"Ultimate Rewards" by Chase = Insulting Rewards (marketing)

I've had Chase credit cards for probably over a decade.  One of them was just converted to an "Ultimate Rewards" card and today a huge glossy brochure arrived in my mailbox.

23 pages, bucketloads (technical term) of words, and one ridiculously obscured very-plain fact:  This card offers 1% cash back.

Now mind you, that's nothing to sneeze at... the 1% cash back part, I mean.  I currently have (and mostly love) my Schwab no-annual-fee 2% cash back card, but Schwab has ceased offering it to new customers and who knows how much longer the rest of us saps will be grandfathered in.  Discover Card offers a higher percentage cash back, but only once you've spent $x per year with $x being a very large number.  And how many places around the world -- especially outside the U.S. -- take the Discover card, anyway?


No, 1% cash back on a no-annual fee card isn't awful.  You know what's bad, though?  Insulting your customer's intelligence.  Let me explain.  Here are some of the zillions of offers breathlessly touted within the brochure:

• 2,000 points = $20 check
• 2,000 points = $20 statement credit
• 5,000 points = $50 gift card (lots of variety, but, yep, same ratio)
• 10,000 points + $191 = $291 airfare ($100 + $191 = $291, get it?  And whoa, "fly without restrictions"! Amazing!)
• 10,000 points = $100 Hyatt Check Certificate

Noticing a trend?  In fact, in every single listing I checked in this big conglomeration of dead trees, I see -- wait for it -- the equivalent of 1% cash back.

So yeah, maybe I'm being overly cranky about this, maybe this is just fancy marketing, but to me it says, "Hi consumer!  We know you're a moron that would be unimpressed or even confused by '1% cash back' so we're going to dress this up... page after page after page after page of oh-so-pretty-stock-photography-like photos."

I'd rather Chase, oh, I don't know, cut out the lame marketing... stop filling our landfills with stupidly wasteful mailings... and from this, perhaps, save enough money to offer its customers 1.x or even 2% cash back on every purchase.

Amazon, inexplicably hampering its most loyal customers

[Note:  Links below are affiliate links, so if you click and buy, I make money.]

I have bought hundreds of items from Amazon  (yes, I’m an Amazon Prime member, surprise surprise :-P)

Some of them I’m particularly fond of and want to either repurchase or recommend to a friend… but I can’t do easily because Amazon won’t help me.  You see, I’ve not been able to figure out any way to search through my purchases; it seems I can only browse by year (and paginatedly browse at that… ack!). 

I bought an amazing compressible travel pillow (below) a while back that I absolutely love, and I wanted to encourage my parents to get it for their upcoming trip to New Zealand :

[oops, pillow seems to no longer be listed on Amazon, and graphic was just showing a generic Amazon ad.  Blech!]

...but couldn’t find any sane way to look up the product. 
- I tried doing an Amazon search for “travel pillow” but there are hundreds if not thousands of travel pillows in their store.
- I then tried searching through my gmail (where I get my Amazon order receipts) for “travel pillow” but that didn’t turn it up.
- Somewhat randomly, I then searched Amazon for “orange travel pillow” and that did the trick.

Amazon, why do you make this so difficult for your active customers?  Why not a simple search box in the My Orders screen?

Edited on November 8, 2009 to add:
Looks like Amazon no longer sells this pillow.  Bummer!

Knott's Berry Farm -- For shame!

Okay, this is not a rant on junk food.  I think when people eat Cheez-wiz, they aren’t misguided enough to assume they’re eating healthful real cheese.  When people eat a double fudge brownie, I doubt they’re confusing this with an apple.  And when people eat Cap’n Crunch cereal, there’s no way they’d assume they’re consuming real fruit.  Oh, um, wait a minute, someone did?  Er, well, anyway, you get my point :-D

But seriously… sometimes there’s an absolute nasty & unhealthy food paired with such obnoxiously, blatantly misleading marketing that I can’t help calling a spade a hyrogenated [sic] artificially flavored spade.

First, the marketing that, by all means, should condemn some marketer to eternal dietary hell:

“In 1920, Walter and Cordelia Knott began selling fresh produce, berries, and preserves from a roadside berry stand in Buena Park, California.  Their family business earned a place in history in 1932 when Walter Knott cultivated a lucious new fruit, the boysenberry.  The farm that started it all has also become a family amusement park that delights millions. 

The Knott family is pleased to extend their tradition of quality to include premium shortbread cookies.  Richly flavorful, these classic favorites are prepared using popular Knott’s Berry farm fruit fillings.”

Let’s dissect this, shall we?

> In 1920, Walter and Cordelia Knott began selling fresh produce, berries, and preserves from a roadside berry stand in Buena Park, California.
...and boy, would they be horrified to see how their heirs have sold them out!

> ...when Walter Knott cultivated a lucious new fruit, the boysenberry.
...which you’ll find all of likely one-tenth of a gram of in this plasticfood monstrosity.

> ... premium shortbread cookies
... where “premium” means “premium profits for us, utter crap for you.”

> ... Richly flavorful
... from lots of high fructose corn syrup

> ... these classic favorites
... if you call a frankenstein concoction of chemicals “classic.”  Maybe a classic case of deceit.

> ... using popular Knott’s Berry farm fruit fillings.
... oh, wait, we meant popular dental fillings!

*  *  *

But enough pre-commentary.  Without further ado, let’s take a look at these charming ingredients, shall we? (and out of kindness, I’ll substitute normal text for the ALL CAPS printed)

Enriched wheat flour [artificial vitamin enrichment crap omitted], margarine (liquid soybean oil, partially hyrogenated [sic] soybean oil, water, salt, whey, lecithin, mono and di-glycerides, sodium benzoate a preservative, artificial butter flavor, beta carotene and vitamin A palmitate), raspberry topping (high fructose corn syrup, red raspberries, apple powder, fruit pectin, citric acid, natural and artificial flavors, calcium chloride, FD&C red #40 and blue #1), sugar, eggs, baking soda, natural and artificial flavor, baking ammonium, and salt.

Mmmm… delicious, no?  Just like Grandma would have made it… if she had access to a chemistry lab *and* passionately hated your guts.

Oh, and lookie here, (unsurprisingly) almost no redeeming nutritive qualities at all… little fiber or protein, and a charming 3 grams of trans-fat (I didn’t even know there were many packaged goods that still had this stuff in ‘em nowadays!)

For comparison, let’s take a look at a typical recipe for berry shortbread cookies:

1 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup seedless raspberry jam
GLAZE:
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons water
1/2 teaspoon almond extract

(from AllRecipes.com)

Notice a difference?  Yes!  You recognize and can likely pronounce the ingredients, and there are fewer than a dozen of them.

*  *  *

Look, as I said, I don’t have a problem with companies making utter junkfood.  I do, however, have a problem about them so blatantly misrepresenting their product.  Even an intelligent acquaintance of mine said (without any prompting from me) that she used to eat these cookies every day for lunch, figuring that they were relatively harmless.  Oops!

P.S.—Might think twice before buying any of Knott’s Berry Farm jams or other products, eh?

Pandora Mobile highlights awesomeness but also severe lame-itude

Do you know Pandora?  If you’re in the United States, where Pandora is legally available, you may have come to enjoy this awesome uber-customizable music radio over the past years.  If you’re not in the U.S., perhaps you’ve discovered the beauty of anonymous proxies :cough:, which I’m not going to mention here :p.

But perhaps you didn’t know that Pandora has become available on mobile phones!  More good news:  It’s available for free on phones that run the Windows Mobile operating system, free on Sprint phones, and free on (some versions of) BlackBerry phones.  Ironically, it’s also free on the iPhone, and I say ironically because AT&T apparently is charging—I swear I am not making this up—$8.95 per month to its other mobile customers for the privileges of using Pandora.  I mean, I love Pandora and all, but even if I were insane enough to be contributing to the income of the evilness that is AT&T, I sure as heck wouldn’t fork over that much dough for Pandora.  For an on-demand mobile music service?  Perhaps.  But for streaming radio?  You’ve got to be kidding.

One other note on the Pandora Mobile offerings:  Apparently, I’m not supposed to be able to access Pandora Mobile because T-Mobile phones are not supported.  Which is odd, because I’m enjoying streaming music via Pandora on my BlackBerry Curve (on T-Mobile) right now.  Go figure.  I also shouldn’t mention that I was also able to do this while in Ireland a couple of weeks ago (listening to, appropriately enough, The Corrs on St. Patricks day :-D ).

*  *  *

Anyway, if you’re an iPhone user or a non-AT&T subscriber, give Pandora Mobile a go!  If you’re an AT&T subscriber, well, heaven help you, and for reasons way beyond this Pandora issue.

[Gee, Adam, tell us what you really think about AT&T :D]

*  *  *

Okay, okay, I’m thinking I should flesh this entry out a little bit :-)

Some stuff I like in the mobile app:
- Seems to work internationally (though I can imagine this being “fixed” [sigh])
- Works as a true background app on my BlackBerry!
- Can play through my BB’s speaker (actually sounds decent!) or a headset
- Song-to-song time isn’t bad
- Nice graphics, simple, intuitive interface.
- Access to all my stations :-)
- Can even view “Why [did Pandora play] this song?”
- Thumbs up / thumbs down works.

Some stuff I don’t like:
- Takes a while to start up the app
- No way to see detailed info on artist or song

*  *  *

All in all, pretty damn cool! :-D

Keypoint Credit Union and 24 Hour Fitness Customer Service FAILs

I was carelessly logging into my Keypoint Credit Union account online today, and messed up three times.  BAM—with no prior notice at all, I was locked out of my account.

What would most normal banks do under this circumstance?

• Require me to answer additional questions that ideally only I would know before allowing me to try logging in again.
  
• Or throw up a captcha.
  
• Or, at worst, make me wait [x] minutes before allowing me to log in.

Keypoint?  They make you call.  Here’s what I had to do when I phoned in:
- Listen to a welcome announcement
- Navigate through a phone tree
- Enter in lots of data (social security info, phone numbers, home address, etc.)
- Wait for an agent (thankfully not long).
- Wait for the agent—I kidd you not—to put me on hold while he updated my records to show there was no change in my info.

All in all, a bit over four minutes.  Hardly the end of the world, but a not-insignificant annoyance… particularly if I had been overseas, not near a phone, etc.

So, the $100,000 FDIC Insured Question:  Why couldn’t I have simply been asked to Prove I’m Me... online?  Sheesh.

*  *  *

And now for something even sillier.

I’ve been a member of 24 Hour Fitness for more nearly a decade.  I love my gym at work, but I enjoy being able to take fitness classes on the weekend and such.  So when I learned that 24 Hour Fitness was building a swankier gym literally around the corner from the existing somewhat-cramped gym, I was pretty excited.  Building, building… done!

This past Sunday I admirably dragged myself out of bed, gym bag in tow… and here’s the entertaining (and somewhat baffling) conversation I had with the front desk staffer and the (apparent) manager who walked on over.

ME:  Good morning [handed him my 24 Hour Fitness card]
STAFFER:  Hi.  [Scans card.  Pauses, with confused look…]  Hmm, are you a member?
ME:  Um, yes.  [pointed to card still in his hand, which also had my photo on the back of it].
STAFFER:  But… but… hmm… your membership isn’t good here.
ME:  Yeah, I have a Sport membership, not a Super Sport [rolling eyes invisibly], but I brought this 7 day trial pass. [I hand him the pass].  I’ve thought of upgrading.
STAFFER:  Er… erg… hmm. [looks at paper, turns it over to the blank side, then back over to the unblank side and literally scratches head]
MANAGER:  Hi, can I help you?  [Staffer mumbles confusedly, hands him paper; Manager looks at computer screen]
STAFFER:  Oh, you’re in luck! [Yes, he seriously opened with this line with a straight face] You have a Sport membership, and this is a Super Sport gym, so you’re not eligible to work out here.  But I can have someone walk you around the corner—we have a Sport gym there for you!
ME:  But I logged into my 24 Hour Fitness account online and printed out a trial pass for this gym.  Just wanted to try it out, maybe upgrade and…
STAFFER:  [shaking head] No, no… sorry, that was last week.  Um, we had the open house last week.  It ended.  But here, let me have someone show you the other gym…
ME:  Er, but what about the pass?
STAFFER:  You’re a member, right?
ME:  Yes [pointing to my membership card which was in the hand of a still-rather-confused staffer]
STAFFER:  That’s the thing.  That pass [pointing to tiny print] is only good for non-members.
ME:  So, for the past 4 months, you’ve had flyers up urging members to upgrade, but now we can’t check out the new…er, nevermind, I’ll just head over to the other gym.  Thanks!

*  *  *

I’m thinking about quitting my membership.  The classes aren’t even that great, and I’m embarrassed to be giving my money to a company that’s so consistently clueless.

Dear PayPal - Please shrivel up and die

I like paying for things with a credit card.  It’s typically pretty fast (especially with those merchants that don’t require a signature for
<$25 purchases). It's secure. And I earn travel rewards for every dollar I spend.

So when it comes to the occasional purchase online that I can only buy via PayPal I cringe. Why? Because PayPal really really really doesn't want me to pay with a credit card, and they'll harrass me about this during every checkout, creating a user-hostile experience each and every time I use their dog-forsaken service.

A friend recently lamented that it took eight clicks for them to buy something on PayPal.  That sounds about right.  You see, PayPal defaults users to paying from their bank account… so we have to search for a tiny “more funding options” link and then select the credit card, then be subjected to a long whiny please “Are you absolutely positively sure that you don’t want to pay from your bank account?  It’s really a better option yadda yadda yadda…” followed by a charmingly shifting yes/no set of buttons.

Look, PayPal, I want to pay by credit card.  I’ve told you this more than a dozen times.  I’ve also read/skimmed/ignored your stupid please-don’t-pay-by-credit-card notice more than a dozen times.  And, by the way, I’m well aware that you already pass on extra associated charges to your merchants when buyers pay by credit card.

So SOD OFF!  Either let me set “pay by credit card” in my preferences somewhere, or leave me the frack alone.

In the meantime, I’m hoping you go out of business, to be replaced by a company that doesn’t repeatedly spit on its users.

ADDENDUM / DISCLAIMERS:
- I work for Google, which offers a somewhat-competing service called Google Checkout. I use and like that service, but am not part of the Checkout team.
- My anger towards PayPal may seem heavy given the seemingly light-transgression described above.  But it’s just the last straw.  PayPal has a history of thumbing its corporate nose at its users, and I’ve had the displeasure of using PayPal for many years as a buyer and seller on ebay.

Paradox of choice

I’m not a crazy athlete, but I like working out at the gym and also dancing a few times a week.

Finding good dance shoes wasn’t so hard for me.  I got personal recommendations from some of my lindy hopping friends, and was also delighted that the friendly folks at dancestore.com were happy to offer personalized suggestions over the phone.  For the record (and now from personal experience), I recommend that all lindy hoppers get this dance sneaker; it makes turning and spinning a breeze.

But I’m having a much harder time finding good cross-training and running shoes.  I’ve had good luck with New Balance shoes in the past, but it’s hard to find a good selection of ‘em locally in my size, so I decided to go online.  Sure enough, via Amazon.com or Zappos and undoubtedly countless other sites, I have a choice of zillions of shoes.  And that would be okay if there was some help filtering… but there’s not! :o

Yes, you can do a search and narrow down by technology, but you end up having to do sets of half a dozen clicks repeatedly to decipher the meaning of brandspeak features (NBZip, Abzorb, etc.), and then lots of clicking back and so on.

I want one of the following:
- A nice wizard that asks me what I want to do with the shoes (running, walking, activities that require lateral stability like kickboxing, etc.), lets me specify a price range, style type, etc., and then recommends a set of shoes for me.
- A comprehensive table (in HTML, Flash, PDF, I don’t care) that shows a list of shoes, approximate street prices, features, target activity, etc.

Because right now, let me tell you, I’m tempted to say $#!* it and just stick with my current trusty shoes and go do something more fun like, oh, floss my teeth or relabel my matchbook collection or lock myself in a closet with Vanna White night after night after night.  In other words, New Balance, NO SALE FOR YOU.

Major brands, listen up.  In this world of an increasingly crazy amount of choices, you need to do the following if you want to remain competitive:
- Make your content FINDABLE by people and search engines.
- Make it ACCESSIBLE so, for instance, I can look up stats on your shoes on my phone when I’m at the local sports store with too-busy or ignorant salesfolks.
- Make the info DIGESTIBLE so I can learn what I need to know and make informed decisions
- Make the damn thing EASY TO BUY, but I’m guessing you’ve heard that enough times already from other frustrated bloggers.
- Offer outstanding SUPPORT post-sale.
- Give me ONGOING INFO but only when and how I want it (customized e-mail newsletters that I can easily unsubscribe from, RSS feeds, etc.)

*  *  *

In the meantime, if anyone knows of a good athletic shoe guide or chart and such, let me know :-D.

Oh, and watch this video on The Paradox of Choice.  I had the pleasure of hearing this fellow at a Google TechTalk; Professor Schwartz is an engaging speaker and absolutely spot-on in his commentary.



(it’s even close captioned!)

Second Life doesn't want me as a member

A while back, I tried Second Life and wrote about it.

Many months went by, and—after getting a new graphics card—I figured, hey, why not try Second Life again?

I actually remembered my old SL name though wasn’t sure of the password.  Guessed a couple of times, wasn’t able to log in, so I clicked on the Forgot Password link.  Ah ha… I knew the answer to that secret question, got a link to reset my password, and figured I was all good to go.

Except that I still couldn’t log in.  I waited a few hours and tried again, but still no-go.

This, indeed, was just the beginning of my ridiculous adventure.

As any responsible consumer would do, I scoured the SL wiki and help docs.  Nothing pertaining to my situation.

Ah ha!  A forum!  I’ll go on there and look for info, perhaps even post a plea.  But, of course, I wasn’t allowed to even read the forum without logging in… and since I couldn’t log in (duh!), well, no forum for me.

So at this point, it was clear that I had done all I could on my end and it was time for me to e-mail support.  No e-mail address (understandable), but I saw there was a way to file a ticket for help.  Just sign in and… aaaaaaaaaagh!

Persistent bugger that I am, I actually registered a SECOND Second Life account (does that make it a Third Life?  Nevermind), just so I could file a ticket, asking for my first account to be unlocked or whatever.  It was a pain-in-the-ass process (no, I do NOT want to decorate another avatar!), but I finally managed to log in and fill out a help ticket.

Three days later (in fairness, it was over the long weekend), I got a response:

Greetings,

Thank you for contacting Second Life customer relations. In order to assist you with your request, I will need some more information about the [account-name] account.?

[secret question removed] (the security question you selected)

When you have verified this information, I will be able to reset your password so you can log in.

Regards,
Rowan Linden

*  *  *

YAY!  This was clearly the home stretch!  All I had to do was reply back with my answer and… oh, wait a minute: “THIS IS AN AUTOMATED RESPONSE, PLEASE DO NOT DIRECTLY REPLY TO THIS EMAIL.”  In all caps, no less. 

I clicked on the link to update the ticket, which—surprise surprise—brought me to a login screen.  Which, for whatever reason, I was not able to login with my Third Life credentials, so I had no way of replying to the customer service person.

But lo and behold, what’s this?  A 1-800 number on the login page!  Dog had mercy on my soul… and I dialed the digits eagerly.  Yep, “Welcome to Second Life…”

“...Please note that we have discontinued phone support.  Please go to http://www.secondlife.com…”

I give up.  I really don’t need any more distractions in my First Life anyway.

How much would YOU pay not to be obligated to tip?

I’ve had it with tipping.  The more traveling I do—for business or pleasure—the more I despise the uncertainty, the uncomfortableness, the need to have petty cash on hand.  When will someone—an influential someone—say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH?!

Tip too little, and you risk imperiling the quality of service you receive in the future from that person… plus you may look like an idiot or a miser in front of friends and business acquaintances.

Tip too much, and you look like a chump… and your wallet is made thinner (sometimes much thinner).  And you feel like a moron for being taken advantage of.  Heck, in some countries, you risk really offending someone!

This is one of the many reasons why I love Europe: you typically round up to the nearest euro when you eat out, and that’s that.  Adding to the coolness… for takeout food and pretty much else, what you see on the billboard or pricetag is what you pay.  15EUR?  You pay 15EUR; taxes, fees, etc., all included.

Now, back to the insanity that we endure in the States… Here’s just a sampling of recommended tips from a recent AAA (Automobile Association of America) article:

$2-$3 to your shuttle driver, $2 per suitcase to the skycap, 15-20% for the taxi driver, $2-$3 for a shoeshine, up to $5/night to your hotel maid, $5/day to a pool attendant (?!), up to $3 per round to the bartender and $20 (!) to your sommelier.

Sick yet?  I am.  After all, where’s the $5 we should be giving to our professor after a fine lecture, the $3 to the garbage man when he picks up our smelly refuse, $5 to the guy who trims our garden, $4 to the busboy in your work cafeteria, and $10 for your colleague after he helps you draft a memo.

But that’s ridiculous, you note.  Isn’t the colleague already getting a salary?  Why should you be responsible for bribing him to do a job that he’s already supposed to be doing?

And you may further argue, hey, but the waiter is getting a crap salary… if it weren’t for our tips, he’d practically starve.  But, I’d retort, why the hell is it OUR (awkward) responsibility to make up for employers’ cheapness?  And who the hell picks 1) who gets tips and 2) how much a “proper” tip is by profession and location?

Don’t get me wrong:  I think that everyone deserves a living, decent wage.  And I’d be quite pleased to have 15% or whatever automatically tacked on to my restaurant bill… so that the cost of my meal actually covered an appropriate salary for all involved with the occasion.  What about crappy service?  I’d do what I do when I encounter crappy service or products anywhere else:
- Firmly yet politely complain to the right people.
- If the matter remained unresolved, simply refuse to patronize the establishment again and warn my friends.

...and, of course, the opposite for good service (yes, I *do* write “thank you for the outstanding service” letters, sometimes by hand… and I wish more people did this).

Frankly, I doubt most folks are primarily motivated by money in their jobs anyway.  Does giving the waitress an extra $1 cancel out the urgent and occasionally rude demands we sometimes inflict upon her?  Not to her, I’d bet.  In fact, I’m pretty sure she’d rather we stuffed the dollar back in our wallet and treated her with respect and patience.

By extension, one could even see tips as demeaning… suggesting that “those kind” of people are only apt to do a good job if they’re thrown fish (dollars) like trained seals.  You don’t see people giving tips to lawyers and doctors, and no, it’s not purely a pay thing.  Frankly, I’m betting my bartender friends make quite a bit more per hour than most of my lawyer friends… honestly.

Of course, with all this said, I’m not only angry, but also rather resigned and un-optimistic about the crappy tip-required culture of ours ever being reformed.  I mean, what would it take?  If Our Goddess Angelina stopped tipping tomorrow, she’d just be vilified in the Enquirer and nothing would change.  If Bush didn’t tip next week, people would just (probably correctly) assume that he was unable to compute the tip even using a calculator.  No, I think it’d take an act of God, or maybe a good-looking denizen from outer space.  Until then, I guess I better just remember to keep a lot of ones in my wallet and just grit my teeth when I say “thank you.”

International calling / SMS rates -- Why so high?

Okay, BLADAM friends, apologies for two rants in a row (in a sadly otherwise dry AdamBloggingSeason), but… why does T-mobile—an international company—charge so much for international calling, roaming, and texting?

And Cingular—the only other American mobile phone company I know of that supports international roaming—has rates that are even worse, from what I gather.

Anyway, on T-Mobile, the rates for me to call from the U.S. overseas are more than triple what I’d pay via a discount calling card or even AT&T Callvantage.  Calling from overseas to *anywhere* ranges from about $1 to $4 a minute for incoming OR outgoing calls.

But what *really* gets my hide is T-Mobile’s charge for text messages sent to and from my friends in Europe.  15 cents each for me to send a handful of text characters, and 35 cents each to receive the same.  What the heck?!  I know, I know, this voluminous amount of data has to potentially pass through companies that aren’t T-Mobile, but still!  And no, T-Mobile’s varied texting-bundle plans do *not* include international SMSes.

I’ve played with various SMS options online, but haven’t found any to be reliable for either sending or receiving text messages internationally.  Oh lazyweb, anyone know of good options? (other than calling up T-Mobile and telling them they’re provincial jerks for their usurious rates, which, I admit, doesn’t exactly qualify as a good option)

Pre-Europe-travel grab bag

WARNING:  Mishmash ahead.
Haven’t yet packed, which means this is the perfect time to procrastinate with a blog entry.  Or something like that.

I’m leaving tomorrow morning for a two-week work-related trip.  See details of that trip, plus enjoy some of my phone, camera, T-Mobile, and other musings below.

My upcoming travels for May 29 through June 11

• LONDON:  I’ll be attending the Search Engine Strategies conference in London, where Webmasters, marketers, advertisers, and others that care about making moolah on the Web will be hanging out.  You gonna be there, too?  Look for me and say hi!  :-D.  Oh, and just for the heck of it, feel free to check out my London 2001 photos and my London 2002 photos that I took during earlier (non-work-related) visits.
• BERLIN:  I’ve gotten gleefully roped into a Google pan-European sales conference.  Time for me to learn about new salesy stuff in the company, and I’m looking forward to sharing info about Search Quality and spam fighting with sales-type folks.  Alas, every minute is pretty much accounted for, though, so I won’t have much free time to explore.  I’ve visited Berlin in the past (fascinating city!), but will look forward to spending more time wandering around nooks and crannies during a future trip.
• DUBLIN:  Definitely looking forward to re-visiting Ireland!  I had a great time during an earlier visit… friendly folks, charming pubs… and now that the pubs are (at least in theory) smoke-free, I’m even happier!  I’ll be visiting Google’s European headquarters here, meeting up with some colleagues over laptops and possibly a pint or three.

Other random stuff

My losing streak continues, sadly.  In the last few months, I’ve had TWO cameras and TWO expensive phones stolen.  It’s almost enough to make me either become a luddite or hire a personal assistant to thwack me on the head when I’m being particularly absent-minded. 

Luckily, insurance will (at least in theory) be covering most of the cost of everything but one of the phones… and in an almost unbelievably example of “the kindness of strangers”... a colleague in the Atlanta Google office learned of my pathetic plight and IM’d me, “Hey, I don’t really use my Treo much, would you like it?”  I said, sure, I’d consider it… what did she think would be a fair price?  But no, she said, she was happy to just give it to me.  And Fed-ex it to me next-day, just in time for my trip.  Wow!

But alas, it didn’t quite make it here in time, and (understandably) none of my local friends just happened to have a spare tri-band phone to loan me.  So in desperation, I went to a T-Mobile store and, after learning they only had dual-band loaners, decided to just bite the bullet and buy a phone.  The salesman recommended a quad-band Motorola V188; it seemed pleasantly basic and small enough, and I figured $100—even with a required 1-year contract renewal—seemed fair.

Upon arriving back home, though, I noticed that Amazon is selling the same Motorola V188 with the same 1-year contract for… negative $145!  That’s right, after the $35 new account fee, you get $110 cash back.  So I basically got gypped out of $210!  I’m pretty pissed.  So I decided to call T-Mobile and I got—as usual—a delightfully friendly and helpful rep (this is part of the reason why I generally do love T-Mobile and didn’t mind renewing my contract).  Alas, she said that the Amazon promo is, as it states, only for new customers.  I expressed to her that I felt this was sort of a slap in the face for existing customers (especially those loyal ones way past their required contract term).  After much time on hold, she offered to give me 30 free text messages (a value of $3).  I thought this was pretty laughable, but at this stage in the game (leaving tomorrow), I just didn’t have the time to argue.  The uber-moral of the story:  if you’re looking to get a new phone, especially one more pricey than the entry-level one I bought today, you’re likely better off going through Amazon.com and just porting over your number.

Oh, and a few opening thoughts about this Motorola, compared to my Treo 650…
- It doesn’t cradle as nicely between my neck and shoulder.
- The speakerphone is decent.
- I don’t like the non-recessed volume buttons… worried about them getting pressed when in my pocket.
- There’s no “are you sure?” when writing a long SMS and accidentally hitting the cancel button.  Blegh.
- It feels okay in my pocket.  Really light.  But I’d probably be more comfortable having a long and thin phone in my pocket.
- It’s so weird to not have a qwerty keyboard for texting or Web surfing.  I already miss my Treo and can’t wait to get my replacement!

*  *  *

I also got a new camera today, the Canon SD700.  It is, admittedly, rather a splurge, but I don’t feel too guilty; I tend to spend money on the arts (music, theatre) and photography, and I guess everyone’s entitled to some guilty pleasures. :-D

Online, on the low-end (but still from trustable companies) it tends to go for about $470 (with no sales taxes due up-front). At retail stores near me, it's going for, well, retail: $499 (plus tax). Ouch. I found out that Frys (Tech Gadget Mecca for Geeks) in San Jose had it for $449, and while I'd normally never drive down to San Jose (about 90 miles round trip from my apartment) just to save $50... in this case, I already had plans to go to a BBQ at my friend Merry's house in Mountain View, so it all worked out. They also had a reasonably decent 2gb SD card for $49, which I also snagged.

Of course, the real cost of photography is in time. I still haven't gotten around to processing the 1,800 or so photos from my recent trip to Australia and Singapore; at about a conservative one minute per cropping/fixing/tagging/titling/describing, that's 30 hours out of my life just to post a bunch of photos. Even if I pick the top one-third to post, that's still 10 hours of photofussing just for this one trip. Ack! Seriously, because of this (I know, it's a little silly), I seriously considered whether I wanted the hassle of schlepping, protecting, using, and dealing with a camera + its byproducts. Nostalgia won out, though.

* * *

Anyway, I probably better get packing. I'll try to blog some stuff while I'm away, but it may be a few weeks 'til I'm bloggily back.

Four key ways to improve how your company emails customers

As I’ve written in other entries, I’ve become buried in e-mail, and so my “unsubscribe trigger-finger” has become a bit more itchy.

Often times, I do the (unsubscribe) deed with little remorse.  Hasta la vista, baby!

Other times, though, it’s more of a frustrating decision.  Take Vistaprint, for instance.  They offer well-made products such as business cards and address labels at generally reasonable prices.  My customer service experiences have been pretty decent with them, too.  I’d like to get email updates from companies like this, within reason.

But when it comes to VistaPrint’s email list, they’re like that attractive but thoughtless jerk on the subway who talks your ear off about nothing important every five minutes. 

Okay, let me give some more specifics…

A snippet from a recent VistaPrint email I got:

SUBJECT:  We need your feedback!
Dear Adam,

As a valued VistaPrint customer, we are interested in your opinions. To better serve our customers we would like to ask a few questions. Simply click here to complete our survey and we will both benefit.

As our way of thanking you for your time, we would like to offer you Premium Business Cards for only 6?. That’s 99% off the regular price of $19.99!

Here are some more details about VistaPrint’s current practices:

- They email me seeemingly EVERY month with the subject line “We need your feedback.”  Yeah, right.
I’m sure it won’t shock even the most dim-witted person to discover that VistaPrint likely doesn’t really need such solicited “feedback” every month; they are just looking for any excuse to garner additional traffic and purchases.

- They email me about every week with new “specials.”  “6 cents business cards!”  “Totally Free postcards!”
Except that, for one, the shipping and handling tends to be usurious.  I don’t know about you, but that overrused perversion of the concept “free” is annoying and offensive to me.  And I’m also peeved when “totally free!” stuff turns out to include a count of, say, 10 postcards.  Whoopeee!

- Even when I really *do* want to buy something from VistaPrint, I’m tempted to wait another month or two months until I get an email noting a price reduction.
Because their specials, while not ongoing, are hardly infrequent.  And ironically, since I may really want those new business cards *now*, I may be more apt to just go get them done across the street at Office Depot instead of feeling gypped by “overpaying” during a non-specials period with VistaPrint.  I know, that’s an emotional, not a logical reaction, but I’m sure I’m not alone.

- At the end of the day, it’s like the boy who cried wolf.
“Amazing special!” “Fabulous deal… just for the next 5 days.”  Yeah, yeah, yeah… just shut up, will ya?  You’re worse than my gym (24 Hour Fitness): “Last 5 days!” [until we run this same “special” next month].  It’s a massive credibility shredder.  Why can’t more companies be like the fabulous Trader Joe’s?  No coupons, no “specials,” just decent prices and outstanding service.  They rock!  But I digress :-D

Back on the topic of email lists… the most frustrating thing for me is that there are no options in between “obnoxious and frequent mailings” and “total silent treatment from VistaPrint.”

*  *  *

So with that said, here are some recommendations of GOOD customer-communications practices:

- Ask me how frequently I’d like to get email from you.  I find it thoughtful when my options are, for instance:

Send me emails…
A) As often as daily.  I LOVE you guys!
B) Every couple of weeks to update me on your latest products and specials.
C) Only when you have *major* announcements (about 2-3x a year)

Three choices.  A world of difference.  Not only does this make me feel at the outset that they respect my time and preferences, but it also potentially lets the company “hold on” to people who might otherwise totally unsubscribe.  For instance, if I clicked on an unsubscribe link:

Wait!  We show that you’re on our “frequent mail-to” list.  Would it be cool with you if we just emailed you every few months?
A) Okay, that’s fine.  Write me LESS OFTEN: about 2-3x a year.
B) NO!  I don’t want to ever hear from you again.  We’re done!  Finished!  And give me my t-shirt back!

Okay, so maybe that’s a bit over-the-top for an email list for, say, the Everglade Casket Company.  But it’d be a super fit for a gaming newsletter, or perhaps Southwest Airlines, etc., and for others only the tone’d need to be changed.  I do think *all* companies that run email lists should give us frequency choices.  Not everyone has the same needs, interests, or attachments for a given company!

- Give me non-email choices to keep abreast of your latest info.
Like RSS feeds.  How about one on “Super specials!” (and dammit, make sure they really *are* super specials!).  And another one on “Announcement of new major products or product lines.”  You get the idea.

- Consider on-demand per-product emails or feeds.
“Notify me when this price drops to [x]” (several airline-price sites already offer this useful service!)
“Let me know when this product is in-stock again.”
“Tell me when there are significant price breaks on accessories for items I’ve already purchased.” (e.g., SD cards or waterproof case for my camera…)

- Consider even offering an IM option
If it’s to be used *very* sparingly, you could tell me stuff like “The campfire stove you put in your cart for $79 last week is now $29!  Click here for more info.”

*  *  *

The bottom line:
- Improve your email practices.  Ask yourself:  Do people really find these emails useful?
- Offer a choice of contact frequency
- Enable your customer to request future communications on a more micro-scale.
- Provide other communication options (RSS, IM)

*  *  *

Do you agree with these observations and guidelines?
How would you improve the email communications you receive (in tone, content, and frequency)?

Just how stupid do they think we are?

Every day when I drive home from work, I see a painfully intelligence-insulting billboard ad put up by some bank (it’s rather interesting that I can’t even remember which bank, isn’t it?).  It reads something like this: “3 cents back on every debit card purchase?  Just give ‘em a toaster and be done with it!”

So let’s think about this for a moment, shall we, with a few assumptions:

- A typical person makes *at least* 10 payments totalling $100 a week, not including rent or mortgage payments.
- This person could probably get *some* cash-back or rewards non-debit (credit) card.
- Such a card would easily pay 1% in cash or rewards (for instance, on my cards, I get a free round trip airfare for a spend of $25,000, a reward of at least 1.2%).

Given this scenario, practically anyone could make the same purchases on one of the rewards cards and in a year, make (from a *very* conservative estimate) $52 as opposed to $15.60 with the crappy debit card.  Not to mention enjoy far more consumer protections.  And the hypothetical $25 toaster that the ad makes fun of?  It would take 834 purchases on the debit card to earn the equivalent of that toaster. 

*  *  *

But the latest promotion I just got in my inbox even tops the lameness of the debit card “deal.”  Here’s the copy:

My [American Express Card] WishList returns June 6, 2006! Not only are we offering some of the hottest products for spring at Cardmember-only prices, but we’ll also be granting three Cardmember wishes on the last day. So tell us what you wish for by May 14, and one of your wishes may come true.

Hmm, I thought.  Aside from the it’s-so-‘99-ness of the “My” prefix, that sounds pretty neat.  Clearly it’s one of those sweepstakes where I say, hey, I want a [whatsit up to such-and-such value] and if I win, I get it.  Right?

Uh, maybe not.  Digging down into the fine print on the Web site, I see this:

Is My Wish a sweepstakes?
No, this promotion is not a sweepstakes, as Cardmembers will be given an opportunity to purchase the submitted Wish should their Wish be selected. Wishes will be selected at the sole discretion of American Express. The Wish selected will be offered to the Wish’s submitter to purchase before making limited quantities available to the general Cardmember audience, who will also be eligible to purchase the item(s); the same Terms and Conditions of My WishList will apply.

Oh boy!  Let me see if I understand this right.  I get my inbox crammed with another AMEX ad that has nothing to do with my account.  I then have the wonderous opportunity of coming up with my dream present, vacation, etc., and filling out some form on AMEX’s Web site (undoubtedly opening me up to more junk mail).  And then, if I’m lucky—oh so lucky!—AMEX will choose MY fantasy to come true and offer me a chance to buy it or pay for it myself (I guess where that’s where the “MY” comes in:  “at MY Expense”).  Of course, they won’t offer it to all their cardmembers… right away, at least, so I’ll feel particularly special.

*  *  *

Who comes up with crap like this?  And does anyone actually get excited by it?

Sadly, I’m going to guess that the answer to the second question is “yes,” or why would we continue to see such ridiculously dumb marketing?

Ah, don’t mind me.  I just had a (thankfully rare) day spent at the local mall and I’m feeling rather anti-commerce at the moment in general.

Optimism from marketing execs: "People are living lives of desperation."

From CMO magazine comes this gem, talking about the opportunities and benefits of using “real people” (I presume this means non-professional actors?) in advertising.

The Dove campaign for its firming cream, for example, has proved popular with consumers, but industry experts disagree on whether the ad is effective. “Using the average person won’t sell anything,” says Gerald Celente, director and founder of Trends Research Institute, a consultancy. “The purpose of advertising is to create desire beyond what the product can actually deliver. Do you want to see the floppy Big Mac that the fast food worker actually packages up and hands to you, or the perfect airbrushed billboard version? People are living lives of desperation; they don’t want to be themselves.”

This comment is so sad, I’m not quite sure where to start.  Indeed, there’s undeniably an element of fantasy involved in advertising; this explains Bud’s attention to buxom bikini babes breasts’ rather than beer drinking guys’ bodaciously bursting big bellies.  With that said, however, I resent and reject the implication that:

- All of us consumers are desperate, lonely, pathetic souls… deriving happiness and self-worth only from airbrushed airheads shilling soap.  Speak for yourself, Celente!
- Such condescending and pittying attitudes from overpaid marketing morons will endear consumers to any brand.

I can only hope that consulting firms such as Calente’s AND the advertisers that believe in such self-defeating tripe will themselves end up living lives of career desperation.

Best Buy has Worst Survey (and more)

I swear, don't companies bother actually putting ANY of their stuff through QA? Or even CSF (Common Sense Filters)?

I recently bought something at Best Buy locally (darnit, I needed the item immediately, or I would have amazon.com'd it), and while that immediate experience was generally decent, the followup has been so bad it's laughable.

The checkout process was actually delightful, in whole part due to the cashier being swooningly charming and funny. I'm used to a surly and/or robotic attitude, whereas had this woman been a waitress, I'd have given her a 30% tip. And as I've done in the past with other servicemen and women, I had planned on writing a quick note to Corporate praising an employee... but weirdly this person didn't have a nametag. That's strike number one: service folks in nearly any industry (credit card, restaurant, hotel, etc.), IMHO, should always introduce themselves by their first and/or full name or wear a name tag to foster accountability. (consumers should also, ideally, take 5 minutes a week to write or call in notes of praise for sterling bus drivers, waiters, nurses, etc... since these folks typically only get COMPLAINTS in this context, but I digress).

* * *

On my receipt, there was a huge portion dedicated to bribing me to take an online survey. Here's what I noticed:

1. It included a Web site but not a phone number. That's likely a barrier for many folks (not everyone likes filling out surveys on the Web... heck, not EVERYONE, believe it or not, even has Web access... even folks shopping at Best Buy).
   
2. Best Buy follows in the footsteps of other lamebrained companies by procuring a separate domain (not just a subdomain) for a help/survey site. I admit that this might be a smidgen more customer-friendly, but it is, IMHO, a really bad practice overall (what next... bestbuyreturns.com? bestbuysaleitems.com?) Among other things, the proliferation of extra domains per company makes it more difficult to tell which domains are legit (and makes it easier for phishers to ply their viruses and spyware and such).
   
3. It includes three "groups" of numbers that I have to add in, Group A, Group B, and Group C. Maybe I'm really missing something, but how hard would it have been for them to have algorithmically created a simple hash of sorts like "plays43deck" or "spicy19book" etc. That's a LOT more user friendly than asking a survey taker to input three separate sets of 4-7 digit numbers!

* * *
When I made it to the survey site, I had a choice of selecting one of four cute colored blocks:
- Purchased an item
- Purchased an item AND visited the customer service desk
- Visited customer service desk
- None of the above, just shopped

Aside from the minor possibility that it's too easy for someone to quickly see "visited customer service desk" and click that without viewing the other options, I have no major gripes about this opener.

* * *

But on one of the (too) many pages of this survey, I'm asked:
"If you visited the Customer Service & Returns counter, please rate your satisfaction with this experience:" [satisfied, very satisfied, etc.]

Well, as I noted in the very first screen, I only "purchased an item" so I left this section blank (there was no option for "n/a")

Of course -- you guessed it -- the system complained that I hadn't answered the customer service & returns counter questions and insisted I did so before continuing. So I'm putting "extremely dissatisfied" for all of those questions, just out of spite.

* * *

In fairness, Best Buy did a few things right:
1) They're conducting a customer service survey.
2) They're offering a (ridiculously small but still something) prize to a random lucky sap who takes the survey.
3) They have a free-form box at the end for letting us write comments. A perfect place for me to leave them the URL to this blog entry :D

* * *

So why am I so annoyed by what's seemingly such an minor issue? Because, as someone who has worked in customer service before, I'm sick of customer service being often treated like a money sinkhole, something to be "dealt with," a grudging necessity. Customer service is the lifeblood of a company, and deserves to be addressed front and center... on at least equal footing with Product, Development, R&D, Engineering, etc. And, along those lines, customer service surveys should not be an oft-untested afterthought, dangit. Too often, it's clear that few if any folks have reviewed the questions being asked... the surveys are too long, too unfocused, and feature too many ambiguous questions or questions for which the answers will not and cannot drive smart policy decisions.

In other words, I'm sick of customer service being second fiddle. It's time for companies, large and small, to realize that they need to structurally and financially plan for top notch customer service needs from the get-go, not the day after a crisis or the day before a major roll-out.

Whew. Thanks. Now I feel better :-)