your business!

Now, I have to go download a “new release” from TPB!

I woke up this morning and decided that today was a good day to re-start writing on my blog.

After a trip down to the bookstore looking for some inspiration I sat down with my laptop and a cup of tea.

I hit my blog’s bookmark and… to my surprised… my site got hacked!

I won’t make the story long. No need to dwell over spilled milk… Needless to say that I did call my ISP (Network Solutions) and they were completely unhelpful. They kept saying that the don’t support WordPress so that they couldn’t help me with it. Ok, I can understand that, even when they provide you the tools to install it through THEIR site… what really made me mad was when they told me that they couldn’t even help me export the database because they’d need to use phpMyAdmin and guess what…. they don’t support it either. If it wasn’t such a pain to get all my sites moved to another ISP I’d be gone in a second. Ok, rant’s done!

So two things moving forward:

1. I was able to export some of the articles from the “old” blog (i.e.: pre-hack) and I’m reposting them. They’ll include a note at the top indicating that they are re-posts

2. The hacker was able to use some JS to insert a redirect to their site. I had set up comments ONLY by registered users and used a CAPTCHA system to try to keep the bots out. Clearly someone took the time to create an account and log in to carry on with their nasty intentions. So, I hate to do this but from now on to comment you’ll have to register and to register you’ll have to contact me first. I know this is not the ideal solution and that it might stop a lot of you from communicating with me, but right now I don’t have the time, know how or resources to implement a better solution. So until that happens, please register… or just send me an email!

Best,

Diego